Renovations

It’s been a long slow road with the renovations. The building permit finally came through from the council giving me the go ahead. I decided on the team of tradies with Glenn the builder and some of his team. I met Glenn while he was working on the house two doors up from mum’s place. He is a very easy going man with a good sense of humour which I appreciate.

The first thing Glenn started on was the northern window opening. The ordered window would take three weeks before it was delivered but in the meantime the outer bricks were removed. One of my biggest challenges, with the renovations, was to find matching bricks for the external walls. In my final plans I decided to brick up the laundry door and window which would give more room for the kitchen and internal laundry, this called for nearly 200 of the original coloured brick. The bricks that were removed for the window were the start. I had tried to buy the bricks and had rung various places around Perth without finding them. It seemed they were no longer made and there were none at the salvage yards.

Out came my protective glasses, gloves, a mask and scarf to help keep out the cement dust as I busied myself first chipping of the old tiles in the bathroom, toilet and kitchen getting things ready for the tiler. Then also cleaning up the old bricks. I even needed to jackhammer the floor in the bathroom and much of the old laundry floor leavening it out to the height of the kitchen floor.

During this time my sister, Jenny’s friends stayed a few nights at mum’s. As I was showing them around the unit and talking about the challenge I had to find more bricks, Rod pointed out the brick pillars holding up the pagoda. Here were another possibly 50 bricks! Praise the Lord! Cleaning them was definitely another challenge as the mortar between wasn’t as soft or as easy to remove as those from the window. Then one day at church I also noticed the old building was built of the same brick as mine and asked if there were any spare. There weren’t but there was a similar brick which I was able to use. Praise the Lord, I now had enough!

Jen also came down from Broome for a quick visit which we all enjoyed. Kath had been down the week before passing through having just lost her job with the mining company. Last visit Kath bought Mum a black and while 500 piece jigsaw puzzle which between them and with a little of my help it was finished. Mum’s job was then to colour it in. It’s lovely having sisters pass through even if it’s just for a short time each visit.

My friend Lorna, from church, has been a wonderful help. She has accompanied me on all my shopping sprees. We have looked at so many tiling, flooring, plumbing, bathroom and kitchen displays trying to decide what I wanted in the unit. Slowly all the pieces fell into place and final decisions were made and paid for. I was overwhelmed and delighted with the leading of the Lord and His provision with discounts, end of year sales and warehouse closures. I certainly was lead to many great deals.

Things began to be delivered to the unit. The walls were now down inside and a new one erected. I had ripped up the carpet but kept it so as to cover my new kitchen cabinets which were all flat packs from Masters. The boxes took up most of the old lounge room.

On the day the tiles for the bathroom where to be delivered I was called by the company to be told that they only had 17sqm instead of the 20sqm I had ordered. I wasn’t impressed as you can imagine. Lorna and I returned to the store to see what else they had. I had been promised a different tile for the same price. I was really disappointed as I loved the tile I had ordered.   I had purchased them at a greatly reduced price because there wasn’t many left. It was so hard choosing another tile. I eventually made a discussion but regrettable I really don’t like them and should have taken the original tiles and just added a different one to make a feature wall in the shower were it couldn’t be seen. Never mind it is as it is and the new ones are now laid and although much darker they look ok.

There was another little hitch which fortunately was easily fixed. The builder had made the new wall 70mm to short. You may say that’s not much but when you have planned the kitchen to fit perfectly into the space 70mm meant that it would jut out into the door space!

I don’t know how many times I had planned and replanned the kitchen. Firstly the laundry was on the wall behind the back door then we decided to block in the backdoor which left the perfect large corner for a corner pantry. With this in place the kitchen had another reshuffle. I like top load washing machines but this made it difficult to fit into a kitchen come laundry area. It wouldn’t fit under the benchtop like a front loader. The other thing I was told was because the kitchen isn’t a wet area if the washing machine was in the kitchen and it overflowed the water damage to the kitchen cabinets would not be covered by insurance! hhmmmmm a new challenge. Where do I put the washing machine then? The only place I could think of was the bathroom that was the only wet area in the house. But here we also faced another obstacle, the pipes were too small for the washing machine run off water! All bar one plumber kept telling me the problem, I knew the problem I wanted to know the solution. I couldn’t put the machine outside so it had to be in the bathroom! Fortunately there was a simple solution, dig up the cement floor so that a larger pipe could join the existing large pipe which was in the middle of the floor. I had previously asked why we couldn’t use the larger drain in the middle, this was the only guy who said it could be done by adding a new pipe to run into the original. Thank you! That’s why I employ the professionals, they are the ones who should be able to solve the problem for you!

