We moved out at the beginning of April and our possessions are spread between our rental house, the shed, the garage and a very large disorganised pile in our bedroom. Then they started in earnest on the inside.

Below you can see where the kitchen used to be, with the footprint of the island bench.

Internal plaster started disappearing. You can see the old study, soon to be a pantry. Floor boards have been pulled up and are being prepped for the cabinet maker to use. We still had windows at this stage, but not for long.


Above you can see the old splashback. That rear wall along the hall is about to disappear.

There you go. No walls to the north or the west. At least they put down some board to walk on.

Not at all how we had the room furnished. Aren’t builders funny!

I loved my kitchen and have great memories of the 15 years we have been in this house. Here’s a few photos, just so we don’t forget.

We are reusing the beautiful jarrah timber from the bench tops. They boards will be a feature divider, used vertically, in the new kitchen. The benches look great, but take a lot of looking after to keep them that way. We are going to have stainless steel benches in the new kitchen. The appliances are toast. The oven has buckled and the cook top was getting dodgy. I’ll sell the dishwasher and the fridge. We’re having a new “fridge only” fridge. I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up with the hungry mouths in our house. And the freezer will go in the new pantry, which used to be the study.

And there’s that step, right behind the sofa, that will be gone. Looking forward to that. The Tasmanian Oak floor boards are being reused as the front of all the drawers in the kitchen joinery. They’ll be stained black. The floor boards will also be used as the desk top for the new study and for the desk in the boys study area.

Quite deceiving really. Because it’s not actually a hole for the pool. It’s a hole for the water tanks and pump room which are next to the pool.

Slab preparation – west side.

We will have three tanks along this slab giving us 70,000 litres of water from our rather large roof. We plan to use this throughout the house including drinking water.

And then there was plastic too.

Next up – the concrete.

The pool will be along the left hand side of the slab in this photo. They will dig out more soil one day soon.

Meanwhile, the builders have made good use of the old BBQ table and umbrella. There were some sunny days back in March when I took these photos.

Builders’ lunch room

Our first surprise came when the builders discovered that the big poles they felled were not sitting in the 400mm square holes per the engineer’s drawings from the original house build in 1999. They were actually anchored in a cubic metre of concrete. The worst katabatic winds of the universe wouldn’t have blown them over. This cubic metre of concrete was right where we needed to pour the new slab. And we couldn’t just pour it over the top. Oh no. Too easy to do that. We had to get the Really Big digging machines, and then call in their big brothers too. About a week later, the two 7 tonne pieces of concrete sat on the lawn (and I use the term loosely) waiting for a crane to lift them onto some super reinforced truck much like those you see at open cut mines.

Rest assured, these are bigger than they look.

They left two rather big holes…………

Where the concrete blocks used to be.

This is when we got very familiar with the Builder’s Variation fees. Several thousand dollars later, the Big Rocks are gone, the Big Holes are full of compacted dirt (took two days to do that) and now it’s time to prepare for the new slab. And all the while, they pulled off the bathroom wall.

It all started when we decided to add a bedroom. Then I found a larger study would be good, now that I work from home so much. Got a bit tired of the kitchen. It looked good (if you like blue), but there wasn’t really a lot of bench space. Really! Then came the day I stopped liking the step down to the living room. And I’ve hated the wood fire for a really long time. Not the fire exactly, but the work, the wood, the mess, the cleaning, carrying all the wood upstairs. You know what I mean. Our ensuite bathroom was slowly self destructing with mould and water damage. Don’t even mention the whole yellow and blue thing with the tiles. What was I thinking?

We started with the original draftsman who designed the house. Moved on through an architect mate. Drew pictures of our dreams on many a piece of paper. Over about 8 years (no kidding), we have finally made it to a plan, and better still – action. And did I mention the pool? The spa? Those small items made it to the final brief somehow.

I know I have some photos of the whole thing before we ever started, but they are on some hard drive stored somewhere that I’m not completely familiar with right now.

I did find this one. It’s a few years old, but you can see the amazing wisteria in full bloom. This was before it took over the entire balcony.

This is where the new extension will go. So say farewell to the wisteria, and I hope to welcome something new to the garden when we’ve finished.

South side – before the mayhem started.

Above is the old look. Just wait till you see what we do!
And below……

East side.

So they started on the back – or the north side of the house. There was to be much, much demolition and destruction before we ever saw any construction. Here’s the balcony half gone.

Then they pulled down the big poles. I’ve always loved the poles, but as they hit the ground, they cracked like match sticks. We’re keeping the ones at the front of the house.

Our poles are gone.

The floating dining room.

This was in February and we were still living in the house at this stage. I used to make coffee for the crew that was gradually dismantling the place. I could hear them working outside, and must congratulate them on the lack of swearing. Nice.