Here is the listing, pilfered  from Real Estate.com:

And from the newspaper   (PDF, click to open)   (Thanks Adam for sending me this!)

You can see the agents photographs inthe renovation photo album.

Small touches remain, but essentially as of July 2008 we have finished.

6 years of renovation, rebuilding and restoring come to an end. Not one wall, floor, ceiling, doorway – nothing remains of the late 40′s fishing shack that we started with.

The journey was long, arduous and eventful. I hope you enjoy touring the house with me and reading the stories of our renovations – the links on the side bar will take you through the house, room by room from before to after. And as a side, you may find some of the ‘letters home’  to be a bit of fun. Anyone who has ever done a major renovation will raise an eyebrow and nod furiously whilst reading these pages.

UPDATE:

July of 2009 we have SOLD our lovely home.
The world thinks we were mad. Maybe we were?
Email me here if you would like to be directed to our next renovation project  – Rhu xx

Enjoy.

I can’t believe the crap they left behind. Rocking chair, a roll top desk, a wardrobe, a dead leather chair, dead bedside tables, tools, machinery, clothing, dishes, a lounge suite, a wall unit, bookshelves…  just to name a few.  I just wanted to bury my head in the sand. 

Some left over treasures for us – a lounge suite, a dart board, piranha teeth (!!!!!) dead carpet, old grungy shoes. Ergh. Even the pot plants. The dog poo. All here for us.

More treasures – a knife and fork in case you get hungry. A wall unit to store your own stuff in, in case they didn’t leave us enough.  A dilapidated laundry trolley, fence pickets sitting atop besa blocks (tasteful!!) to keep their dogs out,  fly screen doors with no fly screen. This awful old bar (see there is a ship in a bottle!) was still laden with empty sticky spirit glasses and empty bottles. (Yes that’s me reflected in the broken mirror tiles) And see the extension cord? That operates the porch lights!

Or, below – how about a tasteful, real Aussie authentic barbecue? There are even left over chop bones in the grate – instant flavour! 

I always hear of people finding ‘treasure’ in old houses. The only ‘real’ treasure” we found, was a genuine wall mounted oil lamp.   We kept that :)

A sample of the food, grime and dirt left behind. This is cooking residue under the cupboards.

Roll up the sleeves and jump on in. This is the laundry shed, the only way to remove the grime was let the walls soak in CRC and sugar soap and then blast them off with a gurni.  That’s the best way to tackle any job that looks daunting isn’t it? Attractive look!

And the state of the art carport, (That’s a roller door rolled on the side there, left for us. Did they think we would actually install it on this? It would fall down!)

Can you see yet why I am thinking this was a baaa-aa-aad idea?   By the end of the 2 days, we have filled 6 (six) skips with their left behinds. You can see here, this one was specific to old car parts. The real estate sign is still up behind it. Great advertising, Harcourts!

We have yet to move our own stuff, and an extension on our own settlement is now too late to arrange. People move into our (clean, immaculate, modern brick) former home the day we move out.  I’ll write again soon.

Diarised end of September, 2002

You can find the finished photos here, if you are impatient to see how the renos finished up :)

Jingle bells, jungle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun (??) it is to have to find a Christmas tree and deccies not seen for 12 months and packed away before moving….

‘Tis the week before Christmas, and all through my house,
the creatures are stirring, and we finally killed that mouse.
Our stockings are shoved under the corner of the combustion heater with no care
and by the time Santa finds them, they will be coated in pet hair.

We sleep exhausted, unaided, snug in our beds,
while visions of renovation and demolition jangle round in our heads
and me in my daggy clothes, he in his cap
with projects half finished, no time for a nap.

All through the house and the lawn, such clutter and clatter
No point jumping up to see what’s the matter…
someone will have fallen over ‘important house stuff’
or the dog in his ambition to catch the ball of fluff
will have knocked it all askew once again, and just guess
who will have to collect it and pick it up, and… oops…  I digress…..

away to where the window should be, (mind your leg, on the sash)
peer through the curtains, (mind the broken shutter, if you are not careful, it will gash)
The moon, shining brightly, on half finished plumbing
reminds me of why, in this house, I am slumming…
when what, to my wondrous eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer!

My neighbours! His lights! Oh no – the Christmas bus tour!
Oh god help me now, I just spread fresh horse manure
on the roses out the front that I planted with care,
and odours are singing the tourists nasal hair..

and the little old driver, so lively and quick,
has turned a ghastly pale shade of green and looks like he may be sick,
and my neighbours are staring at my house with such sheer hate,
I think this weekend we will build a fence with a gate.
The tourists whistled and shouted and called us rude names
My relationship with my neighbours may never be the same.

