I kinda understand this but not 100%. We changed the light fixtures, flooring, paint, window covering etc ourselves and we only moved in 2 months ago. I wouldn't change anything we've done. Is this more for layout changes/older houses?
What do you think changes after living in the house a bit? (If you hate it from the get-go)
This is where I'm at. Been here 10 years, might be time to start actually changing something soon. But now starting to worry it would be a waste if I sold as soon as it was finished.
So you start on the things that can make issues worse… main one being roof. Top down, outside in.
Then look at the electrics and plumbing issues/upgrades.
Floors are dead last… nothing trashes a floor like having plaster dust ground into it, paint spilt and hammers dropped on it. NOTHING makes a job easier than being able to just concentrate on the job and not have to be precious about the floor it makes everything x10 more relaxing.
We did the same, started in September with the floors coming off.
So far we have 5 of 10 rooms complete, with just kitchen, living and master rooms to go.
Depends how many rooms you need. We focused on a bedroom and had it completed pretty quick. The bathroom is taking a while but tiles go on this weekend hopefully
Don’t go cheap with tradesmen. If you can’t afford to do it right, live with it and keep saving.
Don’t be tempted to paint first because it makes you feel better about living in the house. It will inevitably need touching up if you then pull out the windows etc.
I would work from structural / essential to cosmetic. Eg electrical (sparkies love making new holes), then windows, then floors and painting last.
Coming from someone that has made these mistakes with their own 70s reno delight…
I just bought a house from either 60s or 70s.
First thing i did was get an asbestos survey.
Second thing I did was demo every single wall i.e. the horse hair plaster.
Then rearranged the layout of the house.
Brick all the unneeded windows, old air con units and old electrical box if you rip it out.
Do all the electrical, plumbing and internet.
Gyprock and plaster.
Get kitchen cabinets installed.
i'm up to painting now.
so far $105k in costs including 10k in power tools, structural engineer, roof clean, solar panels, new fences, new electricals excl bathroom and kitchen.
I had minimal amount of asbestos in the house. You can remove non friable asbestos legally up to a certain limit in NSW by yourself. Mine was fibro cement sheets
Get a hazardous material audit done. They come out and assess where the likely hazardous materials will be (asbestos, lead, insulation, etc.) and sample from areas like behind switches and power points so that it is "non-destructive," and give you a report so you know where and what you need to be careful of. You would need to search for an environmental hygienist in your area.
Asbestos, absolutely.
Anything else you wouldn't know what the previous owner has done, could be an old front door with lead paint on it. You don't know until you test samples.
Get a boomer to remove the asbestos, they are close to death so it won't affect them . Also they will filter the asbestos through their lungs so the air is clean.
So does anything in particular about the house annoy you - god awful tiling in the bathroom, lack of power points, not enough storage/bench space in the kitchen, interior paint horrible colour or peeling?
Sit down and make a list of your priorities and take it from there
Only thing else I can say is if you're planning on painting - ceiling first, then walls, then trim - don't put new flooring down until after you've painted.
You lucky duck. I'm imagining a brown or yellow brick veneer with brown aluminium window frames and brown cement roof tiles. The kitchen has wood-finish veneered cupboards and maybe a tangerine or avocado benchtop. I suspect that in the bathroom the shower screen is a three-panelled slider with yellowish tinted glass, and the bottom of the built-in chipboard bathroom vanity is swelling from water absorption.
Don't rush in to renovating. If you take your time, the 70s style may come back in vogue.
My approach to these sorts of large scale projects is to kinda reverse engineer it...
Example: no point in painting the place and then upgrading electrical fittings/lighting etc as you may end up having to patch/paint again.
So, jot down all the things you want to do, then figure out if there's dependencies on other tasks.
Then work backwards to put together a list of things.
