Tourello Street - Week One

New beginnings

Welcome to the Tourello St project.  I guess a little background is in order before we start. 

Abby and Sam came to me with a fairly standard requirement – more space.  There was only one problem, they needed it right now !! 

Abby is pregnant with the couple’s second child and so we needed to design, document and build a new staircase, upstairs bedroom, bathroom and new bedroom in less than 9 months.  A pretty tall order, but hopefully achievable, even if we are all hoping that this baby breaks a few world records in lateness !!

Thankfully, they pretty much knew what they wanted when they came to us, it was really just a matter of helping them to make it happen.  The old staircase, which was ugly and just a little dangerous, needed replacing, but as it wasn’t built to code in the first place, it turned out that it couldn’t just be replaced, well not in the same place as where it had been.  So really, moving the staircase and relocating it entirely, was the perfect opportunity to do the extension that had been up their sleeve for a while now.

After working through a few alternative designs, and then preparing working drawings, building is now underway.  And Gene and the boys are ripping into it like men with a deadline do !

The first step was to demolish the existing staircase and the old fireplace in the lounge room, which had never been used, and remove a wall between the kitchen / dining and living areas. 

Next week, the external wall comes off upstairs to allow the new staircase and additional rooms to be built.

Stay tuned, this project is turning out to be a race against time !

Will St - Week Fifteen

The pointy end of the project

This week at Will Street has been all about finishing off.  Before the Christmas break, the priority was to secure the outside from the weather , but now, it is all about getting the interior ready for painting and tiling. 

Firstly flooring has gone in where previously we had holes in the floor – or no floor at all.  The remaining plasterboard has gone up and been sanded, and cornicing applied.  Door and door furniture has been hung and architrave and skirting is also going on.  Things are really taking shape.

The clients, Lyndell and Andrew start painting inside over the weekend, which is no mean feat.  They have to do three coats on everything – walls, ceilings, trims and they have around a week to do it in !  The perils of doing some of the work yourself means that you have to be able to drop everything and get your part of the work done when the project is ready, so as not to cause any delays to other trades.  Luckily, the builders have been running to program, so that Lyndell and Andrew have been able to plan their annual leave around the painting.

The electrician has now finished his rough in, so once the painting is done, he can come back and start putting in light fittings and switches.

Torrential rain on Wednesday when  I was doing a site inspection made it the perfect opportunity to make sure that the new roof was leak free, which I can happily report, it is !  We are still waiting on the rainwater heads, which apart from looking totally awesome, will stop the “waterfall effect” which is currently happening when it currently rains, as water is being directed into the guttering from the roof, and then into nothing.

In the next week or so, we will have a skylight in the bathroom – (let there be light - finally) some kitchen benchtops and splashbacks, tiled bathrooms and the odd few fixtures in the bathroom as well.  We’re sure at the pointy end of the project now !!