We started our renovation blog when we purchased our second house in Townsville, Queensland, Australia back in 2005.
Our house is an old traditional miners cottage that was built in about 1870 in the area around Charters Towers, in Outback Queensland, Australia. It was moved to Townsville around the 1930's to it's current location.
The house has seen a lot of renovations over the years, including our current renovations. The renovations that we have undertaken include:
- Raising and restumping the house
- Enclosing under the house
- Adding a garage
- Making an outdoor entertaining area
- Adding window hoods
- Adding Air Conditioning to the House
- Replacing the Bathroom
- New Driveway
- and lots more ...
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Recent posts
Since moving back to Australia I have noticed a huge trend of homes installing home solar power systems. As it turns out 10% of homes actually have solar power systems installed, and they are producing about 1% of the nation’s power. At the end of 2012 the rebate from the Australian government dropped by half of what it was. The funny thing is though that the price of systems has not changed significantly based on the flyers that I had from December 2012 and one from March 2013. One benefit of having solar power is the electricity feed in tariff. Here in South Australia there are two feed in tariffs that you can receive; one from the government and one from your energy retailer...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 3 weeks 3 days ago.
Injuries suffered during DIY renovations and repairs is becoming increasingly common, especially in connection with sedentary life styles. There are a few things that we can do however to lower the chance of injury. After spending a week on crutches after I pulled my iliopsoas / hip flexor I started thinking about how common DIY injuries are and what I could do to prevent them in the future … Below are three simple things that you can do to help prevent injuries during DIY projects: Stretch before starting your work Get help when needed Don’t work beyond your ability Links from the podcast: Dangers in Faulty Foil Insulation Installations Sitting is the New Smoking How to stretch the Iliopsoas...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 10 weeks 2 days ago.
It’s a bit strange to find one of our old houses on-line and up for rent, but my wife found our old Queenslander in Townsville up for rent. It was up for rent for $650 per week, which is quite a bit really! The inside of the house looks pretty much the same. They actually used some of the photos from when we sold our house for the online advertisement for renting our house this time. That was kind of weird … Here are some photos of the backyard and the rear deck...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 16 weeks 2 hours ago.
Like many issues that we have come up with during our home improvements there seems to be no clear cut “correct” way to do this. A lot of it comes down to personal preference. When the kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities were installed in our house they were installed first, and then the flooring was installed. While this is a common way to do it, there are some disadvantages that are inherent to this type of cabinet and tile installation. In our kitchen the dishwasher was installed in a cabinet space that used to be a cupboard. Because it was not tiled under the cabinet you can see the concrete sub-floor under the dishwasher...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 16 weeks 1 day ago.
Which is right, and which do you prefer? We discuss this in the latest Renovate Australia podcast … Builders prefer to do the baseboards first and then bring the tile right up to the tile. Home-owners generally prefer the look of doing the tile first and then installing the baseboard trim. If it is installed with the tile up to the baseboard trim then you should leave about a 1/8″ gap that you should fill will caulking...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 17 weeks 17 hours ago.
Now that we are back in Australia and starting to renovate, maintain, repair, and decorate our new house in Adelaide I think it’s time to start a new podcast! We will see where this goes but the plan is to engage in more conversations, seek and give advice, and have some fun as we settle and work on our new house. Music is “Do What You Can” by Lee Rosevere...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 18 weeks 8 hours ago.
Having animal heads on the wall is a Canadian tradition. Unfortunately though I have a feeling that Australia Customs and Quarantine wouldn’t allow stuffed animal heads into the country… A very cool option that I saw today was a wooden animal head. I think that the wooden animal head here is an elk, but either way I think it looks pretty cool. Not sure I could talk my wife into it though … To see the full post that I found this cool mounted wooden animal head at check out Apartment Therapy – Joe & Brad’s Small Space with Big Style...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 19 weeks 10 hours ago.
In Canada we had our heating ducts cleaned once every two years when we had our furnace and humidifier serviced. Now that we are looking to purchase a house in Australia that has central air conditioning we are having to consider if we should be cleaning these ducts as well … The duct work in Canada was smooth, solid duct work like in the photo above. The duct work that is connected to the central air conditioner here in Australia however is not smooth or solid, it is flexible and corrugated. Of course the companies doing duct cleaning will recommend that you get them cleaned at regular and reoccurring intervals, but even the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that there is no scientific proof that getting your ducts cleaned actually helps with air quality...
read more at Renovate Australia Posted 24 weeks 4 days ago.