Our new bathroom - planning and laying the groundwork

We've been flat out this week working on our new downstairs bathroom. When we moved into our new house it looked like this:

Even real estate photography tricks aren't enough to make this room look inviting

The previous owners had added the downstairs (in true Wellington style, by excavating) in the late 80s, but it had never been finished. The bedrooms at least had wall linings and paint and wallpaper, but the bathroom stayed as a shell until we moved in.

I really want the new bathroom in place before the new baby comes - anything that makes life easier in the newborn phase is a win, not to mention that having a bath in the house will likely be a welcome addition in the last few weeks of pregnancy. So we have a good motivator at the moment - with less than three months to go it's definitely time to make things happen.

Step one was getting channels cut into the concrete floor - although the room was intended to be a bathroom, and the drain had been added outside the external wall, no in floor plumbing had been allowed for. We outsourced that, because it is a messy, horrible job that requires special equipment. I think that was the right call, because the pros made short work of our awkward little job. Shout out to Allcutt Concrete Cutters - they were great to deal with and got the job done promptly.

We did the digging part ourselves, to achieve the required depth for the drains - the Little Monkey enjoyed this job!

Step two was ensuring the watertightness of the previously built block wall. We'd noticed during our pre-purchase inspections that there was some efflorescence on some of the blocks. The dirt had been a bit over-filled behind the wall, drainage outside was pretty poor which was directing water towards the house, and the wall itself had some gaps in it which hadn't been properly filled. So there was a heap of digging to remove some of the dirt; we're looking at several improvements to outside drainage to divert water away from the house; and we filled all the gaps in the wall and have painted on a rubberised membrane which should prevent moisture from being able to seep through.

There was an obvious gap in the area with the efflorescence that looked to be the source of moisture, so having filled the hole and paid special attention to waterproofing that area we're pretty confident that there shouldn't be any further problems.

We also (because: paranoia) chose to frame a new wall in front of the original block wall (sacrificing 150mm or so of the room) just in case. Belt and braces - but we'd rather be safe than sorry. And it also simplifies plumbing and lining the room so seemed the logical way to go.

Looking into the room towards the bath

Step three was all the framing, which is fiddly but now complete. As well as building the new wall along one side we've added two wing walls. One is full height and gives us a luxuriously sized separate shower; the other is a half wall which conceals the toilet. The bath needed a frame, and then there were some missing ceiling dwangs and plenty of extra little bits and pieces to add to the walls to make sure we had niches for soap and strong fixings for towel rails and so on.

The new wing wall and shower cubicle

In order to get plenty of storage - this is the family bathroom, after all - we added a cabinet above an in-wall cistern toilet, and we're using the same method there as we used for the kitchen cabinets so that it looks streamlined. That's a bit more framing - all up I think we used somewhere in the region of 130m of timber. Seems a crazy amount in such a tiny room but it adds up quickly!

At some point our bedroom became a storage facility - currently we
have a bath, toilet and shower jammed in there. Not quite an en suite... 

Dad's run all the plumbing, the sparky has been in to pre-wire, insulation has been put into the walls and ceiling, and we passed the plumbing pre-line inspection this morning. Now we're on to lining the ceiling and walls, and the drainage trenches will get filled later today. In another day or two it'll look more like a room than a dungeon. Winning!

So that's been absorbing all our time and energy for the past few days, but hopefully by the end of this week we'll be able to hand over to the plasterers while we have a wee breather.

Have you ever built or renovated a bathroom? Any last minute design considerations you think might help us out?

A finished kitchen

Mr Cake's parents spent a week with us recently, a planned working holiday, which allowed us to make some pretty decent progress on our house (extra hands for both reno and childcare = mega productivity win). The biggest thing we've ticked off the list is finishing the kitchen. Hoorah!

Before and after - note the "before" is from the real estate listing and includes fake furniture

The kitchen was the biggest single thing that needed dealing with in this house - and was also the most urgent, to my mind (the old kitchen, even after being scrubbed with sugar soap, was pretty awful). We moved it from a small room at the back of the house (which is now our guest bedroom and playroom - or will be when we've finished in there) to the front of the house, where it is the hub of our living space between the dining room and lounge.

This is the kitchen we started with - ugh! The real estate agent's
photos did a good job of hiding the grime on every surface.

The change of use for the rooms meant we needed to move several doorways (semi-complicated but so worth it!). Then we needed plumbing and electrical work in place, which included shifting the switchboard - not a trivial undertaking.

