birthday

It’s SO’s birthday today – he turned 35. It seems like just a couple of months ago that he was having a crisis over turning 30, and now here we are.  Middleaged, but happy

I got him some transition lens sunglasses for his mountain bike riding, three shirts for work, some pyjama pants, and some socks.  Not very exciting, but he loved them, especially the sunnies and the work shirts.  We had a very lazy morning, and then were taken out to lunch by SO’s dad and stepmum, which was lovely.  Of course it was a long slow three-course meal, so by the time we got home it was nearly 5pm.

We were at Mum’s place on Friday night, celebrating SO’s birthday with my side of the family.  After dinner, Mum and J informed us that they’re getting married!!  My brother A and I then made lots of jokes about how relieved we were that Mum would now be J’s problem.  (Actually, I don’t think we were joking.)  So that was lovely.  They’ll have a little celebration lunch in a couple of weeks’ time, with us and J’s kids (and their kids) so just the immediate family.  I volunteered to bring a garden salad and potato dish, which made Mum happy as she knows how much I hate cooking.

And what of the reno, I hear you ask?  Well, after much to-ing and fro-ing, it’s finished.  We had a couple of last minute disasters - the couch we bought didn’t fit into the unit, through either door, or the window, so we needed to buy new couches on a Sunday.  $1300 later, it was done.  Also, one of the beds was missing a bit, so on Monday morning of last week we bought another bed frame.  So it didn’t go quite as smoothly as it could have, but all in all we are SO glad it’s finished, and how it’s turned out.

So, some photos.  Here’s one of the toilet beforehand.  Notice the substantial plaster cracking around the hot water system.

And a close up of the original basin and cabinet.  Observe the condition of the shelving above the cabinet – mmmmm, nice.

The toilet afterwards:

And the cabinet area after:

Not bad, huh?  We’re pretty happy with the outcome.  The rest of the unit looks equally good, but I’m not going to put a huge amount of photos up as they can take far to long to load.

Yes, so it’s been a busy but happy couple of weeks.  I’m now going to fall into bed and catch up on some of the sleep I’ve been sorely missing.

latest on renos etc

As per usual, it’s been a busy week and I’ve been slack with blogging.  However I’m sitting in front of the idiot box, full of food and coffee, and I have the time to assemble my thoughts into something resembling coherence.

Reno #4 is progressing nicely. 

rentals, rentals, and other stuff

It’s Thursday night already!  Where has the week gone?!

As per usual, it’s been a busy one.  Monday night we had an annual general meeting for one of our groups of units.  It was a good meeting, we got a quorum, and we decided on some capital works projects for the coming financial year.  We have a good group of owners in this block, which is good to see – all very concerned with maintaining the building appropriately.  That went from 6pm to 7:30pm, so it was basically straight after work.

After the meeting, I went to our just-vacated unit and did a clean.

the latest drivel

Wow, it feels like longer than a week since I last wrote here.  I must admit, nothing spectacularly interesting has been going on.  We spent every evening except Friday at the reno after work, sanding and patching, sanding and patching.  I think we may FINALLY be coming to the end of it.  I’d forgotten how slow and monotonous this part of doing a reno is.  Still, in a few days’ time we’ll hopefully be painting, which will speed things right up.

We had tenants move out today, and this is a first for us – we don’t have new ones lined up to take their place.

reno #4 – slowly progressing

Today was a good day.  The weather was beautiful, and SO and I had a lovely snuggle and sleep in this morning.  We so rarely do that, and it’s so nice when we do.  Normally as soon as I’m awake, I’m out of bed doing stuff, but not today.  It was great.

Then we got up and had a leisurely breakfast, then got ready and went to the unit.  I spent all day (about six hours) in the bathroom.  While the tiling’s finished, the walls and ceiling needed a fair bit of remedial patching, which took a while.  I had an extra special bonus when I was patching the ceiling – a huge chunk of plaster dropped off and nearly got my eye.  Fortunately I saw it coming and took evasive action.

SO spent the day sanding the two bedrooms which I’d patched a week or so ago.  He hates doing it, and I do some of it, but I’m just not physically strong enough to keep holding the sander for any length of time.   He did a fair bit, I think he’s finished the main bedroom.  We agreed tonight that all the walls and ceilings are going to need a coat of sealer prior to actually painting them the colours we’ve chose.  They’re in such poor condition, we can’t bring ourselves to just paint straight onto them without some preemptive action being taken first.