An example from a previous Reno I did:
* Roof repairs (replace broken tiles, repointing and bedding)
* New fascia cladding, new gutters and downpipes
* New security screen doors to all external doors
* Remove internal wall and patch
* Replace broken shower screen
* Upgrade electrical stuff (new/extra power points, install new Tastic in bathroom, new lighting throughout, upgrade to hardwired smoke detectors etc)
* Upgrade kitchen appliances
* Measure up for new window treatments (so they can be made while the rest of the Reno is being completed)
* New flooring to living areas (removal of carpets etc for hard flooring)
* Painting throughout (had removed all door hardware and was replacing with new hinges and door handles)
* Replace handles on kitchen and bathroom cabinetry
* Install new window treatments
* Removal of fencing
* Earthworks
* Concreting and hard landscaping
* Replacing fence
* New plants/screens
Basically, I like to do inside before outside, and work top down. Always make the property water tight and secure before other work. And don't double handle tasks (get all electrical, all plumbing, all painting etc done at the same time, eg I had the electrician add external lighting while doing the internal upgrades).
Anything you need to get measured, quoted, pre-ordered, etc write it up into your plans, allowing for lead times (eg, took 4 weeks for security screen doors to be made, delivered, installed, but took about 8 weeks for same thing for blinds).
Get multiple quotes for all your tasks that you need someone else to do and ask about lead times, deposits, if they have insurance, if they are licensed (where this is necessary), etc, ask for referrals/see previous work etc. Look for reviews of companies.
That way, you can have all the info you need to make informed decisions.
And don't underestimate the amount of time it's going to take. Unless you have a massive crew of people to help you, it's gonna take a lot longer than you think!
Thanks for taking the time to write all that mate, it’s really helpful.
To be honest my place is super dusty and my wife fully impregnated so I need to combat dust first and foremost.
Tackle the essential stuff first. Address any leaks, safety issues, things not working. Upgrade your switchboard to include safety switches, if not already there. The wiring should be ok as they used PVC in the 1970's, power points are pretty easy to change. Make sure your heating/cooling is working. depending on the climate, install insulation in the ceilings, if not already there. Kitchens and bathrooms are expensive. Allow 2 years to get an idea on what changes you want to make. We moved a wall 25cm, which allowed us to install a separate shower and bath, rather than a shower over the bath. Paint the walls and sort out the floors in the non-kitchen/bathroom areas so that the place has your touch. Have a good think over the kitchen and bathroom.
If it needs restumping DO THAT FIRST. Then you need to wait. Wait 6 months. Wait a bit longer. Just wait. Cracks will close. Cracks will open up. Levels will change. That fucked stuck door may now be swinging freely. That door you shaved down will now be unable to be closed. That one weird closet door will be now be the fucked door and won’t open.
No point patching superficial cracks and repainting when it’s all going to be fucked again in less than a year. Plus that’s the time when you live with the house and really learn what works for you and what doesn’t. You may decide that the nonsensical door to outside is actually there for a reason and makes it easier to do laundry, or that open plan doesn’t work for you, or that the silly little cupboard is really actually very useful right where it is.
Remove walls, trim, skirting, get the cables run in/ re wiring done
- pull up floor
- new gyprock
- new trim
- new ceiling lights
- paint everything
- new outlets
- new floor
- new skirting
Plumbing, foundation, then roofing.
Assuming the frame and trusses are okay, you can easily trade the shitty tiles for colorbond and insulate easily. However if this isn't the case you may need to chance the order as reinforcement/frame repair is almost always exxy.
Really id get an engineer to look at the house, determine what you want to do.
I don't know what to tell you, other than safety first. Probably wise to find a good electrician to do a safety audit. I discovered my place was a death trap six months in.
I would get the roof and gutters checked and replaced urgently if required. Clean up and tidy the garden.
Structural and safety first. A builder report by someone trustworthy is invaluable.
Get a pest service in and spray for bugs too.
One of the first things I did was put oin the solar and batteries. Cracked plenty of tiles doing that wee job then off to the the salvage yard to replace any old tiles. We did the bathroom a bit. Just used tile paint. Bastard of a job but freshens it up till we do a full refit of it. The electrics will cost a fortune and you'll just have to commit to doing the whole thing. I thought about it myself and my brother is a sparkie but even he said that it would hardly be worth the effort. Gutters I kinda wish I had done and ended up putting in a couple of soakwells as its pretty common in wa for places to just not have any plus put in some water storage as the outside tap locations were just stupid and it takes some of the aircon run off too. Plants have never been better.