Now front wall, and garden, and plumbing need fixin’
and the floor boards needs sanding and the roof needs uplifting
and we need to build on the porch, and knock out that wall,
and find a new kitchen and remove that old hall…

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
you can see through sections of the roof, right up to the sky,
when the wind blows you hear such a great creaking sound,
Convinced that the carport may soon be on the ground
and patching the roof seems such a long way ahead,
this is getting way too hard, let me go back to bed.

And then, in a twinkling, I hear on the roof,
good lord no, not rain? Is this place weather proof??
as I drew in my hand, and I turn myself around,
sure enough – what’s that – a puddle on the ground??

When was the last time I wore make up – a skirt?
and our clothes are all tarnished from renovators dirt
a permanent pony tail stuck on my head,
and phone calls from visitors, something I most dread

My eyes how they wrinkle, -and wrinkles, how many
new ones this week, with threat of any
new ‘surprises’ I may find in this old cottage shack
How I wish Santa would supply 3 airline tickets in his sack
and a small lotto winning, so I could  finish this shack
without nervous breakdown or mild heart attack.

This poor house is ready for much needed help
and I laugh when I see it, in spite of myself
and a wink of the eye and a toss of the head,
I resign myself to cooking on a frypan instead
of the gourmet kitchen complete with open fire
and a shower instead of the bath I desire

and hanging out laundry on a tilted Hills hoist
and preparing the walls for the new little joists
and smiling at the those neighbours, for soon they will be
jealous of my shack, and all it will be.
And take myself off for a walk to the beach,
and dream of completion, not too hard to reach…

So dash away, dash away, dash away all,
I have to go off, remove dry rot from my hall
I am really quite happy, here in my plight,
I will accept gold coin donations, though – letter box on the right -
and in a flurry of wood shavings, I am out of sight…
“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOODNIGHT”

XXXXXX

Little boys, with lots of toys, love to make a lot of noise…

Mini R’s room was a strange old room. It was bright sea blue with flaking white ceiling and genuine 50 year old Axminister carpeting on the floor. Such a shame it was full of fleas! 

Even at 5, he was great helper!. So we ripped it up and washed it down, and for the first 18 months, mini R had to have this room as it was.  This room was an odd ‘L’ shape, as there was a back door at the end of the hallway, right opposite his own doorway. This doorway was useless, as you had traverse through the bedrooms to use it, so our plan to remove it, block it up and remove the internal walls around it would mean a big bedroom for him down the track. Big enough to incorporate a playroom as well as bedroom needs.

You can see here on the unpolished  boards, where the back door and internal wall used to be.

After 18 months, we were able to put him in another room whilst we set to work. We ripped out the ‘L’ shaped internal wall and closed off the old back door.  Put in a new set of double windows made from silky oak, built in a floor to ceiling wardrobe and desk area. Now it’s a real boys room.

He loves it!

Of course, it usually looks more like this! BOYS!

July 2003

It’s been such a long time since I did an update, for that I apologise. After all, with Ross’s redundancy smacking us in the face like it did, we have had so many other focuses instead! Anyway, thought I better get this off before mum leaves Perth (Hi Mum!!) tonight, to fly over and spend a month with us in Paradise. (see it’s not raining today and I am in a T shirt!!).

Now that things are settling down, we have had a little, not a lot, of time to get back into the renovations. So far, the concept of doing it ourselves using recycled, vintage and/or antique materials has proved a challenge – not so much in fitting them, but more in locating what we want. Some compromises are now being made – I have a desire for NEW architraves, skirtings and power points (wouldn’t you?) The gutting of the old lounge room was fun, and many months later the new walls are in place. There is a floor (gasp!) and we were fortunate in scoring some early 1900′s floorboards through an auction, that we used to make the floating floor ourselves, right down to the ‘floats supporters” which came from the same place. Seems these are old schoolhouse boards, once sanded they will be lovely. There is a ceiling now – my how we move up in the world – but yet to have the holes and seams plastered. The VJ’ boards and dado rail are almost finished, and one can actually see that a room is taking shape. The fireplace should come out next weekend, but then again…… The best thing – the room, all self built does not leak! (small happy dance). Thankyou, Thankyou….

The leadlight front door looks lovely, and we have the matching bi-fold doors in where the lounge will step up to what will be  the new master bedroom. All very pretty.

In the guest room (where we now sleep) all that’s left to do are the architraves and a little plastering, and hang the new door. Then, when we move out of it, I can paint it (how exciting!)  The hallway only awaits it repaired dado rails, the new office needs the charming pink rosebud wall paper stripped off and painted, and Rielly’s room – the new windows and door – oh, and the removal of the wall…. (sigh).

Steptoe and wife next door have settled down, seemingly over their tanty about us ripping out the gross concrete eagles from the garden (shudder). Wait till we tell them we are putting in a 6 foot picket fence down that side, I am sure they will step out to tantyville again.

