Looking back, and looking ahead

The house went unconditional today.  I rang Reilly when i got the email, "woo hoo" he said.  HA!

So heres whats been happening since the last post.  All along i wanted to have total control over how this whole thing went down, i just knew before we even brought the house that we were capable of taking that crap house and turning it into a nice home.  Reilly didn't take much convincing, i told him i wanted it, and that i was prepared to work my ass off to make it work and he said two magical words "I'm in".  No debate, no considering.  He just looked at me and said that if anyone could do it, i could.  Thats marriage GOLD right there!

All along i was determined that i would sell it myself once we were done.  After all i had just endured that hot hot summer, covered in layers of grime, sweat and paint - it seemed stupid to hand the house over to someone else when i was confident i could show it and sell it.  So we researched, trolling through real estate sites, and local newspapers, we got a registered valuation and settled on a price.  I had our lawyer draw up a sale and purchase agreement which included a certificate of the title and then put it on TradeMe with the photos i took myself.

It was pretty intense i can't lie.  There was A LOT of interest. Phone calls, texts, emails. I showed the house most days.  By day 10 on the market we had four good offers to choose from.  In the end, the prices offered were all fine, the differences came down to the sale conditions.  It was surprisingly simple to fill in the sale and purchase agreement, i had a few pointers from our lawyer of what needed to be filled in, everyone was surprised at how easy it really was.

Basically we just took the offer that could settle the fastest with the least amount of conditions.  They signed it, we signed it, we emailed a copy to our lawyer and their lawyer, that was 5 working days ago, it went unconditional today and it settles next week.

It wasn't all happiness and plain sailing, it was hard work, completely different to renovating - it was managing people, in fact i met with a few groups on many.... many occasions.  On the night before we accepted the offer i was getting quite over it - but in the end was it worth saving real estate commission? Absolutely!

All we have to do now is move our furniture out and hand over keys next week.  Its funny to think we are finished and its all over. its been an EPIC 5 months!

People have been asking me what I'm going to do with myself now. Ive got a few plans for around home, working on my lifting again.... but mainly its going to be about the kids and Reilly.... thats probably enough to keep me busy right there!

FINISHED!!!!!!!!!

You know how you watch those renovation reality TV programmes, and theres a furious amount of work happening in a short amount of time, people are crying, throwing things and all stressed out!! well.... guess what we've been doing!!! exactly that... well to be fair, not EXACTLY that, but enough of that that we are really really glad to be where we are right now.

Carport = FINISHED!!! That was a major, half of it happened in the rain - that was fun.  Washing line in, Garden shed reclad and painted. all the doors hung, door handles done, window latches done. furniture moved in and the house has been dressed! This was a GRIND.  One day at a time, one task at a time.  At times it felt like those silent comedy movies that play funny music while people zip around in fast forward.  I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with how its all come together. Such hard hard work!! After 5 hours of cleaning today - I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as i do!!

a bit manic

We have been blowing through the list of things to do.  Ive got my stride on, along with warm socks - summer is almost over proper.  We lit the fire the other night. Funny how quickly time can pass.  

All these little jobs take up quite a bit of time, run over here and paint that, while its drying, fix up this, attach that then go back for a second coat of paint.  It feels sometimes like chasing yourself round and round, but jobs are being crossed off left right and centre, so we must be making progress.

We have about 1 week left and then we are FINISHED! What?! Thats right. Completeo.  Just one last week of renovating.  It feels a bit unreal that we might be finished soon.  

I put off painting the exterior window for SO long.  These are before photos, they did need quite a bit of sanding! thank goodness that jobs over now!

Shutters are on! Exciting!

Tick Tick Tock

The list is getting shorter! 

The weather is so nice. Im outside painting exterior windows today. Lovely!

smoke alarms up

Laundry Cabinets in

One side of the exterior windows done

Door hung and handles on

Cabinet handles on!

The Calendar

A photo-less Day! As part of my excellent list making - i threw all the jobs onto a calendar - titled  Calendar of Doom.  Not really.  But we are on the Final Countdown.

