Episode 5 of web series… now in HD!

A little different to past episodes 🙂

Timelines, budgets… and missing them

So, in the real Grand Designs show, we’re constantly shown families who present a timeframe and a budget at the start of the show that Kevin McCloud scoffs at and and says they’ll never be able to meet. We, nod sagely and agree that there is no way that these people are ever going to meet those completely unrealistic goals, and then congratulate our wisdom when it turns out to be true.

But of course, we’d never do that ourselves would we?

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Episode 4 of the web series

Look Floorboards and plasterwork and paint, oh my!

All quiet on the Western front? Hardly!

Sorry for the lack of posts, it has got to that stage of the project where I’m working until stupidly late every night trying to get things ready for the tradies, or for the most part, painting… so getting stuff up onto the site has had to fall off a bit.

Not to fear though, there are videos and photos galore to share, they just need to be put up here with adequate explanations 🙂

What has happened since the last post? Glad you asked…

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Episode 2 of the Web Series

A bit longer this time, but giving a rundown of what we’re planning on doing, and showing what had been done by the first weekend.

Progress…

So, yesterday we had big family help. Belinda’s mum took Eibhlin for the day (she really is the most productivity sapping member of the family), and Belinda’s Dad & his partner (Helen, or Nanna Hutch to the kids) came and put in a huge effort painting.

Painted skirting boards

Painted skirting boards

So, thanks to all the help we now have the ceiling on three rooms and a hall painted and ALL the 130m of skirting boards done, 2 coats and all! So that is nice to have got a start on the painting as it’s a pretty huge task. Unfortunately, while there is a lot more to paint, not that much more can be done until the carpentry and plastering is done… which, fingers well and truly crossed, starts this week. (If not then there’s going to be cascade delay from that onto the flooring, and that would be bad.) (more…)

Prepping walls for painting

So… we’re painting the entire interior of the house, did I mention that? Putting a nicer colour palette on a house can make a huge difference for quite a small outlay. Paint for the entire house has cost us roughly $600, and that’s using good Dulux Wash & Wear stuff as we’ll be buggered if we’re going to have a wall ruined by one of the kids leaving a hand print on it or something equally mischievous.

Now, you could pay someone to then do the painting, but that costs thousands of dollars. If you have that money, all well and good, but we don’t… so it’s a job that’s fallen to us plus friends/family to do ourselves. Painting is not as easy as just covering a roller in paint and going to town, there are a number of steps to get a good result, and first of those is cleaning the walls.

You may look at the walls in a house and think ‘hey, they look pretty clean as is, surely paint will just go over that and it’ll all be good to go’, and you may be right for the most part…

However, what about portions of walls like this?

Loungeroom corner before clean

Loungeroom corner before cleaning

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