I returned home from my trip east to find that the floors had been laid, the blinds had been installed, the plumbing all connected up, and the electrics almost finished. And the splash backs were in.
The splash backs are awesome. This product is called Laminex Metalline, and is a resin coated sheet of aluminium, so can be used behind cooktops. Costs half the price of glass, and looks a million bucks!
Being away for two weeks meant a few things happened that might have been avoided if I'd been there. Like the plumbers smashing tiles to get the toilet in, creating a huge hole in the gyprock sheeting that we needed to patch and retile. My tiler had no trouble sliding a new tile in behind the toilet bowl, so we still don't know why the plumber had a problem.
The flooring looked great, aside from the appallingly bad job done in cladding the trapdoor. The level was wrong, the cuts weren't square, and they hadn't left a loose board for the trapdoor to be opened. I wasn't happy, particularly when I discovered that the flooring contractor had a cut hand so he had brought his wife along to do the job for him! And then finally, the door trims were so high none of the doors could close without having their bottoms shimmed. I was one very unhappy camper!
Thankfully, they rectified the problems. The trims were replaced, and someone else came out to recut and replace the flooring for the trapdoor. The final result looks considerably better.
Meanwhile the rest of the electrical appliances were fitted, and I began adding final touches like rails for utensils, knife racks, towel rails and hooks, and a hanging rail for my clothes. With limited space the bathroom doubles as a walk in wardrobe, something I'm happy to do as the extraction fan is a heavy duty one which gets rid of the steam very quickly.
The final big job was making and assembling the Murphy wall bed. These beds are common in North America and Europe, but not that well known here. My options were to purchase a beautifully engineered Italian bed costing something north of $8K or buying a DIY kit from the US for around $500 and making it myself from construction ply. Admittedly, outsourcing it to the chippy!
Scott had handed this job over to another chippy, a Tassie chap called Mick, as he had too much work on himself. Mick got into a panic at first that the job was too hard, but once he read through the instructions, took the plywood back to the cabinet makers to get it cut to the correct sizes and began following the easy to understand instructions, he had the thing made pretty quickly. I lucked out because Scott's building supplier had received marine ply instead of construction ply sent up from Perth, so I got the much nicer, much more expensive wood for the price of the lesser. But getting the bed into the alcove created for it, well that was a nightmare! Mick and I spent a while working out how to do it, in the end extending the flooring and then shortening the bed cabinet sides to fit. And wrestling the struts on was a real mission.
But it doesn't half look nice!
Scott then finished off the plaster sides, I repainted, the floor kick board was attached and I spent a couple of days sanding and varnishing the bed. I went for a water based varnish because it didn't have a whole lot of poisonous hydrocarbons in it. Not too keen on inhaling those fumes each night...
Before I headed off for my trip east I ordered the flooring and Scott my builder built a new trapdoor for my cellar. Yes, I've got a cellar!!
What once was a garage had a completely illegal car pit hidden under some old wooden flooring. The space has a concrete floor and brick sides, but because it doesn't have a moisture barrier, it's a tad bit mouldy. Not really a problem when the only thing being stored down there was my rather large wine collection.
A few years ago, knowing I would be heading off away on prolonged trips, I cancelled my wine subscriptions and slowly, yes slowly!, drank the entire few dozen wines. It did indeed take me a few years, so an early cancellation of the subscriptions was a good decision. I miss having a ready supply of wine though, but then again, I'm hardly much of a social butterfly these days....
So that leaves me with some storage space, which is a real bonus when downsizing to a 40m2 living space.
First step was cleaning the mould with mould killer (three times for luck!) then adding some anti mould agent to the paint and painting the brick and concrete. I could have applied a waterproofing compound (like that used in bathrooms) but decided that might be overkill. We'll see....
Then Scott made up a new frame and trapdoor which will be flush with the concrete floor.
So then the flooring can be installed. I'm also taking the opportunity to lay flooring in one of my downstairs bedrooms, the one I use as a yoga and meditation room. I removed the carpet from there many years ago after a huge water leak from the bathroom upstairs, but never got around to getting new flooring. A lost opportunity as it was covered by insurance. Too long ago now....
My electrician is house sitting for me whilst I am away, so I am hoping to come back to a place with floors, all the electrics and plumbing fully installed and even the window treatments installed. It's all been ordered, deposits paid and contact numbers exchanged.
