Wednesday 19 October 2011

Will St Forest Hill

Week One - 21st September - 28th September
Contracts are signed, insurances and finance are arranged – this is “GO TIME” !  Time to start packing up and moving out for 6 months or so.  Not a small feat when you’ve lived in a house for 12 years, but one that nevertheless had to be done in order for the start of their renovation.

So, after what has seemed an eternity, for various reasons, today was day one of construction for Will Street.  The clients, Andrew and Lyndell had agreed to undertake some of the “grunt work”, which included demolition of the existing kitchen (quite cathartic I understand after living with such a tiny, tiny kitchen for soo long), the laundry, ripping up the old lino in the kitchen and bathroom the carpet, and the cork tiles in the toilet. 
The appointed builders, Construction Spaces effortlessly moved in and started ripping off plasterboard sheeting and further gutting the bathroom.  The inside of the existing house needed to be basically stripped of all linings ready for walls to come out. 
The Will Street renovation / extension basically involves pushing the back wall of the house outwards to increase the size of the existing living, dining and kitchen space, the laundry and bathroom, adding two new bedrooms and also adding an ensuite and walk in robe to the main bedroom.  Sounds simple, but it pretty much involves the ripping out, fiddling with or extending every single space in the house. 
The intention is to to reconfigure as much of their existing house as possible in order to make better use of the space they already have, as well as adding more space at ground level to keep the costs down and to ensure that the whole backyard isn’t in shade all day. 
It’s amazing what you find when you are packing up and moving out …. It’s even more amazing what you find when you are tearing down …. Like some of the previous tenants !!  Long gone it appears  - thank goodness !
It is also most disconcerting to be able to stand up one end of the house and be able to see all the way through to the other side ! 


This place is now officially a construction site !

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