Ipswich reno

[Brenda Irwin]

As those of you who have read my thread in property management thread already know, I have finally gotten the tenant out and now comes the part of renovating the place.

I cannot believe it but I just spent all day demolishing part of the kitchen cupboards. I could just belt silly whoever installed this kitchen.
Who on earth puts a flatpack together with 38 screws not phillips head, the single slot ones? Plus glueing it all together, plus the shelves were rebated, PLUS 18 x 5 inch hex head screws (the ones which need an allan key for) to mount it to the wall!
My Gd! I could have mounted an 8ft fish tank to the top and it would never fall. You can see some of the screws in this pic prior to cleanup of tenant rubbish.

 

[Brenda Irwin]

Lino saga

Now the kitchen benches are all out I have painted the ceiling and high parts of walls.

The lino was full of holes and there is already a 1cm lip from the hall to the lino in the kitchen so not an option to just lay another layer on top.

I pulled the old lino up and surprise, surprise, there is another layer underneath.

The second layer not so easy. The installer must have used at least 4 ltrs of glue (I am not exagerating) to stick it down and its still as sticky as the day it was laid. An added bonus is that the great big wear patch in the centre of the room is cemented. Yes, cemented on top of the lino. It took ages to break it all up and it was hard and looked like blue metal road base by the time I got it off.

My shoes got stuck to the glue and I nearly fell over. My stanley knife got stuck to the floor and I had a couple goes to pick it up. This is really getting rediculous. Now all the lino is gone but you cannot walk across the floor as your feet stick to the glue. Heat doesn't seem to help remove it as it just gets stickier.

I tried a bit of turps on it and it does soften enough to scrape it up and more turps on a rag removes the rest of the sticky but it takes a lot of elbow grease. Is it ok to use turps on masonite? It does a nice job but will it smell bad forever or combust under new lino or anything like that?

 

[ethereal]

Hi Brenda,

I have not read your posts in prop management section but I will look it up. Must be someone like my dad who built the kitchen, everthing built to last 50 years or more, god help whoever wants to change it. (in this case poor ole you)

The turps should not harm the masonite. I have had a couple of vinyl nighmares like you are describing. I have yet to find an easy solution, except that any lino over masonoite is usually a bonus as you can just pull up the masonite glue and all (usually fixed to the flooring with staple things) and pull out the staples (they pull thru the masonite) with vice-grips or pincers. Tis when the vinyl is stuck directly to the floor boards that there is real trouble. In our kitchen, the vinyl was glued to pine floor boards and under it we discovered ancient termite damage that hed been filled with pebbles - lovely roundish pebbles, and just vinyled over. A novel solution if ever there was one!

And the turps smell will be gone before you know it - it must evaporate. Good luck with it.

Louise

 

[Brenda Irwin]

Thanks Louise,
I thought about pulling up the masonite but its a huge room and I think they used a good few boxes of staples too and it is in such good condition except for the glue.
If it was your dad who did the job (its an old goverment built house) you hold him down and I will beat him up.

 

[sailor]

It never ceases to amaze me just how much rubbish some tenants leave when they vacate. Who do they think is going to clean up after them? their Mum?

Good luck with the reno Brenda...I'm looking forward to some more pics.

 

[Brenda Irwin]

Apart from a far cleaner house now there isn't anything really new to take pics of. The kitchen has no kitchen, a couple of bedrooms are painted but I still need to renovate the polished floors and the sparky needs to turn up and replace all the old stuffed lights.
I could take a pic of the yard where there are two big mounds of dirt, where just unblocking a stormwater drain of tennisballs turned into war and peace as two lots of drainage block and had to be replaced. Fortunately my hubby helped with digging the holes so the plumber didn't charge even half of what he could have.
We got a new duel flush 2nd toilet to replace the broken porcelain one but thats not really photogenic either.
Nope, Sailor you are just going to have to wait a week or three for good pics.

 

[Brenda Irwin]

We got to the reno house yesterday morn and it was like a circus.
First, Allstyle fencing was ripping out the front fence posts with a little digger caterpiller and half the street was standing on the opposite footpath with hands on hips and watching.

Our extenants at the same time were being evicted from the house they had moved to a few doors down from ours. Removal truck, police and locksmith were in attendance.

While Allstyle were working they got asked for a quote for a front fence for the evicting landlords place, so we might not be the only ones with a flash new fence in future.

I am so glad Les and I didn't decide to install the fence ourselves.

First, one of the old posts had a telecom cable cemented through the post.
The contracter had to jackhammer the cement to save the cable.
Then the garden path had been cemented at the same time as the entry gate posts and the caterpillar had a hard time separating the two.
It did manage it but there is a little gap now along the path were the whole slab was moved. Its not a huge gap tho more like a large crack and a bit of cement powder or dirt will cover it.

The posts are in and sometime soon the panels should be installed.

 

[Brenda Irwin]

An update to the reno, the end is nigh.
The painters have finished the outside, I have finished painting the inside, I have 1/2 the kitchen installed with Tom Armstrong hopefully completing it tomorrow. Our new fence is finished. We got security screens on the verandah windows and security screen doors front and back. We got all new lights, switches and powerpoints installed and a swish new sensor light which turns on automatically if anyone goes near the stairs at night. We got a new shower screen installed. The drains are unblocked of tennis balls and downpipes have been installed.
After the kitchen, tiling for splashbacks is required (anyone good at tiling and want a job?) and new lino will be laid in the kitchen and bathroom.
I have to buff up the timber floors and repolish them and lastly another skip for the old kitchen and the rest of the tenants rubbish which is still under the house.
The fact that Les and I only rock up to renovate by about 11am weekdays (we commence with a cup of coffee first) and we are ready to go home by 4.30pm sort of made the reno go a bit longer than planned.

 

[sailor]

Hey Brenda, how's the reno going. Looking fwd to seeing the "after" pics.