Browse Forums General Discussion 1 May 27, 2010 3:30 pm Hope it's OK to have an ongoing thread in this section - I know most put their house threads in the "Building A New House" section, but since this is a reno not a new build - and, not an actual house, either! - I wasn't sure. Anyway, I thought I'd keep all my photos together here. We are renovating a two-bedroom unit unit that was left in an inhabitable state by the last tenant. It was certainly already an old unit anyway, in need of some work, but the kitchen was wrecked by water damage and left in a disgusting state. So we've completely gutted the whole place and are starting again. Here are some pics of what we started with. This is the kitchen that was - with just a quick glance, it doesn't look *too* bad but you can see the chipboard cupboards are obviously disintegrating. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We thought we might be able to get away with just replacing the doors. But when we opened the cupboard under the sink, this is what we saw! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Was that pic gross enough for you?!? Here is a lovely close-up of the mouldy shelves, complete with cockroach egg casings. *shudders* Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Ewwwwww. So, a new kitchen was a definite. As part of the reno, we decided to redesign the kitchen layout as we thought we could improve it. Each apartment in the building has its own hot water system actually IN the apartment, in a cupboard in the kitchen. Ours was on the LHS of the sink, up against the door. Due to the design of the building, we are the only unit with a "dead zone" area outside our kitchen window instead of a garden bed or balcony walkway, since the steps block nearly all light and nothing grows there. So I applied to the body corp for permission to relocate the HW system to the dead zone, up against the outside of the kitchen wall. That gave us a little more space to play with in the kitchen. The original design was a U-shaped kitchen with a breakfast bar. Since the unit is so small, there wasn't really any space for a dining table, so the breakfast bar was it. But they put the fridge on the end of the U that jutted back out into the room (on the RHS of the first pic, closest to the camera) which meant that when you walked into the apartment, the main thing you saw was the front of the fridge, blocking a lot of the view. Since the apartment is on the coast there is a lovely view out over the ocean, and we wanted to open the place up a bit more, so we decided to go with an L-shaped kitchen instead. Here you can see the backside of the kitchen bench and fridge cavity. Behind the camera is the lounge, with sliding doors out towards the ocean. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Oh, and in that last pic you can probably see the lovely orange floors. That is paint. The carpets were apparently damaged at some point so the tenant ripped them up and PAINTED THE CONCRETE. You can see on the LHS of the last pic, the corner of a bare space of grey concrete - I guess they didn't bother moving that bookcase. They were also not careful with the paint job - the paint goes up the wall at least an inch in a lot of places. The tenants said they told/had it approved by the real estate agent that was managing it (I was living overseas at the time so it was managed), but I certainly never heard about it. Grrrr. Anyway, we knocked out the gross kitchen and ripped up the remaining carpets in the two bedrooms. We have painted walls throughout, except for some trims and touchups (including around the bottoms of all the walls, as we have to get the paint ground off first), and have taken off and are midway through painting the internal doors. So, here is the "blank canvas" of a kitchen. The "pole" thing on the RHS is the old wall colour, and when this was taken there was only one coat of the new wall paint (Dulux Whisper White) on the wall to the right of that. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We have also had the bathroom redone already, and it looks great! I will put the bathroom pics in the next post. (Hope I am not posting too many pics, either.... ) Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 2May 27, 2010 3:39 pm thanks for sharing and I don't think there can ever be too many pics!! ************* First time renovator VIC Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 4May 27, 2010 4:43 pm Hi Rae, you can never have too many pics on FO ... people here LOVE them. Goog luck with the reno progress viewtopic.php?f=31&t=20401 sculptures viewtopic.php?f=36&t=26607 pole trouble viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25988 Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 5May 27, 2010 8:12 pm The single bathroom (no ensuite) in the apartment is also the laundry, so it's fairly small and difficult to photograph. Here are a few pics to show what we started with. Those square white tiles in & on the bath space used to be blue ones like the floor - they were replaced by the previous owner (to fix a leak) about a year before I bought the unit, many years ago. The bathroom would have been a lot more blue back then! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The mirror frame, towel rack etc were also blue. There was swelling from water to the chipboard cupboards here too. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The laundry is on the LHS. The tub was quite rusted and top linen cupboard door also had significant water damage. