Modernising an Old Girl - We won a Heritage Award!

It all looks amazing! I love it so much!

A house only becomes a home once there are people in it and this week we finally get to call our place a Home again.

Sunday night was the first night in. Moving again was no less annoying than moving out and we still have boxes of stuff piled around the place. (Finding a new spot for all your "junk" again does take time)

Anyway main thing is we are in. I found this week a bit frustrating as now the family are all in the routine of getting up and at it by 5 am just doesn't work any more and my productive work time has really reduced. That said it's also been nice to sleep in a bit and just ease off the throttle for a while.

There aren't a massive amount of things to do and the biggest would be landscaping the back yard and getting the Built in BBQ sorted. (Which I hope to kick off next week) Otherwise lots of little things I have on my list to tidy up but nothing causing us too much trouble.

It's been fun sharing my journey on here for the last 18 months or so. Thanks to all those who have taken an interest. I hope you found my ramblings a bit light hearted and a bit of fun. I've had a fantastic time building our family home and wouldn't change a minute of the journey. (Well maybe one minute where I drilled through my thumb, but otherwise....)

Other than that it's been fun, challenging, stimulating but most of all extremely rewarding knowing we've created a place for our kids to grow up in for the next 20 years.

So now its all done a few more pics. I may post some more later when I get a decent camera but for now the Phone camera will have to do.


Back deck Lining boards finished properly and ceiling fans in.



From the Kitchen looking out through the servery to the pool area



Dining room ceiling and lights. All the Pendant lights we procurred form various places. Ebay, Gumtree etc. All old orginal glasses and we just purchased new rod sets to hang them from


Kitchen sink with Window acting as a splash back behind it. These are Hopper windows so open from the top. Handy if you ever have a Kitchen full of smoke.


Main loungeroom area.


Hallway lights and ceiling. A bit of a UFO theme with these shades


Main loungeroom ceiling and pendant lights


Looking into the back Veranda area. On the right my BBQ Cabinets and hood. Just need to get the stone benchtops on and plumbing connected up.


Same area from across the pool this time



Looking into the Kitchen this time across the servery


Night-time looking in from the Rear Veranda



Front of the house lit up . (Camera not the best in the dark) but gives an idea. She looks pretty good for an "Old Girl" Still playing with where best to place the lights but finishes it off nicely.

Congratulations a stunning renovation well planned and loved.
Many years of happiness in your home

love every bit of your house

Thanks all for the nice comments.



The walls in the Kitchen area are painted "Dulux - Limed White" We had a Dulux colour consultant come and help with colour selection and for what it costs (Only a couple of hundred) Well worth it



Hi Stewie - Actually had to do a few things to get this to work. I thought it would just be as you say rebate it in but it wasn't so easy to do.
We have timber frames throughout so after chatting to my joiner on the running system he used I got him to make the bottom sill of this window with the bottom runner channel / guide sitting proud of the timber by 20mm. So when the stone went on it would butt up to either side of the bottom guide rail and sit on top of the timber underneath. The Sill was really just a thin 20mm piece which held the runner and the frame square.

I then had to make up a Steel frame that was welded to 2 columns wither side of the servery for the stone to rest on and allow me to get the width I wanted. In my case I was lucky those columns where there as otherwise I would have had nothing to attach to. Reason for those was when I spoke to the stone people basically the rule of thumb is stone can only cantilever 1/3rd over an edge. So if you have a support say for a island bench 600 wide you can cantilever over the edge 300mm. As I only had a single leaf brick wall either side I had 90mm to rest on so a 45mm overhand wasn't quite going to be as I had planned (Hence the steel frame idea).
The other thing was that frame had to be rigid as the stone guys told me in no uncertain terms stone doesnt like to bend, and if you leant on something that could flex....Good night nice piece of stone

Hope that makes sense, if you want I can PM you a few Sketches of what I did.