We did some painting and plastering, and the floor had to be repaired. Then we installed and built in the cabinetry, had the benchtop installed, put coving up, and tiled the splashback.

We had the plasterers in just before Christmas to tidy up our DIY coving efforts and plaster the "built-in" bits around the cabinets, so January's to-do list was simply to do the final coats of paint.

The final paintwork involved undercoat and two top coats to all the freshly plastered areas, with the top coats being applied to ceiling and all walls as well. We'd done as painting as we could before the cabinets went in, both because it's easier to paint an empty room and because we knew it'd be a wee while before we got to the end. 

Although the kitchen has been pretty much fully functional for six months the last coat of paint makes an amazing difference to the feel of the room. Not being able to see the plaster does improve the aesthetic a wee bit, and just knowing it's finished lets us breathe a big sigh of relief.

Things we love

Almost everything! Obviously we weren't highly constrained here, because this wasn't previously a kitchen so we were starting from scratch. Budget is of course a constraint, and some of our choices (like the cabinetry) were strongly influenced by cost, but we tried to add interest in among the boring, functional stuff. 

My favourite bits: 

• Our beautifully restored timber floors. We had no idea what was under the carpet so it was a pleasant surprise to discover matai floorboards in such good condition. This was a budget win, too, because restoring them was cheaper than installing something else would have been. 
• The tiled splashback. So lovely to look at, and the dark grey grout and white tile mirror the rest of the colour scheme so well. 
• The 60mm engineered stone benchtop. I am pretty picky about some things, and (weird or not) I don't like 30mm thick benches. I'm so glad we forked out the extra for the thicker finish. 
• Our Fisher & Paykel induction hob. We installed a super cheap induction hob in our previous house, and it was enough to convert me to induction cooking but the F&P one is so much better. The flexible cooking zones are my favourite tech feature of our kitchen. 
• The way the light floods in every morning and bounces off all the white surfaces. Glorious! Just need to build our planned window seat in the bay window and we'll be all set for leisurely morning cuppas. 

Things we'd do differently

Mostly we're thrilled, but we are learning as we go so it's not perfect. There are only two things I can think of that I wish we'd done differently (both my fault). 

The first is that the main bowl of the sink, which is a lovely double bowl black composite stone, is too small for our large frypan. Since we cook about 90% of our meals in the frypan (and don't put it in the dishwasher), that's pretty annoying. It fits in on an angle, but ideally the sink should easily fit the cookware you use day to day. I should have measured the frypan when ordering the sink. Lesson learnt.

The second niggle is that in my quest to maximise storage I chose to place the hob off-centre in a large set of drawers. I meticulously planned the symmetry from the bench up, and it looked great when the bench went in... But as soon as we put handles on the drawers it started to grate on me. I also wish, in the quest for symmetry, that we'd made the cupboard next to the dishwasher open the other way. 

Next time the cupboards will be forced to be symmetrical too! 

The before photo here is really midway through - but still looks a bit different! 

The budget

First, a bit of a disclaimer - these are big numbers! We feel that it's important to be honest about what we're spending - I like looking at Pinterest-worthy kitchens but it's hard to know what's actually achievable if no-one puts numbers on anything - but I know this is big money, so please don't freak out. ;-)

The labour was mostly us (with a lot of help from family, especially my Dad), but we did hire quite a few tradies for various parts of the project.

We could have done it cheaper, but we wanted a reasonably high-end finish, and (I think) we've done pretty well at keeping costs down, considering the end result.

These figures include:

• Building consent, including architect and council fees
• Building, plastering and flooring work, including reconfiguring doorways and relining the kitchen ceiling
• Extensive electrical work, including replacing the switchboard and replacing all old wiring in the house
• Cabinets, appliances and benchtop
• Construction materials for the stuff we DIYed

I can't believe how close to the planned budget we've come in - I'd like to claim supreme project management skills but in reality that has got to be a fluke. Happy to be on the right side of the number, though!

Kitchen
Planned budget: $45,200
Timeframe: 6 months
Who did the work: Us + help from family + builder + sparkies + plasterers + flooring specialist
Actual cost: $44,485 ($715 under budget)
Learnings: Book tradies early, thorough planning is very good, our families are amazing, measure your biggest frying pan before settling on a sink.




There's a full gallery of photos over on my Facebook page if you want to see a bit more of the process.

I'd love to hear what you think - is there anything that you'd do differently? Do you have weird preferences about benchtop thickness and symmetry or am I on my own there? 