There are a whole lot of little jobs to be done, latches for windows, new door handles, smoke alarms, cupboard handles.  Ive taken to filling up the trailer with junk to come on home, with the school holidays starting next week, I'm going to be on kid patrol AND finekity little job doings.  BUT! in the second week...... in-laws are coming! which means - kids get grandparent time, and maybe just maybe, Reilly and i will get to have some time out too!!!

aaaannnndddd.... she's BACK!

OH LORD! do i hate being sick!  Nurses make the worst patients. Honestly.

Usually when i get sick, i tough it out - suck it up - carry on. blah blah. then reilly gets sick - and it annoys the CRAP out of me when he wants to lie around in bed. Im supremely unsympathetic.

So to bite me in the ass, i got sick. So sick all i wanted to do was lie myself down somewhere, preferably dark and warm, and sleep!

Instead i drugged myself to the eyeballs and went and slapped a coat of poly on the floors yesterday morning.  I crashed and burned afterwards, but at least i got something done!

Last night i started to feel like the world wasn't ending, and this morning i woke up and wanted to write a list! if only list writing and crossing off was an olympic sport! Gold medal winner right here!

So - in the end two coats of poly have gone on the floor (Reilly did the second coat because he's good like that).  Then TODAY i got the tiles down on the laundry floor.  what fun!

Making a decision and sticking with it

Today was challenging.  I'm sick! Boo Hoo Me.  I guess its my turn.  Unfortunately, you don't always get the luxury of lying in bed and getting better - so - into the house it was.

The day went like this:
Sanding, sanding sand sand sand - then scrape a bit. Sit back and have a cough.  Listen to RNZ and have a good laugh - then cough again.

Wash down walls and kitchen and every other dust ridden part of the house - dust was in every cupboard, every nook and every cranny.  We had an air gun on the compressor so that was quite fun to use and useful for the blinds.

Go out and find some stain to stain the floor.  Originally i wanted to stain the floors BLACK.  Im in love with black floors.  Then we sanded and it was such a lot of work.  People tell you (at Bunnings and Mitre 10) that colouring a timber floor is a sacrilege.  So we decided to just polyurethane.  But i didn't love that idea.  So today i compromised with a dark brown stain.  I got it on quickly so that no one could change their minds!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!  Sanded with nothing on it, it was going to be way too much wood.  But this..... this is so good. Its sic! well. I'm sick.  Ive come home and pilled on clothing, had a hot drink and now i need to get in a hot bath.  I have to feel better tomorrow - its polyurethaning day!

Dusty!

We hit it yesterday.  Some parts went really well, other parts not so great.  Overall we're really glad we're doing it ourselves, but this is definitely one of those jobs you would consider paying someone else to do!



The kitchen was particularly difficult with some kind of glue clogging up the sander every 2 seconds.  I spent about an hour scraping away and only doing about 30cm before i was ready to throw in the towel.  Luckily Reilly had a trick, went and got an attachment for the grinder and away he went.  Ive still got quite a bit of sanding left to do.  So thats me today. Joy!

Getting back into it

Slowly!!

Were being kind to ourselves.  So were not doing anything too taxing today.  Thank goodness!  While we were in hospital we had the driveway done! its so much better! Half a day and BOOM! Reilly pegged it out, came back later, and it was all taken care of.  Thats pretty exciting.  It need a good rain to wash it down.  Carport will go at the end next weekend.


Today we went there and levelled out some of the lawn with some of the scrapped off driveway top soil, it seems like it wouldn't take long, but in fact it took a good few hours.  I got the easy job of sowing the lawn seed.  Inside i went around and prepped the floor ready for sanding, thats a crapper of a job, crawling around on hands and knees nail punching and filling.  But its all done now, and Reilly and i are heading in tomorrow to sand the floors - alone - kids are staying home with my brother and his partner so they won't be any where near the dust.  Respiratory illness is no laughing matter!  Im very excited to see the 'after' photos to these befores!