The poor old Hill’s hoist fell down (everybody say ‘Ohhhhh’) I hung up a sisal rug to dry and the whole concoction tipped goat over brisket, so I had to get a new clothesline. (everybody say ‘yayyyy’).

So today, I am paper working and invoicing then doing the school reports, followed by sourcing the last amount of floorboards needed to refloor the hallway, then the whole house is ready to have the boards sanded. That won’t happen for ages though – there are still 3 rooms to gut walls from first, the new bathroom, kitchen and laundry to go in and the ensuite to build and…….. gawd, I need a cuppa.

Us
xxxxxx

Should that be the case , hit the close button. Now.

Still here? This is an interlude, of sorts,  rather than an update. Just in case you  think we are slacking off you see.   It’s gripe time. last we spoke, I let you know about Ross’s rewiring the home (which *is* gushworthy), and a promise of me enjoying a nice  hot shower with my new gas hot water system in place, and crystal clear water just racing down those pipes to get to my skin. Hmmm. I still have no gas. I still have no pipes. I still have no connected hot water system.What I do have, however, is half connected copper and plastic piping, snaking in and out of the floor and walls at the most interesting angles.

Nary an end is connected to any type of H20. I also have a new, shiny hot water system sitting on it’s own wee cedar pad in the corner. It’s bare copper connections smirk at me every time I walk around the corner of the house to manually connect the old hose to the galvanised tap that I use to fill the pet bowl or water the plants. (One day I will kick it and look accusingly at the dog). I also have a pyramid of besa blocks holding up 2 x 9kilogram barbeque gas bottles. I have a wonderful leaky showerhead.

And a mess.

All these together give me a shower, on a good day, and if I am lucky, and the wind is blowing in the right direction…   You see, when the pipe work was being connected, something possessed the HMOTH (handy man of the house) to fiddle with the shower base. “It leaks” he pronounced. “Right into the sand in the crawl space”. It does ? Since when?? “There is a puddle – wet residue?” ask I. “No…” “But you are sure it leaks?”  Yes, it does leak… now…” Indeed. I would leak too if I was hit with sledgehammer to check if I was solid.  So, it is silicone and fibreglass we need, so we can stop the leak until such time that we are ready to renovate the bathroom.The very next day, right on cue, the toilet begins to gurgle. “oh, says the HMOTH,  that will be air coming in from where the shower is leaking, thus creating a vacuum”  I hear him doing his very best Julius Sumner Miller voice, looking at me like I should *know* that.  I resist the temptation of saying “why is it so”… 

An interesting thing to note, dear reader, is that apparently, air locks can also completely block toilets when it comes to palm tree roots. Or so it appears….  So the gas hot water needs the pipework finished in order to have the water pressure to keep it happy, so to speak. The water pressure will be supplied via the pipework that is dangling out of the house, spider legs everywhere, waiting for the leak to be fixed. The silicone and fibreglass is in the shed, somewhere… The toilet is backed up, and HMOTH is currently  outside with an electric snake,  doing gawd knows what to gawd knows what,  making sure he stays far enough away from me so I cannot snort anything that sounds like “air lock – hah!”  (I told him he needs Rootex, he looked at me like I was being rude).

Mercy, the things that come out of blocked sewage!!!!! GROSS.

So, the last few weeks have been spent playing chase the water. At this stage, a motel is looking good. Tell me again will you  – location, location, location….

One day, whilst I was at a conference in the City,  he decided to check out a ‘Home Open” that was in our preferred location. It was no good, the house was tiny,  the block tiny, and the house was not at all what we wanted. As he drove home, just 2 streets away, he witnessed an auction. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say, and as he stopped, the auction closed with the property passed in. He ventured inside, and chatted with agent.

That afternoon, I received a call on my mobile. “Honey, I shrunk the savings”. Yep, he had done it, gone and bought a house without me. 

The next day I witnessed, for my own eyes, the property he had purchased for a ‘bargain’. No wonder it was a bargain. It was, really, nothing more than a dilapidated dump. And if you think I am joking, or exaggerating in any way, then this blog will convert you.

You will become a believer in miracles.

In September 2002, I began an electronic journal of progress of the renovations. Here, I  will slowly move my writings (in original form and with the original dates, if I can) here, and some of the photos. Room by room, dismal dank dusty dire room by room, you can follow the first years of renovations beginning from 2002, whilst chuckling to yourself and enjoying your glass or two of red in the cosiness of your yummy home, whilst you look at what I have had to live with the fun over the last 6 years.

But I do have the last laugh on the naysayers who saw the house at the beginning of the trip. For those fiscal – we have quadrupled our money – and I have a lifetime of stories to eat out on.

Sit back, relax, enjoy.