I am of the not unexpected opinion that the home you renovate/redecorate is the perfect home. Why, I hear you say? Well, because the feeling one gets when one has lavished time, money and energy on a successful house project is such an awesome feeling that it’s almost better than sex. Well, longer lasting, anyway. Annnnnd… I grew up in a house that was ALWAYS being renovated. I grew to love the smell of freshly sawn timber and paint. I blame my mother. Who is a renovating junkie.

So the house that DH (darling husband) and I bought is the perfect home – a renovator’s delight. Luckily, it has good bones and a lovely feel. We bought it on 31 July 2011, the VERY LAST DAY before stamp duty jumped up by $5000, which was like a little birthday present at the same time as the very best gift I could possibly imagine: our own home.

Well, I’ve blogged before about the craziness that accompanied the purchase of our very first house together. My main memory of the ghastly hunt that followed the exciting ambit offer made on the house was the lack of sleep that accompanied our bank application. For a month. And the lack of concentration that accompanied it. Anyhoo!
Here is a photo of the house once finance had been approved:

Happy face! As you can see by the image, the house is in a totally unrenovated state, not substantially changed since about the 1950s. Some internal rooms have been changed since its construction in the 1920s and there is a dinky little entry landing that has been added to the side, but otherwise the house, which has a recently replaced roof, is pretty much original. Which I was stoked about.

We did the usual house inspection and found a series of small but not insurmountable problems. The first was that many of the house stumps needed replacing due to termite destruction:

Also, there was a whole section of house that needed more stumps as the span was too wide to support the beams. It had been like that for years. So we replaced lots of the stumps with the usual metal stumps, and even raised one poorly placed stump to reset the floor level in the main bedroom. The blokes below did the stumping. Hilarious fellas, regaling us with tales about shonky dealers and poor workmanship. We replaced 6 stumps and added 3, and the house now feels much more secure (purely psychosomatic, I know!)

I project managed the whole thing, and as we only had 2 1/2 weeks to do the whole house before we moved in, there was a sense of urgency about what needed doing.

Next blog: FLOORS and PAINT.