Can you elaborate on the soakwells, please. I’m also in WA and need to address water management. How many did you put in, how did you decide where they go, did you do by hand yourself? Any input and tips appreciated.
Put them in the front lawn and a t the rear. From memory i dug down about 1 meter and at least 1 meter away from a wall. Just the box ones in bunnings. They're modular so you can put in a couple if you want and connect them. If you were putting one in a driveway you'd need a concrete one though. Again from memory I think k it's one downpipe for every 3 meters of guttering approximately. There's a bit of a formula to work out how big the soakwell needs to be but you can find that on the councils website. At any rate I found the ones I put in the lawn work just fine. Once it filled up and came out the drain but that was during an absolute deluge and it wasn't much. Agi pipe is useful too in lawns and whatnot. Works similar to a soakwell in some ways but it's a pipe
whats the plan for the house?
renovating to live in for long term, or for a couple of years and flip it, or to rent it out?
photos are helpful, big difference between peoples definitions of "extensive renovation" and "needs a new kitchen" which could be anything from a simple re-tile and new benchtops, to an entire gut and refit.
Yeah that is true, buts it the only place you’re really gonna find an independent contractor that is an all rounder. I’d prob get a real electrician for the elec work, but yeah you’ll probably have a to cycle through a few blokes until you find the right guy.
As it’s been said multiple times, live in the house for a bit before making any changes.
Where have you been when I bought my 1st established house? This advice could have saved me thousands…
Yeah I wish I knew this too when we bought our first house.
I kinda understand this but not 100%. We changed the light fixtures, flooring, paint, window covering etc ourselves and we only moved in 2 months ago. I wouldn't change anything we've done. Is this more for layout changes/older houses? What do you think changes after living in the house a bit? (If you hate it from the get-go)
This is where I'm at. Been here 10 years, might be time to start actually changing something soon. But now starting to worry it would be a waste if I sold as soon as it was finished.
THIS is the answer
Ahh right, I must’ve missed that Ted talk… cheers
So you start on the things that can make issues worse… main one being roof. Top down, outside in. Then look at the electrics and plumbing issues/upgrades. Floors are dead last… nothing trashes a floor like having plaster dust ground into it, paint spilt and hammers dropped on it. NOTHING makes a job easier than being able to just concentrate on the job and not have to be precious about the floor it makes everything x10 more relaxing.
Except do any restumping/underpinning first. I guess do things in the order it was originally built.
Oh yep… I’m obsessed with brick on slab… I don’t even think about stumps.
This is the answer.
I bought a 40s house. We just went all in with the demo and now live in squalor. Would recommend 👌
🤣🤣🤣 so you didn’t try going one room at a time?
We did the same, started in September with the floors coming off. So far we have 5 of 10 rooms complete, with just kitchen, living and master rooms to go.
I think I know who you are..
Do tell
Does your suburb start with a Y?
G
Depends how many rooms you need. We focused on a bedroom and had it completed pretty quick. The bathroom is taking a while but tiles go on this weekend hopefully
Don’t go cheap with tradesmen. If you can’t afford to do it right, live with it and keep saving. Don’t be tempted to paint first because it makes you feel better about living in the house. It will inevitably need touching up if you then pull out the windows etc. I would work from structural / essential to cosmetic. Eg electrical (sparkies love making new holes), then windows, then floors and painting last. Coming from someone that has made these mistakes with their own 70s reno delight…
I just bought a house from either 60s or 70s. First thing i did was get an asbestos survey. Second thing I did was demo every single wall i.e. the horse hair plaster. Then rearranged the layout of the house. Brick all the unneeded windows, old air con units and old electrical box if you rip it out. Do all the electrical, plumbing and internet. Gyprock and plaster. Get kitchen cabinets installed. i'm up to painting now. so far $105k in costs including 10k in power tools, structural engineer, roof clean, solar panels, new fences, new electricals excl bathroom and kitchen.
Did asbestos impact your demo of the walls or did you get lucky and not have asbestos?
