It's been some time..........I've had several years when I haven't done too much of interest in my house and garden renovation. Having got the house to a comfortable livable state, I was happy to sit back for a little while.
I lost my mother last year, at the ripe old age of almost ninety-nine! She'd lived a long and productive life, but the last few years were not easy for her, so in some ways her passing was a relief. We all miss her. She left each of us a small inheritance and I decided to earmark a proportion of mine to some improvements to the house that had been a bit unaffordable. Here's what I've done with the money:
*Upgraded the indoor plumbing and replaced dated tapware
*Same with the electrics - had the wiring checked and had the "home handyman" electrical "improvements" (done by a previous owner - I know better!) replaced, upgraded and made safe. Such a relief.
*Had six inches of extra insulation put into the roof space - I had bats simply put in over the top of the existing inadequate layer of blow-in stuff. The house has been noticeably cooler on hot days and now that we are slipping into the cooler months, it's definitely holding the warmth in.
*Had my electric hot water heater replaced. The old one was installed in 1976 - yes you read that right! It was almost fifty years old and still working, but I decided to replace it before it failed and flooded the garage. I agonised over what to replace it with, but acting on advice from a consultant, I replaced it with something similar because of the simplicity of the system. My other alternatives of solar and heat-pump h/w systems are quite complex and lots of things can fail. I have had installed a simple storage heater, but had it put on a timer, so it only heats the water when the solar system is working from mid-morning to mid-afternoon and when the electric tariff is low. In effect, it's working as solar h/w. So far, so good!
*Upgraded the solar inverter
*Had a mandatory upgrade of the electrical switchboard (required when any new work is done, and an old board is still being used)
Just recently my son made me some Tasmanian Oak kitchen worktops to replace the old Laminex ones that I'd refurbished in my first year in the house (expecting it to last a year - it lasted around seven!) We also reconfigured the kitchen a bit, removing an awkward shelf above the peninsula bench. That bench was also made a fair bit wider, creating a space for a couple of stools in the dining room. Just those few tweaks have made the kitchen so much more functional.
I had to wait until after the electrician did his work to work on the hallway, which had been left as I found it. There had been a thermostat for an old oil-heater (long gone) on one of the hallway walls - where it had been removed there was a sizeable hole and exposed wires. Very scary. I didn't touch it because I had no idea if the wires were live. Turns out they were. Once the electrician had made that problem safe, I was able to patch the plaster wall and paint. I chose a pleasant restful blue/green and ordered a traditional hall runner. The ceiling was scrubbed and painted and I also painted to access hole to the roof space. It looks so lovely now!
That brings me up to date - I'm now sanding, repairing and painting the outsides of the windows across the back of the house - hoping to get this mostly done before the cold, wet weather sets in. Fortunately, a bit of scraping reveals them to be in pretty good shape. I think they are made from King Billy pine - an excellent rot-resistant Tasmanian wood.