We’re probably going to go back tomorrow night after work to do some more.  Ideally I’d like to get the bathroom all ready for painting in a couple of days’ time, but that will take some serious work at night time, which is hard on the eyes (and the body).  However, we’re getting there, slowly but surely.

renos, and a birthday

As per usual, it’s been a busy week.  I’ve managed to catch the first flu bug of the season, according to my doctor.  It’s a bit different to the usual flu – it basically inflames the eustachian tube in the ear, causing it to hurt.  Plus there’s the usual aches and pains, tiredness, swollen glands, etc.  I must confess it’s pretty manageable as a bug, so I shouldn’t complain too much.

That said, I wasn’t delighted that I was sick again.  SO and I had the following exchange on the way to work:

SO:  What’s wrong baby?

Me:  Ugh, I’m sick again!!  I feel like I’m sick all the time.

SO (patting my knee consolingly):  That’s because you are, baby.

It wasn’t funny at the time, but I can see the humour in it now.

The renos are going reasonably well.  The bathroom tiling is finished, and it looks good.  We’re both happy with it, although it’s taken longer than we’d been told.  But as I said to SO, you have to expect both time and money blowouts with renos, and three extra days isn’t a huge amount in the scheme of things.  Next we need to get the cabinetmaker in to measure up for the bathroom cabinet.  I personally can’t wait until there’s a toilet in there again, it makes spending all day there so much easier.

It’s SO’s dad’s birthday tomorrow.  We’re having him and SO’s stepmum over for a cooked breakfast.  I’ve also taken it upon myself to make his favourite thing, date loaf.  I haven’t made it in ages (probably years) but I suddenly remembered today how much he liked it, so I thought I’d make it for him.  He’s done a huge amount for us with renovating both the current and previous projects, and he hasn’t been very well lately.  It seems his chronic fatigue has come back with a vengeance, poor thing.  That said, he’s still doing a lot of stuff to help us out, which we appreciate even while it makes us feel guilty.  So yes, tomorrow we’ll be having bacon, eggs, lightly fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, then french toast and pikelets for ‘dessert’.  It’ll be the works, and no one will need lunch.

exhausted

I’m tired.  Very, very tired.  We’ve been flat out with the reno, which is going well.  I’ve been spending every day up a ladder, painstakingly plastering up the settlement cracks.  This is physically tiring, particularly for ‘Ms Desk Job’ here.  At the end of the day, when I start to get so tired I wobble on the ladder, I come down and pick another section of kitchen to disinfect.  Last night, I put in all the new kitchen handles; tonight, it was cleaning our ‘new’ (really, second hand, bought on eBay) fridge.

We go to Bunnings to get different bits and pieces, then head home and have dinner.  We talk about what else needs to be done, what order to do it in, and discussing different options we need to make decisions on.  Not long after that, we hit the sack.  I’d be tired if this was all there was to it; but it’s not. 

I’ve been waking up every night at around 3am, my brain racing and full of stuff that I need to remember.  I’ve tried going back to sleep but it hasn’t been working, so I’ve been getting up and surfing the net for a couple hours, just enough to switch off mentally and go back to bed, to get another couple of hours’ sleep.

Anyhow, as a result of all this, I’m just worn out.  Today I got up, had breakfast and a shower, and sat down to wait for SO to be ready to go to the unit.  SO came out of the bathroom and found me sleeping, sitting upright.  This never happens.  He sent me to bed, where I completely crashed for a couple of hours.  When I woke up, I was worn out, but it was manageable.  I then put in a full day at the reno, doing more patching.

However, things are going well.  I’ve managed to shake off a potential cold, which given how tired I’ve been, is nothing short of a miracle.  The reno is going to plan, and everything seems to be working out there.  SO is well, and he’s enjoying the reno work too.  He dug out a wooden cabinet from the bathroom wall today, which he hasn’t done before, and he did a really neat job.  So yes, it is all going well.  I’m just surprised at how tiring it all is.

reno #4 update

It’s a funny thing.  You agree to buy a place, thinking all you’ll need to do is throw around some paint, plus maybe some new light fittings.  Then you start looking a bit closer and before you know it, you’ve decided you absolutely MUST completely renovate, a la the Taj Mahal. 