So now I could complete the kitchen plan. I included another tall cabined for the laundry things such as brooms and ironing board. Then there was the choosing of a sink, oven, cook top, benchtop and splashback. Lorna accompanied me to many familiar electrical and whitegoods stores looking at makes and price. I then booked a day at Masters for a kitchen consultant to go through the proposed plan. Lorna joined me and together with Caddy, the Masters kitchen consultant, we finalised my ideas. It has been a very long process. While we were there, Lorna and I took a look around the kitchen appliances and saw there were ovens and cook tops of high quality on special so I decided instead of buying elsewhere and having to pay for delivery I might as well get it all delivered from one store all at one. And what’s more they were well known high end brands at a very low cost. I was very happy with my purchases.

The only thing I hadn’t found was a bathroom wall vanity. Many looked cheap and nasty or were made of tin. Lorna finally spotted one at Ikea for a very good price which fitted very well with the wooden vanity with porcelain top with sink. My nephew’s wife, Nezka and I picked it up from Ikea with her larger car as she also wanted to purchase an armchair.   Now that was a funny day. I had totally forgotten that Masters was to deliver their truck load that morning and had missed a call. Thinking it was them, I called Masters. Caddy was able to tell me they had loaded it onto the wrong truck and it wouldn’t be coming till the next day. What a relief. In the meantime I had tried to arrange for someone to stay at the unit while I dropped Nezka home and pick up my sisters car. I had parked at Nezka’s place swapped car to go shopping. Someone from church, which is just down the road, volunteered to stay at the unit. I left her with my sister’s car keys when I took Nezka home. When we reached Nezka’s place I realised I didn’t have the car keys, I had left them behind! We laughed. Quickly unloading her armchair she drove me back to the unit.

Nezka has also been a great help in putting some of the flat packs together. It was rather complicated as the pictures were not the same as the parts we were working with. Eventually after calling Masters we work things out and with my new battery run drill/screwdriver we had the cabinets come together quite quickly.

Then I hit another challenge over the oven tower. The original tower when I measured it out on the wall would have put the base of the microwave about chin height! That to me was far too dangerous especially when taking out hot liquids. Another call to Caddy who then emailed me an altered version. If we used only two large draws instead of the three at the base of the tower, it would lower it by 180mm which would make it much safer. The problem now was I needed to make new holes and work out where the oven and microwave would now go. And what would I do with the 177mm draw which was now above the microwave. This I decided could instead be made into a small flap opening cupboard. My builder came to the rescue saying he could help out with the measurements for the holes. He could also help me install them once they were constructed.

Every step of the way I have seen the hand of the Lord guiding and providing for me. I’m truly blessed!

Photos: 1. Banksia in the bush   2. Precious bricks after cleaning   3. Mum paining her jigsaw   4. Me with new internal wall after some walls have been removed   5. Kitchen with cabinets removed before the walls came down   6. Nezka helping with cabinets   7. Caddy and Lorna collecting Masters Kitchen appliances

Prayer & Praise Points:
Praise the Lord for His provision, leading, guidance and all the reduced prices for the items I needed to buy for the renovations.

Praise Him for a wonderful time with both Jen and Kath on their short visits.

Praise the Lord for all my supportive friends and prayer partners. I really do appreciate you all.

Please continue to praise Him for His protection, provision and Mum’s and my general good health. Both of us have suffered heavy chest colds mine seems to be lingering longer and hit me very hard putting me to bed for two days.

Praise the Lord for His favour with all the tradies and for choosing the builder who is most flexible and obliging. Helping out in more ways than expected.

Thank you for your continual prayers for Mum especially with accepting some of the things that come with age. Please pray she stays safe on the road.