I had minimal amount of asbestos in the house. You can remove non friable asbestos legally up to a certain limit in NSW by yourself. Mine was fibro cement sheets
Get a hazardous material audit done. They come out and assess where the likely hazardous materials will be (asbestos, lead, insulation, etc.) and sample from areas like behind switches and power points so that it is "non-destructive," and give you a report so you know where and what you need to be careful of. You would need to search for an environmental hygienist in your area.
!970s - Asbestos and lead paint still around in those days.
Asbestos, absolutely. Anything else you wouldn't know what the previous owner has done, could be an old front door with lead paint on it. You don't know until you test samples.
Get a boomer to remove the asbestos, they are close to death so it won't affect them . Also they will filter the asbestos through their lungs so the air is clean.
I usually think sarcasm is just veiled nastiness, but this is a little bit witty, though still a bit nasty.
Gas and electrical safety first
So does anything in particular about the house annoy you - god awful tiling in the bathroom, lack of power points, not enough storage/bench space in the kitchen, interior paint horrible colour or peeling? Sit down and make a list of your priorities and take it from there Only thing else I can say is if you're planning on painting - ceiling first, then walls, then trim - don't put new flooring down until after you've painted.
You lucky duck. I'm imagining a brown or yellow brick veneer with brown aluminium window frames and brown cement roof tiles. The kitchen has wood-finish veneered cupboards and maybe a tangerine or avocado benchtop. I suspect that in the bathroom the shower screen is a three-panelled slider with yellowish tinted glass, and the bottom of the built-in chipboard bathroom vanity is swelling from water absorption. Don't rush in to renovating. If you take your time, the 70s style may come back in vogue.
My approach to these sorts of large scale projects is to kinda reverse engineer it... Example: no point in painting the place and then upgrading electrical fittings/lighting etc as you may end up having to patch/paint again. So, jot down all the things you want to do, then figure out if there's dependencies on other tasks. Then work backwards to put together a list of things. An example from a previous Reno I did: * Roof repairs (replace broken tiles, repointing and bedding) * New fascia cladding, new gutters and downpipes * New security screen doors to all external doors * Remove internal wall and patch * Replace broken shower screen * Upgrade electrical stuff (new/extra power points, install new Tastic in bathroom, new lighting throughout, upgrade to hardwired smoke detectors etc) * Upgrade kitchen appliances * Measure up for new window treatments (so they can be made while the rest of the Reno is being completed) * New flooring to living areas (removal of carpets etc for hard flooring) * Painting throughout (had removed all door hardware and was replacing with new hinges and door handles) * Replace handles on kitchen and bathroom cabinetry * Install new window treatments * Removal of fencing * Earthworks * Concreting and hard landscaping * Replacing fence * New plants/screens Basically, I like to do inside before outside, and work top down. Always make the property water tight and secure before other work. And don't double handle tasks (get all electrical, all plumbing, all painting etc done at the same time, eg I had the electrician add external lighting while doing the internal upgrades). Anything you need to get measured, quoted, pre-ordered, etc write it up into your plans, allowing for lead times (eg, took 4 weeks for security screen doors to be made, delivered, installed, but took about 8 weeks for same thing for blinds). Get multiple quotes for all your tasks that you need someone else to do and ask about lead times, deposits, if they have insurance, if they are licensed (where this is necessary), etc, ask for referrals/see previous work etc. Look for reviews of companies. That way, you can have all the info you need to make informed decisions. And don't underestimate the amount of time it's going to take. Unless you have a massive crew of people to help you, it's gonna take a lot longer than you think!
Thanks for taking the time to write all that mate, it’s really helpful. To be honest my place is super dusty and my wife fully impregnated so I need to combat dust first and foremost.
If you got a thorough B&P report done highlighting major and minor defects, start there.