Let's see...
In the mean time, I'm off on another walk through the bush.....
So once the walls were gyprocked I was in a position to measure up the dimensions for my kitchen. Rather than get one custom made I decided to purchase a kit kitchen from Bunnings. With the nearest Ikea being in Perth, I didn't want to be caught with the possibility of having to return items, so decided against using it, even though their kitchens come well recommended. Given how many times I did have to make changes and return faulty doors, I'm glad of my decision.
Before we gyprocked up the bathroom walls, the plumber returned to lay all the water pipes and install the inwall toilet cistern. I have to conclude that I have ridiculously expensive taste. I also got him to extend my rainwater pipe into the new renovation, which is already plumbed in to the kitchen upstairs and runs via a pressure pump from the tank. This supplies a separate tap just for drinking water, with an inline filter to stop the water being green!!
And then we covered it all up.
Which meant my tiler - conveniently my neighbour down the road - could come and do the waterproofing and tiling of the floor and shower recess.
And then I could paint and install the shower screen.
I'd completely miscalculated the space available, so I had to rethink the vanity and instead install a wall hung basin. But serendipity prevailed, and what was to be the vanity with a basin on top, actually fits perfectly in the alcove created by the wall built to hide the plumbing. So perfectly you would think I'd planned it.
By then the ceiling had been levelled with rondo, insulation installed, then gyprocked. Which meant I could paint it before the kitchen arrived.
The kitchen arrived on a pallet, on a day threatening to rain by evening, so I hurriedly brought it all inside, with the help of a friend a little stronger than me. And then began assembling.
Some of the doors had their vinyl wrap coming off - I guess that's what you get for "made in China" - but as the product has a 10 year warranty I simply returned them and got replacements. My builder helped with the actual installation, as in getting all the levels right, attaching the overhead cabinets to the wall, assembling the oven tower, and cutting and fitting the bench tops. I fitted the doors and drawer fronts.
I've gone for bamboo bench tops, and so spent the long weekend sanding and oil/waxing them. Well 15 minutes a day doing 3 - 4 coats isn't too onerous.....
And then I could order the splashbacks. I'm going for a little colour......
On the first day the ceiling all came down pretty easily, revealing the joists and giving me a bit of an idea where most of the water seems to be coming in from. It's hard because it's just a small amount of water, and it only occurs during our norwest storm cycles each winter, so it's probably a combination of wind and Venturi effect from cracks in the fibre cement under the tiles. I'm hoping that judicious application of Sikaflex works.
Some of the stud walls got installed on the first day. If the brick walls were all double brick it wouldn't need gyprocking, but it's a mishmash of double brick pillars and single brick walls in between, so all walls except the front wall will be clad with plaster board. It means I can hide the wiring, which until now has been exposed.
A little setback however, when we discovered that the ceiling joists are not all the same height. The joists over the verandah above are a little lower, so we need to batten the entire area to get an even ceiling. Sigh....
At the end of Day 1 the skip bin arrived, so I flexed some muscle and threw all the old ceiling, plus lots of my accumulated junk into it. I've told the builders I'm paying them to do work I'd struggle with, whereas cleaning up and throwing garbage in the skip bin is something I can easily do myself.
With the ceiling off the wiring can get laid, but there's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario between the electrician and the builder over what needs to be done before the other can do their bit. Because the ceiling needs to be rebattened the lighting can't be laid yet. Aside from that, by the end of Day 3 most of the wiring is in.
And the walls were all studded, the insulation installed and the main walls gyprocked.
With the ceiling off we could see that there was a bit of a sag going on, with the weight of the floor above probably not being supported adequately by the beams and the single post supporting it. This sag may also have contributed to the water pooling. The post isn't actually in a central position, and is frankly in a very annoying place as regards where the new kitchen layout will be, so we are moving it and supporting the weight above better by installing a steel bulkhead. This will probably make the house more structurally sound, and maybe sort the water issue as well.
Meanwhile, I've been doing my own DIY repairs. I've repointed the bricks on one of the pillars, applied Sikaflex the entire length of the verandah, and replaced the wire screens on all the insect screens in the rest of the house. Removing old spline is a right royal pain in the arse, but the new screens are worth the effort. Hopefully they will last another 30-40 years!!