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We've kept the same basic layout for this room, as it's just so small there is limited scope for shuffling things around. Also, keeping the pipes in the same locations meant we didn't have to pay for much plumbing works. We removed a skin slab that was on the floor, which eliminated most of the step up into the bathroom. Instead of having a ~5cm step up, we now have just about only the tiles' thickness difference in levels. We removed the bathtub and replaced it with a tiled shower, across the back of the room. We had to retain a small head in the right hand end, as there were pipes there we had to cover up again. I didn't really mind - it acts as a shelf to put shampoo, conditioner etc on. We were going to put a tiled-in soap dish on the wall but couldn't find one we liked. At least with the head there, the soap dish has somewhere to go. This is after the waterproofing and floor shaping has gone in. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We chose 600x300 white rectified tiles for the walls of the shower space, laid vertically. For the floor we chose 300x300 Snow Wolf rectified tiles in a fawny sort of tone with a slight, whitish marbling through them. There was another shade of the Snow Wolf tiles but it was much more yellowy, which we disliked. The room already suffers from not having any natural light, and the yellowy tone would just make the whole place look jaundiced! Anyway, the wall tiles were laid first as the floor tiles had to be ordered from down south. Once the floor tiles came in, they were laid almost immediately. I went out to see them that night (still no grout). I was disappointed at still how yellowish it looked, but I figured it was just the orange waterproofing throwing a lot of tone. The ceiling light bulb was an old incadescent one as well, which didn't help. The next day I was talking to Mum and she mentioned how she had picked up a few of the same Snow Wolf tiles to look at (they are building their dream retirement home atm and she is also tile shopping) and she no longer liked them as they were too yellow. I told her they must have given her the incorrect, more yellow Snow Wolf tile.... and then I had that horrible sinking feeling. Upshot is that yes, they had supplied us the wrong tiles! Aaaargh. We had a couple of days of stressing while we waited for the store to come back with a response to the issue, but ultimately I can't fault them for their customer service. Since the error had been entirely their fault, they agreed to fix it. They did ask if we would consider letting them glue the correct tiles over the top of the wrong ones, but since we'd just gone to the trouble of removing the skin slab to eliminate any step up into the bathroom, we weren't keen on that option. So they agreed to pay our tiler whatever it cost to remove the wrong tiles, re-do the waterproofing, and re-lay the correct tiles. Yay!! It's not a great photo, but this shows the difference in the tile colours. The wrong one is on the floor; the correct one is the single tile laid over the top. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And the correct tile, once all was fixed: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ So in the end, I would have NO hesitation recommending that tile shop to anyone else. After the tiling was fixed, the vanity and tub was installed, and then finally the high cupboard and the shower screen. Due to a miscommunication, the cupboard was delivered sans door, but it is now on its way. And after all that, I don't even have a decent pic yet! Here I forgot to close the shower door, and the colour balance in this makes it look like the old/wrong tiles are still laid! But anyway, here is our (for all intents and purposes) finished bathroom. I'll post better pics once I take them. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Next is floors. Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 6May 28, 2010 2:50 pm Thanks for sharing. It nice to see some reno threads for a change (sorry new home builders! ) Renovation Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=38489 Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 7May 28, 2010 3:02 pm I agree Biff! Fantastic job! God those shelves were manky Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 8May 28, 2010 3:43 pm Coming up a treat! Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 9May 28, 2010 8:24 pm looking good, cant wait to see what you do with the kitchen space. Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 10May 29, 2010 7:41 am Congratulations. Those yellow tiles on the shower floor would have done my head in Building the Grandview 36 with M$tric0n Plans approved 15/4/2010 Site start date 21/5/2010 Our build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32825&p=461266#p461266 Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 11May 29, 2010 7:57 am Great work. I love renovation threads as my OH and I are slowly renovating our home. It must have been so satisfying throwing those old cupboards out. I 'm looking forward to more pictures. Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 12May 29, 2010 10:22 am wow what a fantastic transformation i love renovation pics and the amazing 'before' and 'after' photos. there are some great reno's showcased on here....i think i love the before and after photos more than building ones as its about the transformation of how something so run down can be magically transformed. you have done a great job with your colour selections for the bathroom it looks lovley Kylie handover happened 15/6/09...love living on an acre but still so much to do! Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 13May 29, 2010 12:14 pm wow - that bathroom is fantastic - very contemporary!! A thankful person is a happy person. [/color]My hobby design blog: http://aviewondesign.blogspot.com/ Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 14May 29, 2010 12:18 pm kyiee81 wow what a fantastic transformation i love renovation pics and the amazing 'before' and 'after' photos. there are some great reno's showcased on here....i think i love the before and after photos more than building ones as its about the transformation of how something so run down can be magically transformed. you have done a great job with your colour selections for the bathroom it looks lovley I was thinking exactly the same thing! Great reno, Rae, keep the pics coming. Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 15May 29, 2010 12:57 pm Thanks so much for the comments, everyone. Good to know others think it looks ok! I'm actually really pleased with the bathroom - a fairly clean look but (hopefully) still liveable. The concrete floors in the rest of the apartment were ground and polished this week and while we can't walk on them for a couple of days yet, from what I've seen so far it looks fabulous. It's slightly less grey than it appeared to be during the polishing process; the tone is a little more "earthy". Next, we need to confirm kitchen colours early next week, and hopefully that will be in by the end of June. The cupboards, blinds and aircons will go in, and we will re-screen some windows and replace rollers in slinding doors & windows. Some touch-up painting, new lights & fans, some minor carpentry & plastering, and that should be it. Even so, we'll be lucky to have it advertised by early July, I guess. The whole thing has been a great experience and I can't wait to reno a place I'm actually going to live in. Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 17May 31, 2010 12:40 am I still don't have great pictures of the finished product, but I thought I'd do a post about our floors anyway. Originally, there was carpet throughout the bedrooms and lounge, and vinyl in the kitchen. As I mentioned above, after water damage ruined the carpets in the lounge room, the last tenant ripped up the carpets and painted the bare concrete (and bits of the walls here and there!) with terracotta-ish orange paint. Sigh. In order to cover the orange paint, we were going to have to have a basic grind done, so that tiles or lino/vinyl could then be laid. We decided to go one step further and have the concrete polished. I originally received a quote of less than $2000 for this to be done, which is with them suggesting we could apply the final coating ourselves, to save labour costs. I didn't think a coating was required, but figured they were just trying to help us maintain it. When I started researching what sort of coating we should be buying (which is when I came across HomeOne, yay!) I realised that they were talking about a grind-and-coat procedure, rather than true polishing. We didn't want to have to re-apply any coatings in a few years so we tried to contact the original quote company to check if they did true polishing as well. They proved quite difficult to get in contact with (we called several times, left messages, even at one point set up a meeting, but they almost never returned calls and didn't show at the arranged time) so we got another quote elsewhere and ended up going with the second company. We pulled up the carpets in the bedrooms and ground off the heads of any remaining nails. We pulled up the cupboard tracks also, so they could easily polish right into the cupboards. There was absolutely nothing left on the floor for them to negotiate around, bar this weird services pipe that comes up through through the slab in our kitchen area (and goes up to the above units). This is what the floors looked like before the grinding/polishing started: Main bedroom Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ 2nd bedroom Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Lounge/kitchen (weird pipe thing is on the RHS) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ First they filled the holes /dents in the concrete where the tenant had pulled out nails rather than grind them off (and had therefore pulled out bits of concrete as well). They then ground off the orange paint and filled any cracks. At that stage it looked really grey! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The final result is great - so shiny! The finish is just even more glassy than I expected. The colour is very hard to capture, and none of these photos are accurate in that regard. Here is the kitchen (from the open plan lounge) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And the 2nd bedroom Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It's not as grey as the second pic, but not as brown as the first pic, either. I'll try and capture a more accurate colour pic in the next week or so. I can't tell you how cool it is to see the floors done - it's starting to feel more like a half-finished apartment and less like a construction site! Re: Rae's apartment reno pics 19May 31, 2010 6:35 am was it more expensive than the $2k quoted from the other company? it looks fab... you sound so happy! Hello It is good to have a planned bathroom reno to suit your budget and design, living for 10 years I think you need a bathtub 4 10353 Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 8766 The only thing to add to these comments is that where possible it's always good to try and work with people than just say "no" because you can. Having someone… 4 17107 |