Renovations...

I am really enjoying living in our house at the moment.

We have been here since December 2009 and the house was purchased knowing that it needed some work.
It was not a dive by any stretch of the imagination but we knew it had a lot of potential.
As soon as we moved in we started work on it. 

We were all systems go for around 8 months or so, then we got engaged which meant a wedding needed to be planned and paid for.  Then we had our honeymoon 6 months later.  All these things take money you see.
Now these things are over (and hopefully babies in the near future) we are full steam ahead getting stuff done and working towards getting our house finished.

I thought I would share some before and after photos to show what we have done so far. 
People love before and after photos, right??

The next two photos are the front of our house.

Ugly cobble stones (sold of trade me for a tonne of money!!), and huge ugly trees that made the front room dark, a garden full of stuff, dirt like concrete and virtually no grass what so ever.

Before...

And after...

 

 Ugly trees gone, grass sown, standard roses planted, hedging plants planted and trees at the front pruned back.

At the back of the house we had a giant ugly clothes line that was rusty, a tiny deck and gardens that had a range of ugly plants in them and again dirt like concrete (and a feijoa tree that kept).

 

 

 

My husband and a friend built our amazing two level deck!!  Andy also built me the vege gardens, made the pizza oven (very back left hand side of the photo), retaining walls, stone paths and we have sown grass. 

  

 

 

 Our deck is amazing!!!!!  It is my favorite place in summer.

  

 And now the kitchen area!!  This is the area that everyone just loves.  I heart my kitchen so much!!

When we purchased our house the kitchen was a strange shape.  It was an odd shape, dark and there was not much storage space at all.

 

 Below shows the wall coming out a bit then coming out again (this was the old entrance to the house and the walk in wardrobe in the front bedroom).

 

You can see the old power box on the wall to the left of the photo (now have a fancy new one in the hallway) the entrance to the kitchen from the hallway is where the door is.

 

   

Before I show you the after photo, here is the photo of the front bedroom.

 

And now after...

 

 

Obviously we have a flash new kitchen (LOVE it!!), we also took down the wall between the kitchen and the front bedroom.  We now have one long room.  It has all been painted and the floors have been polished.   It is such a fantastic area to entertain people.  I spend a lot of time in this room.

  

Being a 1950s house the laundry was under the house.  Here is a photo before (yes that is a kick ass large original concrete tub, kept this bad boy!).

Before...

 

This photo is the old entrance to the kitchen.  

 

And after...

 

The old entrance to the kitchen has been made into a laundry.  Blocked on the kitchen side by the pantry and you enter the kitchen area through the door into the old front bedroom.  Washing machine with a dryer above.  We also have purchased a skinny set of cupboards to go to the right of the appliances.  Gib and doors are going on in the next month or so.

This is a before photo of the sunroom.  You enter this room from the kitchen.  They had built on this room in 1996.  It had fake wooden floor, window still in between the kitchen sunroom and a terrible paint job.

We have painted it, put tiles down, window is out (the hole is still there though), a servery added and replaced the lights.    This is now used as a dining room, hence the servery.

The room is a bomb site at the moment with Andys painting/building stuff.  I will put up a photo when this is tidy!

Jobs on the to do list, 

Bathroom (going to be done in the next few months).  It is going to be a complete remodel.

Bedrooms, new carpet, new gib, paint, insulation etc.

Formal lounge, we will make the decision on whether this will remain a lounge (and have a 2 bedroom house) or make it a large master bedroom.  Either way it will be re-gibbed, painted and insulated.  If it becomes a bedroom we will build some cupboards in there.

So there you have it.  Our house.  A lot of blood, sweat, a few tears and a fair amount of money.  It is great doing DIY.  Such a feeling of achievement when something is finished.  Makes for amazed friends when people have not visited for a while too.

I will finish off by adding a photo of one of the beautiful daffodils I picked today from one of my pots.