Needless to say I'm not going skiing in the northern hemisphere this year....
I spent most of last year away travelling and like most other years, I got house sitters to look after my house and garden whilst I was away. But this time I was away, on and off, for 9 months, and it was just too much time to have someone in my house, using my stuff and taking advantage of free rent. It was time to get serious about preparing my house for paying tenants, and clearing out years of detritus. Especially as I intend to be spending more and more time away in the next few years.
So rather than pack my personal stuff into storage and sell the rest of my belongings, I decided to renovate my disused double garage into a self contained flat in which I'll live when I'm home, and then rent out the rest of the house to a longer term tenant.
This process began many years ago when I removed the double roller doors and had large bifold doors installed in my double garage. Mostly because my car, a Toyota Landcruiser Troopcarrier, is too high to fit inside the garage. And then I built a garden in front of it. So a long long time ago it ceased to be a house for cars and became a quasi living space. It mostly got used, like most garages, as storage space for toys, in my case bikes, scuba and windsurfing gear, as well as a video editing space, mini office, and garden/tool storage.
A year ago a friend helped with the next stage, which was to build a room that could be secured, that I could store stuff in, lock up, and then I could rent out the rest of the house. This room would, at a later stage, become a bathroom for a self contained flat. At some indeterminate future date.
It turns out this future date is now. So my first project for 2017 is project managing a home renovation.
I was going to write just one post, but have decided to split it up into a number of posts.
Early in the new year the plumbers came and installed the waste outlets. This required punching through the cement slab and brick wall, but the way I've designed my bathroom and kitchen, I've kept the plumbing required to a minimum.
Then, in order for the rest of the work to commence, I had to get rid of all the junk that had accumulated in the garage!!
I am a dreadful hoarder, and to be fair, I do a pretty good job of reusing a lot of the stuff I hold onto. However I am being a little more ruthless this time, filling up the garbage bin, holding a garage sale and selling stuff via Facebook sale pages and Gumtree. Plus moving everything else out of the space to store it elsewhere in my house prior to demolition work beginning. OMG I've got a lot of stuff!!
The ceiling needed removing in order for the electrician to rewire, and besides that it's been water damaged from water seeping in from cracks in the upstairs verandah.
I had a bit of a scare when my builder informed me that he thought the ceiling might have asbestos in it. This is a big issue in WA when renovating houses built before 1980 because pretty well all the fibre cement products used in building materials contained asbestos. Luckily for me it looks like the ceiling was put in later, and is asbestos fibre free. Huge sigh of relief as that's one less extra cost!
So the initial plumbing work happened early in the New Year, but it wasn't until late January when the next work began.
It's been a month since I arrived home from my many trips in 2016. It's given me time to reflect on my last 18 months since I retired. To evaluate my budget to see whether I can continue to support my self funded retirement for another 7 and a bit years. And to simply relax in my own little sanctuary beach house.
What I learnt from 2016 is that although I did a huge amount of different trips which I enjoyed immensely, I always had concerns about my home in the back of my mind. No matter how good or bad your house sitter is, there's a lot of emotional attachment to your little piece of paradise. It means that your time back home between trips is all about fixing things, sorting things or having a little talk with the house sitters about boundaries.
I'd like to be able to let go of that attachment. Not permanently by selling up, but by creating a professional arrangement through leasing my house. That way I not only get an income, but can spend some of that income on ensuring the maintenance gets done. But that first means spending some money getting the house in shape.
When you live in your own home there are a myriad issues that you put up with, that you work around, that you commit to doing in your own individual way because it suits you to do so, and the results work for you. But a tenant doesn't quite see it that way, so you need to make allowances for that. I'm not ready to let a tenant ruin all my hard work of 15 years in my garden, or to flood the house because they are too lazy to mop up after a shower. So I need to fix things.
I love living here, and I've got quite a few possessions that I'm not willing to give up, so my solution is to renovate my disused double garage into a self contained flat, move in to it, and rent out the rest of the house. There's ample parking already, and the garage hasn't been accessible to cars for years since I walled up the vege patch, so it's not much of a stretch to create this scenario. But I can't do it by myself, I need to employ tradies.
