We’ve spent the last 18 months slowly chipping away at bits and bobs on the house next door. In an effort to curb the budget we decided not to make any structural changes and just do our best to return the house to its former glory with a few mod cons here and there (solar power, solar geysers, electric gate, smart automation, garden lighting)
We’re calling it phase 1, and its complete! Herewith…
The ageing roof trusses are still strong, but to ensure they last another 20 years and give the building a more contemporary look we replaced the red tiles with grey IBR, alucushion insulation and swapped out the gutters and down pipes for white chromadek
All four pillars on the sun lounge pergola had fallen over and unfortunately needed replacing. Both pergolas got new uPVC joists and rafters which should do well for another 20 years.
The verandas around the house got a face lift with steel floated cement and decorative tiles. We removed a lot of the undergrowth to show off the size of the garden (which is still a work in progress)
The swimming pool was beyond repair with cracks to its egg shell design and needed replacing. We build a new pool inside the old shell, reducing its volume from 85,000 litres to around 35,000 litres so it warms up early in the season and should be much more cost effective on running and maintenance.
The gravel driveway was replaced with grey cement brick pavers. A substantial amount of undergrowth was removed from the front garden and replaced with kikuyu which is much more suited to our cold and dry winters. We cherry picked a few of the beautiful trees in the garden to keep
We’re really happy with how it turned out and will be taking a little break from it before we begin phase 2 (a lockup garage being top of the list)
We’ll post some pictures from inside the house soon (new floors, plasterboard ceilings, doors, bathrooms, toilet, kitchen and repairs to some wall cracks you could slide your hand through!)
