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
The door to our attached garage goes directly into our laundry room. It’s a decent size room so we are looking at making better use of the room by also using it as a family mudroom. We already have a decent size shoe rack in the laundry room since it is our most used entrance to the house (post to follow), so now we are looking at adding a mudroom bench and hooks. Since there are five of us we will be building in five different sections and cubby holes in the bench. The plan is to build the mudroom bench against the wall and then add the wainscotting look to the wall above it. At the moment we are still unsure about what we want to do above the hooks....read more
Posted 2 weeks 2 days ago.
On one of my previous posts about our Blueway Air Conditioner I have had quite a few people ask me about the error codes that people come across with the unit. Although we never had a problem with our Blueway air conditioner quite a few other people seem to have experienced problems. Here is the list of the error codes: E2 - Indoor temperature sensor failure E3 – Indoor pipe temperature sensor failure E4 – Outdoor unit abnormality failure E5 – Indoor fan motor failure df – Unit Defrosting I hope that helps the people who are needing them…...read more
Posted 2 weeks 4 days ago.
If you are looking for a house for removal in Australia there are a few places you can go. I remember in Townsville there was actually a lot where they had a number of old houses for sale, but it was quite hit and miss with what was available, and there was never really all that great of a selection. You can always try looking on ebay, but the selection there is pretty pathetic at the moment with only five houses currently listed. The best place that I have found where you can find a house for removal in Australia is the private selling listings over at Drake Homes. There are over 50 homes currently listed for sale on the site from all over Australia....read more
Posted 16 weeks 2 days ago.
I was watching an episode of Holmes Inspection and Mike Holmes had a very easy and quick way to check on the insulation and heat loss in your roof in the winter. Go outside the morning after a heavy snow fall. The snow fall has to be sufficient to leave snow on the roofs in your neighbourhood for this test to work. Have a look at the roofs in your area to see how much snow is on the roof. If you see that you have had more snow melt off your roof than your neighbours then it is probably a safe bet that you have increased heat loss through your roof. This could be because of a lack of insulation, insufficient ventilation, or any other number of causes....read more
Posted 16 weeks 5 days ago.
After a few years of putting up with a smelly house every time I cook we finally decided to install an exhausted range hood. As I wrote in our last post, the challenge is that the range hood is installed on in internal half wall. I managed to get some help last weekend to get the range hood installed and it turned out really well, with a few surprises and unexpected twists like always. My original plan was to simply take the doors off the cupboards and then use a 7″ hole saw to drill through the sides of the cupboards. Some of the challenges that we had are that we could not get a 7″ hole saw as no where that I could find actually rented them and I didn’t want to spend $70+ to buy one....read more
Posted 17 weeks 5 days ago.
Our existing range hood is really quite useless. It is a recirculating range hood, with two-low power settings and a charcoal filter that doesn’t seem to actually filter anything, even when the filter is new. A minor complaint is that it is the old “almond” colour that our appliances used to be in the kitchen, before we started having to replace them. It’s easy to understand why the builder put in a recirculating range hood. The oven is on an interior wall, which is actually only a half wall since our main living area has a cathedral ceiling. Venting the range hood out an exterior wall is going to be a challenge. Despite the challenges we have decided to go ahead and vent a new kitchen range hood out the exterior wall....read more
Posted 20 weeks 1 day ago.
Low Energy Supplies and Services is still offering free home energy consultations to people around Ballarat, Victoria or in Adelaide, South Australia. With your free booking they will send a consultant to your house to work out what you need to do to increase your energy efficiency. They will look at how you can save money in three different areas: Power Gas Water In addition to telling you how you can save money in those three areas they will also supply you with free energy-saving light bulbs and water-saving shower heads. They will also install them all for free. The free consultations can be found here: Ballarat Save and Raise Live Green – Adelaide...read more
Posted 20 weeks 5 days ago.
Why: Because he has a medical condition that requires one and a half hours of sitting on a toilet each time he has his treatment session. Budget: Nil… due to the cost of his medical supplies, which of course take priority. Meet Caleb… our 8 year old, red headed, sports loving, energy filled, tender hearted, witty humoured and reading enthusiast son. Caleb has had a long term health condition since infancy that this past March saw him admitted to our local children’s hospital for an insertion of a Cecostomy tube. Caleb’s bowels do not function as they should. The Cecostomy tube (a tube placed directly into his cecum – large intestine (via his abdomen), allows us to administer medicine to flush his bowels empty… something he cannot do by himself....read more
Posted 24 weeks 6 days ago.