Since the last Renovation Diary update, things have progressed rapidly. Dismantling the old kitchens and hacking the walls took more than a week, but we’re on track. Hats off to the guys. Demolishing brick and mortar is not for the faint hearted.
We did hit a few speed bumps though.
That’s the thing about old houses. As we tore down, more and more problems cropped up. (Just know that when I say we, I don’t mean ‘me’ because I didn’t sledge hammer anything, but I mean the awesome team from Granbuilt Construction.)
We found out the water damage in the ground floor bathroom did not originate from said bathroom but from the ventilation pipe. The vent pipe goes through the ground floor bathroom to the first floor bathroom and all the way to the roof. Somehow water found a way down. I panicked a bit because when he was explaining the issue to me, all I could hear was an old Abba soundtrack.
Fortunately, the guys at Granbuilt were able to solve it without me needing to sell my uterus. Then, just when I thought I could breathe easy, we had the strange case of waste water not flowing into the sewer. That stinks, literally. We had to lay new pipes and we’re back in the flow.
You can’t help it when it comes to old houses. If there’s anything I’ve learnt, it’s you need a good contractor to help you troubleshoot on the fly. And make sure you have buffer in your renovation plan for way unforeseen stuff.
The old tiles in the kitchen, dining and bathrooms are also out. The much too low plaster ceiling is out too. And oh yeah, after we removed the plaster ceiling, I was horrified to see the ceiling beams at different levels. You may have caught a glimpse of them if you followed my Instagram Stories. I’m not quite sure how to fix this yet. Most likely I’ll expose them and learn to love irregularities.
At this point, we’re laying new cables for lights, sockets and smoothing the walls.
Renovation Plan – Layout
Okay, now let’s talk about the fun stuff. I promised you in my earlier post that I’ll share the renovation plan for the house. So here goes.
This is the original layout for the ground floor. I’m not altering much of the first floor except the master bathroom, which I’ll share another day.
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View the entire Renovation Diary series.
Jules is the author of IKEAHackers.net: 25 Biggest and Best Projects".
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