This has happened in our case.  We’d decided we would replace the toilet and the bathroom cabinet.  Then we got a quote for getting the tiles resurfaced.  When SO saw the quote, he hit the roof.  As he pointed out, we could get the bathroom retiled for not much more.  So, that’s what we’re doing.  The whole bathroom is going to  be redone – new fixtures and fittings, new loo, cabinet, shower screen, hot water system, you name it, it’ll be replaced.  The whole damn lot.

Tentative costings show it’ll probably cost us in the realm of $6K, which is obviously about $5,500 more than we’d originally planned on spending.  However, as SO says, we’ll be able to depreciate it for tax purposes, so that will be a bonus.  Plus it will look nice, which will mean we can charge decent rent for it.

Anyhow, at this point in time, SO has removed all the floor tiles, which is the majority of the hard work we’ll need to do.  We’ll get there tomorrow and get into the wall tiles, which hopefully won’t take too long to remove.  The plumber is coming at 11am to fix a few things and disconnect the hot water system, then it’ll be full steam ahead organising a tiler, cabinetmaker, etc etc.  Fun times.

Heh.  We weren’t exactly planning for this to happen when we bought, that’s for sure.  Oh well, good thing we like a challenge.  I’ll make sure to take lots of photos for a before-and-after post when we’re done.

sick/reno #4 progress report

<grits teeth and closes eyes tightly, trying not to throw a tantrum>

I’m sick.  Again.  It’s not anything major, by any means – just some kind of bug that isn’t really a cold, but isn’t really a flu.  Sore throat, fever, shivering, aches and pains.  And an increase in the general level of grumpiness.  It’s just frustrating.  I’ve had the last two days off work, and I had to go to the shops this morning.  After wandering around confusedly for about half an hour, I felt like the only thing holding me up was the trolley I was gripping.  Now I can see why old folks hang onto them with a death grip.  (Sorry, no pun intended there.)

In other news, the plans for the current reno are moving along.  We’ve decided to get some quotes for getting the bathroom tiles resurfaced.  This will basically give them a new colour (instead of dirty white wall tiles and, you guessed it, apricot floor tiles) and, as a bonus, it will seal any grout cracks.  This is great, as we do have some damage to the wall on the other side of the shower.  It’s also supposed to be a lot cheaper and a lot faster than getting new tiling done.  Sounds good to me.  SO has also agreed with me that we can get a new toilet.  For some reason, he wanted to hang onto the current apricot-coloured one.  I have no idea why, but he’s come around.

reno #4

We finally settled on our fourth investment property, last Thursday.  Since then, of course, we’ve been flat out assessing the scope of works.  As per usual, they’re somewhat larger than we’d anticipated.  We’ll need to remove and replace the bathroom cabinet, which is badly water damaged inside (the shelving has exploded from water absorption).  This is disappointing as the cabinet otherwise fits the space well, and is reasonably clean and modern.  I’m not sorry that we’ll get a new handbasin though – the current one is apricot.  As is the toilet – cistern, seat, pedestal, the whole lot.  Apricot.  For me, the colour conjures up recollections of polka-dotted ra-ra skirts, teased fringes, and side ponytails.  And I was only in fifth grade at the time.

Work on the unit is progressing well.  I’ve already managed to do most of the patching of walls, prior to the mammoth (and unpleasant) job of sanding back.  SO has installed almost all of the lights.  We’ve taken measurements of windows and doors, so we know exactly what we need to get in terms of dimensions for window treatments and door replacements.  We’ve had two quotes from plumbers, and have organised a cabinet maker to come out and look at the bathroom.  All in all, we’re going okay.  We have next week off from our jobs, so we’ll be able to get into the nitty-gritty then.  For me, this will include lots of painting (particularly cutting-in, my specialty), cleaning the oven, and other tasks such as window cleaning.  SO will be heavily involved in painting (he’s the roller man) and collecting the rest of the furniture for the unit.  We’ll also need to do some fairly simple stuff like organise the carpet to be laid, etc.  So yes, I feel like it’s under control, for once.