| Episode 4 - Campbell Family |
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 After the birth of our first child in October 2008, it quickly became apparent that the now three of us (Sian, Ben and myself) living in a unit, with two cats and a fish tank, wasn’t much fun – a massive lack of space both indoor and out was driving us crazy, and so we made the decision to move. The search for a larger home began in March 2009, and we quickly realized with a budget of just $400k, unless we bought a unit, we could not afford to stay on the Northern Beaches (where we were currently living) so we began to look at alternatives. It quickly became apparent, to purchase a house within our budget, we needed to look at options a little further from Sydney. Our choices were to head South, West or North. With our love for the coastal lifestyle, the Central Coast was the perfect fit. After 8 months of searching and looking at countless properties, we were emotionally and physically reaching breaking point. Even having made the decision to move to the Coast, we were struggling to find a house that felt like it could be our home. It appeared to get the type of house we wanted, we would need at least an extra $40-50k, and unfortunately that wasn’t an option -renovation was suddenly on the agenda! In November 2009, (out of sheer desperation!) we decided to visit a house that we had seen advertised for a while, but had never had the inclination to visit (the photos on the web were pretty uninspiring.) The location was great, close to an excellent school, public transport and the F3, plus it had an amazing view, but the house itself was pretty rundown and needed some major work done to rejuvenate it. Somehow -and I am still not quite sure how it happened exactly - Sian and I decided this house was “the one”. We put in a offer, and after a bit of negotiation the house was ours – we picked up the keys on the 15th of December. Once we were in, it quickly came apparent that we had a huge job ahead of us – every room needed to be stripped back to nothing and remodeled. The Kitchen had major water damage and had to be ripped out, the old carpet and lino needed to come up and be replaced, the bathroom was in a serious state of disrepair and needed to be completely redone, a wall needed to be removed to increase the tiny living area, a new deck needed to be built, everything needed painting, the list goes on… Our budget was $20-25k and our initial timeline for completion was 8 weeks! Having never had any experience renovating before, with hindsight I suppose I should have been a little daunted with the task at hand. Perhaps naively, all I was thinking at the time was how hard can it be? (Which quickly became my catch-cry for the duration of the renovation). … The internet was my best friend, and taught me everything I needed to do the job, surely… We started as soon as we were in – initially I took 2 weeks annual leave over Christmas, and thought that would be ample time to get most of the renovation done, ha ha! We were nowhere near completion after the two week period, but we had made a good start none the less. Once I was back working full time (at Getty Images) despite my managers much appreciated flexibility, I was limited to evenings and weekends, so everything moved a great deal slower. First job on the list was the removal of a wall – we decided to sacrifice a bedroom to open up the tiny living area, taking the property from 4 bedrooms to 3. Our building inspector had checked that the wall wasn’t structural, so we started the job… Initially we (sorry, I should say ‘I’ as my granddad warned me otherwise!) expected to the wall demolished in a couple of days, however, as with everything else we have done, it wasn’t as straightforward as anticipated. The plasterboard came off fairly easily, but underneath was lurking a solid steel frame. Out came the angle grinder, and 3 days, 6 blades, much sweat and cursing later, the frames were out! The wall was gone. And, and a massive mess was left behind… The cleanup began in earnest the next day. Recycling old plasterboard, cornice and steel, I began the arduous process of filling in the old door, and patching up the walls where the old wardrobe was, and gluing the recycled cornice in place. By the end of week 2, we were finally ready to start laying the floor. After many hours of internet research, and visiting various retailers and flooring specialists, we decided on laying a solid hardwood ‘secret nail’ tongue and groove floor. Installation costs aside, it was actually cheaper to go with the solid floor than the easy install lock-in place pre-finished wooden floors. Solid hardwood tongue and groove floors are more durable and last longer. You also have the flexibility of sanding the floor a number of times to restore it over the years, and choosing your desired finish. Installing the flooring was the tricky part, however we were lucky enough to find a flooring specialist (Nick from Impact Timber flooring in Kariong) that gave us some invaluable advice on laying timber floors. With the right tools (a secret nail gun and air compressor), proper planning, research and a fair bit of time, laying the floor is not beyond the abilities of most, but polishing is something that is best left to the experts if you want a high quality finish. Before laying the floor, I had to remove the old kitchen, and hire a floor sander and sand back the entire area so the glue would stick to it and the subfloor was as level as possible. Once this was done, laying the floor took 6 full days with 2 of us going none stop (My Granddad and friend Andrew Mackinnon saved my bacon here!) Despite a few hiccups along the way (including one not so secret nail in the top of one of the boards where I slipped with the gun!) we finally had the floor in place in late January, and called in Nick from Impact Timber Flooring to polish the floor. Once the floor was in, we put in new skirting boards and started painting in earnest. We decided (sorry Sian decided) we should paint the whole house in a marginally off white color called Princess Bling of all things (I probably shouldn’t have disclosed that here, as I am sure I will never live it down with my friends). We went with white as it is a very neutral color, and makes the most of natural light coming into the house to make the rooms feel a lot bigger – great in theory, but when painting over black and dark red, it takes a while to achieve. Painting and laying the floor again took way longer than I had anticipated, (a recurring theme throughout this whole renovation,) and despite not yet having a kitchen by the middle of Feb we finally had the house in a position where we could just about move in. Again more dramas with this process, as the removalist we hired didn’t turn up! So, at the last minute we had to hire a truck and move everything ourselves. The move added a couple of days to the time line unexpectedly, and we had boxes everywhere, but finally we were in, although it took us several weeks just to unpack boxes and tidy up. In late February 2010, our kitchen cabinets and appliances finally arrived, and were installed the following week by the supplier. An electrician came to install our new down lights. Things were finally starting to come together. Next on this list was the bathroom, and in mid March, I began by tearing out all of the old timber off the walls and side of the bath, and ripping off the cornice. It was then time to get the original bath out, which believe me was far easier said than done. For some reason, it was recessed into the wall so the only way to get the bath out was to bring back the angle grinder (it was made of steel) and cut it up into pieces that could then be wrenched out of the wall. It turned out to be quite a painful process, as the enamel coating on the bath ‘pinged’ off when the metal was distorted, showering the room in tiny little, extra sharp shard of enamel, a number of which found themselves imbedded in my arms. Once the old bathroom (all but the shower) was removed, it was time for the plumber to go to work, to move the old pipes and set up the new taps for the Shower / Bath. Once done, my (non-existent) woodworking skills were put to use to build a wooden frame to support the new bath; luckily it will never be seen by anyone once the tiles are in! Finally we fixed up the cracked floor, waterproofed, and all that is left now is the tiling! Last week (April now!) my good friend Andrew Mackinnon (AKA ‘Stone Man Macca’) cut, polished and installed our beautiful Essa Stone Bench tops and the kitchen is finally finished – he has done a great job, and I owe him many weekends of work (apparently, in a couple of weeks, I will be digging a trench at his house, while he is lying in a hammock, drinking beer that I brought him to thank him for his help!) Throughout this entire renovation, with all the late nights of backbreaking work and time spent away from the family, I have often wondered what the hell I was thinking in undertaking this project. It has put massive stress on all involved, and I have called in favors from friends that will take me many beers, and years to repay, but now and the finish line is in sight, and I am thoroughly chuffed with the way things are coming together, and more importantly, so is Sian! The biggest lesson I have learnt? In estimating how long things will take, take the number of days you are thinking, then double it, and leave another couple of days as contingency, because even when things are going smoothly, something always unexpected pops up and bites you in the ass. Would I do it again? In a bloody heartbeat, after all, how hard can it be?
Daniel Campbell |
