Pink bits...

Here are photos of my new timber front staircase and slats between my concrete posts.

Before - ugly metal box and concrete drain

After - no more box or drain

 

Before - some crappy concrete drain for all the gutter pipes to run into

After - all filled in as the drainage has been properly plumbed under the house

Old broken down stairs

New front stairs

Had a talk with Ryan, my builder, about my crappy under cover area. Have pretty much decided to keep the majority of the concrete slab, destroy the current undercover area, then get shade sails installed and paint the good concrete slab to make the whole area look cleaner and more modern. I will have to get quotes for the sails, but will be way cheaper the getting a new patio built,

Don't fence me in!

It's been ages since anything exciting has happened to my little house. Now the rush is on to get it to a rentable state by August as I am going to work in Antarctica for 6 months. No pressure - just have to get the house fully painted, floors sanded, a bit of electrical work and what to do with the back undercover disaster area!

Newly mulched garden bed down the side of the house

However progress on been made in the front yard - as of today I have a new front picket fence. I also have new exposed aggregate concrete paths. I am going to talk to my gardening about turning the dirt area into a mulched garden bed. It should look so much neater and give my house much better street appeal. New front stairs have also been made up and I am getting horizontal timber slats under the house between the concrete stumps so block the sight of more dirt. The plumber also came today so now my down pipes all drain properly into a new PVC pipe running to the street drain. No more open concrete drain down the side of my house - check of the photo of how rusted my drain pipe was!

The old stairs and concrete slab

The beginner renovator....

Today I have finally got around to creating my blog about my very first renovation project. I bought my first home 3 days before Xmas last year - a little old queenslander. I have thrown myself into the deep end with this one considering I haven't done anything like this before. Only needs new stumps, roof, bathroom, kitchen..... you get the idea.... All this with only a semester of year 8 high school manual arts behind me.

The last 3 months have been a bit chaotic - I really can't do too much without my new stumps to get the house level. Without it level, I can't do too much inside the house at the moment. But so far I have managed to (with some help of family)

• rip up most of the stinky old carpet
  
• take up all the old vinyl in the kitchen - hours upon hours here melting the adhesive with a heat gun
• removing the bathroom linen cupboard revealing a hidden window
• 
  
  removing one of the kitchen cupboards, taking out part of a wall, and starting to strip out the wall paneling
  
  
• installing a wardrobe into the main bedroom

• installed timber blinds into two bedrooms

• new letterbox cemented in
  
  
  

However, with the recent rains about and the crappy lawn filled with weeds, I have been recently putting in the some garden beds. Lovely softened soil that is easy to dig...mmmmm.... I am going for a bit of a tropical rainforest them under two existing golden cane palm trees.
Then along my driveway is going to be something like a desert pebble garden - hopefully a neglect and forget area.