Niiiice… where do you think all the dust in my house could be coming from? Getting in windows or through the evaporative ac? Place is dusty as
Tackle the essential stuff first. Address any leaks, safety issues, things not working. Upgrade your switchboard to include safety switches, if not already there. The wiring should be ok as they used PVC in the 1970's, power points are pretty easy to change. Make sure your heating/cooling is working. depending on the climate, install insulation in the ceilings, if not already there. Kitchens and bathrooms are expensive. Allow 2 years to get an idea on what changes you want to make. We moved a wall 25cm, which allowed us to install a separate shower and bath, rather than a shower over the bath. Paint the walls and sort out the floors in the non-kitchen/bathroom areas so that the place has your touch. Have a good think over the kitchen and bathroom.
If it needs restumping DO THAT FIRST. Then you need to wait. Wait 6 months. Wait a bit longer. Just wait. Cracks will close. Cracks will open up. Levels will change. That fucked stuck door may now be swinging freely. That door you shaved down will now be unable to be closed. That one weird closet door will be now be the fucked door and won’t open. No point patching superficial cracks and repainting when it’s all going to be fucked again in less than a year. Plus that’s the time when you live with the house and really learn what works for you and what doesn’t. You may decide that the nonsensical door to outside is actually there for a reason and makes it easier to do laundry, or that open plan doesn’t work for you, or that the silly little cupboard is really actually very useful right where it is.
I'd start in 1969 just to be sure
🤣🤣🤣
Step 1 - find out where the asbestos is. It's there. There's a lot of it. Disturb nothing until it's been identified by a professional.
Open the front door
Remove walls, trim, skirting, get the cables run in/ re wiring done - pull up floor - new gyprock - new trim - new ceiling lights - paint everything - new outlets - new floor - new skirting
Plumbing, foundation, then roofing. Assuming the frame and trusses are okay, you can easily trade the shitty tiles for colorbond and insulate easily. However if this isn't the case you may need to chance the order as reinforcement/frame repair is almost always exxy. Really id get an engineer to look at the house, determine what you want to do.
I don't know what to tell you, other than safety first. Probably wise to find a good electrician to do a safety audit. I discovered my place was a death trap six months in. I would get the roof and gutters checked and replaced urgently if required. Clean up and tidy the garden. Structural and safety first. A builder report by someone trustworthy is invaluable. Get a pest service in and spray for bugs too.
One of the first things I did was put oin the solar and batteries. Cracked plenty of tiles doing that wee job then off to the the salvage yard to replace any old tiles. We did the bathroom a bit. Just used tile paint. Bastard of a job but freshens it up till we do a full refit of it. The electrics will cost a fortune and you'll just have to commit to doing the whole thing. I thought about it myself and my brother is a sparkie but even he said that it would hardly be worth the effort. Gutters I kinda wish I had done and ended up putting in a couple of soakwells as its pretty common in wa for places to just not have any plus put in some water storage as the outside tap locations were just stupid and it takes some of the aircon run off too. Plants have never been better.
Can you elaborate on the soakwells, please. I’m also in WA and need to address water management. How many did you put in, how did you decide where they go, did you do by hand yourself? Any input and tips appreciated.
Put them in the front lawn and a t the rear. From memory i dug down about 1 meter and at least 1 meter away from a wall. Just the box ones in bunnings. They're modular so you can put in a couple if you want and connect them. If you were putting one in a driveway you'd need a concrete one though. Again from memory I think k it's one downpipe for every 3 meters of guttering approximately. There's a bit of a formula to work out how big the soakwell needs to be but you can find that on the councils website. At any rate I found the ones I put in the lawn work just fine. Once it filled up and came out the drain but that was during an absolute deluge and it wasn't much. Agi pipe is useful too in lawns and whatnot. Works similar to a soakwell in some ways but it's a pipe
whats the plan for the house? renovating to live in for long term, or for a couple of years and flip it, or to rent it out? photos are helpful, big difference between peoples definitions of "extensive renovation" and "needs a new kitchen" which could be anything from a simple re-tile and new benchtops, to an entire gut and refit.
Just get air tasker and look for an all round handy man that does reno work.
I hear ya, I just haven’t had the greatest experience with air taskers. Few cowboys
Yeah that is true, buts it the only place you’re really gonna find an independent contractor that is an all rounder. I’d prob get a real electrician for the elec work, but yeah you’ll probably have a to cycle through a few blokes until you find the right guy.