Last year I spent a good portion of my yearly budget on a ski trip to Japan. I had planned to return there again this February, this time skiing independently with my friend Kathy. I've now decided to spend that money instead on the renovations required to get the house ready for leasing. Plus I'm somewhat exhausted after my last year of travel, and I'm really enjoying being home for a while.....
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up the travel game any time soon. I'm just staying put a while whilst I regroup and survey the situation. And sort out an income stream.
I'm currently planning my next walk. A 100km one week stroll through the tail end of the Snowy Mountains to Canberra with my brother and a few other walkers we've each met in our travels. It's the final section of the arduous Australian Alps Walking Trail, which has been on my bucket list even longer than the Bibbulmun Track. (Thanks mum for pointing out that I have been spelling The Bib wrong all this time). I'm absolutely thrilled to have my brother joining me. We've never spent this sort of time together as he was a mere 10 years old when I left home. He walked a few sections of the Larapinta Trail in July, and has caught the walking bug as well!!
In April I'll return to New Zealand. Early because my friend Sonja has asked me to house sit their pad in Christchurch whilst her and Chris go trekking in Nepal. This is a little contingent on whether their house is or isn't undergoing renovation for the damage caused from the earthquake 5 years ago. Yes, bureaucracy moves very slowly... I'm yet to purchase a plane ticket, but a few weeks doing some tiki touring and tramping instead seems an attractive alternative.
Then it will be down to Wanaka for the whole ski season. I'm going to apply for a part time job doing some ski instructing during school holidays and weekends, and resit my Level 2 exam. I guess I need to rejig my CV. I'm thinking they won't need to know quite so much detail about my former career....
So right now I'm doing a lot of clearing up. Sorting unwanted possessions into saleable items for a big garage sale or throwing them away, and employing tradies to do the work needed on the house. I'm doing a little windsurfing, but I'm picking my days rather than spending all my time at the beach. The hard truth is that if it's windy it's usually cool enough to do the garden jobs I need done, and if it's troughed out and hot I can stay inside doing the sorting and other myriad chores. Like scanning all my old film negatives, or importing my old videos ready for editing. Meanwhile listening to a good couple of years' worth of "Conversations with Richard Fidler" podcasts.
But if there's good wind and big waves, I'll go.
I'm really enjoying this time. I was feeling quite overwhelmed when I returned home, but I still have almost 4 months to sort all this stuff out, and it's not like I have to go to work all week as well. The garage is almost emptied out ready for a garage sale and for the builder to remove the ceiling. Once I find a builder....
As usually happens this time of year I ask myself why I bother to try and grow anything in the vege patch, because the dry winds and heat make it a difficult job for plants to survive. Slowly my soil has improved, but it remains somewhat hydrophobic still, meaning daily watering continues to be a necessity.
Shade makes a huge difference, but because there are lots of gaps and overlaps, some plants still manage to get fried within the couple of hours of direct sunlight they receive each day. Greenhouses just encourage pest epidemics, I'd rather have my many feathered visitors helping out thank you.
So what's made it? Well not a lot.
All the cucumbers succumbed pretty quickly, as did the snow peas, but some hardier beans are growing in their place. The baby corn refused to ripen, and what did ripen was tasteless.
The eggplant seedlings are all just hanging in there or dying. The one plant that I grew from seed over a year ago produced fruit that stopped growing at somewhere between golf ball and tennis ball size. It actually makes a handy single serve portion, but I'd prefer they grew a bit bigger given the effort that's gone in to producing them. But now, even that plant has lost its leaves and is looking like dying.
None of the pumpkins did much. I managed to pick a few tiny fruits which made single serve portions in the kitchen, but the heat and powdery mildew meant few survived. I still have a couple of vines struggling, but no fruiting going on.
Neither passionfruit shows any sign of fruiting. I've noticed the occasional flower, but no fruit. I might try some potash...
Tomato plants grown from seed are doing well so far. They are all in the shade and well protected. My older tomato plants are all finished, so there's a bit of a gap. Never mind, I cooked and bottled most of the excess of a couple of months ago, so I've not been without so far.
The asparagus has been good this year, and I've managed to eke out a steady crop until now. Once their growth accelerates with the heat you just can't catch them in time before they unfurl their little ferny foliage.
I had another go at Okra. Again, the results were shabby. All the seeds sprouted, but then shrivelled up and died at the 2-4 leaf stage. I've bought some more seed of a different variety so might have another go. You've got to be an optimist to be a gardener...
The kumara is doing well though. I regularly snip the trailing new growth as it makes a good spinach alternative in stir fries. Gotta use what you've got, especially when the perpetual spinach my house sitters put in just shrivelled up and died.
Talking about using what you've got, I've discovered a new superfood. It's called papaya. Not only can you eat it when it's golden and ripe, but it's also perfectly edible when unripe as well.
I was first introduced to green papaya salad at the Rapid Creek Market in Darwin when I lived there. Rapid Creek Market is the closest thing to an authentic Asian market outside Asia. Seriously, rock up there at 7am on a Sunday morning and you'd be excused for thinking you'd been teleported to Thailand. I wonder if anyone grows durian up the top-end? Anyway, Som Tam is a classic Thai salad from the Isaan region of Thailand, and it's crunchy, spicy and delicious. It uses grated raw green papaya, chilli, lime juice, garlic, tomatoes, dried prawns and peanuts to make a simultaneously refreshing and perspiration inducing experience. I love Asian cuisine.
I got a little sick and tired of making green papaya salad with the many green fruits from my trees that drop before they ripen. It's fiddly, and requires quite a few ingredients on hand in the pantry. And sometimes I don't feel like salad. So I started using it in different ways. Like roasting it.
It turns out that green papaya behaves somewhat like potato, in that it's a starch that softens with cooking and will take on the flavours of things added to it. I often add it with other veg like pumpkin and eggplant in a roast, and recently I made spicy papaya wedges. Yes, it was freaking delicious.
Now papaya grows like a weed in my garden. Until recently I had four female trees all fruiting, but one has fallen over due to the trunk rotting out and will be in the compost bin pretty soon. I'm jusr waiting for the final fruits to either ripen or drop. I also have 2 male trees, whose flowers I use to manually pollinate the lady flowers, just in case nature doesn't do its job.
A month or so ago I threw some chia seed into a box of home made compost to grow some chia plants and harvest my own chia seeds. Instead I ended up with a huge amount of papaya plants germinated from the compost! I figure I might as well plant a few more trees, and pull out any that end up being male, because it's such a versatile fruit for the kitchen, and it grows here so easily. I mean why fight nature right?
As mentioned, I also have many ripening papayas. So far I've made papaya ice-cream, dried papaya, and frozen yoghurt. Not yet tiring of this amazing fruit.
In other fruit news, the dragonfruit is fruiting. The main big red plant had at least a dozen flower spikes though some of them dropped before flowering, and the white put out a solitary flower, which, because there is nothing for it to cross-pollinate with, then dropped its fruit before it developed. I'm not that fussed, as the white dragonfruit doesn't have much taste compared to the red. Sometimes its OK to grow something just for the aesthetics...
The mango tree looks magnificent. There will be fruit, in another 5 years....
I completely forgot about the water chestnuts last year. They've multiplied and are currently growing well in the small pond next to my green rainwater tank. Must remember to harvest them in June. The watercress and kangkung are also happy in there, along with a resident frog or two.
I've been working on the pond and waterfall, trying to make it waterproof and also mortaring the stone surrounds to hide the tyres. Getting it to a waterproof state was quite an effort, involving lots of silicone and a number of efforts at getting the water to not run off in the wrong direction. I did get a little help moving the rocks, but mostly I did it myself. Yes, NOT what I should be doing just before a ski trip. I know.....
I purchased some goldfish to eat the mosquito larvae breeding in the pond. Then some predator went and ate them. One day there were six fish, next morning there were none! I need to give them some good hidey holes before I get any more me thinks.
Here's a little video of the pond and waterfall before I fixed the latest leak....
The chooks, by the way, are just gloriously healthy. They are fat and happy, very sociable, and laying well, despite the heat. I've been giving them a bit of extra meat meal in their feed and they just look absolutely luscious at the moment. I've never owned such happy healthy chooks before. They are still confined to the upper pen, which has heaps of shade and easy access to the water tank, so I'm not planning on moving them down into the other run any time soon. Besides, I haven't fox proofed it yet.