Renovation: Lounge before and after wall removal

Before and after pictures are my favourite, and even though our lounge is far from finished (it needs a new window on the north-facing wall, wall linings in several places, the ceiling to be completely relined, everything painted and the floorboards repaired and refinished... So very far from finished) all the structural work is now complete, which means we can now enjoy the increased light and space.

These before-and-afters aren't the best, and not just because the room isn't finished - the removed wall makes it tricky to even tell that you're looking a the same space. And the "afters" were taken hurriedly, late at night, and in pre-Christmas panic mode.

Same photo, different week

The room we've made our lounge was the master bedroom. It had the best aspect in the whole house, so it was kind of an obvious choice for a living room - at least to us. I guess that's not how the original builder saw it, but priorities were different in the 1920s.

Original main level floor plan / proposed final floor plan

We've chosen to have the kitchen as the hub of the home, in what used to be the lounge, with the dining room in its original location and the lounge in the other end of the L-shape. There are french doors between the kitchen and lounge, so that we have the option of closing the spaces off from each other, but (except when they are being played with by toddlers) they are pretty much always open.

The two braced areas, pre-lining

There were some structural and bracing components to this work; our builder had to run a new beam in the roofspace to replace the old wall, which also required new studs at either end to support the beam. In terms of bracing, we had to create braced areas on the front wall and the opposing wall, with angle brackets and braceline. There was also one wall in the old kitchen (now our guest room / playroom) which had to be gibbed to meet the bracing requirements.

Because we're scrimping and saving for our downstairs bathroom - the next big project - we had asked our builder only to complete these elements, which he has to sign off on for the building consent. That means that he's packed up and we've still got lots of gap filling to make the room look like a finished space - but it is safe and we can chip away at those jobs as we have time (we'll have to get a pro to do the new window too, but that might be a bit down the line - it'll be pricey).

Before and after, taken from the same spot 

We were planning to put in a door between the lounge and the entrance hall too (shown in the plans above), but since that's purely for livability we're reserving judgement on that until we've used the space for a while.

The proposed doorway would go in the space behind the black armchair - but it could equally be left open

What do you think - would you prefer to have the more open space or do you like having the option to close the doors to separate rooms from hallways?

DIY: How to knock down a wall

One of the most enjoyable parts of a major renovation is bashing down walls you no longer need. It's something that's definitely DIY-able, though there are a few caveats, so I thought I'd run through the basics in case anyone is feeling like breaking out the sledgehammer.

Before and after plans - rough version

We've rearranged the living spaces in this house, turning what was the lounge into our new kitchen, and the old master bedroom (with the best views in the house) becomes the lounge. The bedroom and old lounge were divided by a passage to nowhere (it was the entry passage until the downstairs was added in the late 80s), so we're removing the wall between the bedroom and passage to make the lounge larger and use the dead space.

The passage - currently dead space as it leads nowhere. That wall has to go!

Because we're rookies (and the wall we're removing is load-bearing), our builder will be sorting out the structural side of things, but to save costs (and because it's fun) we're doing the demo ourselves.

That means that in this case we'll be stopping at the studs because otherwise we'd be leaving the ceiling unsupported. Our architect has designed for a beam to be inserted in the roofspace and tied in to replace the need for the studs, but until our builder is on site with props later this week the studs have to stay.

1. Make sure you know the function of the wall

If it's load-bearing or a bracing element you need a building consent. If it's neither of those things there'll still be a bit of building work to make it good, so do your due diligence. Before you smash anything up make sure you have a plan for getting the house back to a liveable state. For us that means calling in the builder at some point - and if you're not too sure that probably means you're in the same boat.

2. Check the location of wiring and plumbing

Where the switchboard used to be

We've already had the sparky remove all the wiring from this wall - in fact the switchboard was mounted on it, and we had a new one installed on a different wall specifically so we could remove the wall. We needed to rewire the whole house anyway, but the relocation still cost a bit extra.

It's not always obvious that there are services hidden inside walls, but if you crawl around in the roofspace above the wall and have a good look you should get a reasonably good idea.

3. Safety first

Get your earmuffs and dust mask out. This is noisy, messy work and you want to stay healthy so you can enjoy the fruits of your labour.

4. Remove door, architraves and skirtings

If there's a door take it down and get it out of the way. Then it's time to break out the flatbar, crowbar and sledgehammer (our lovely set were wedding gifts). It should be possible to tap the flatbar in behind each piece of timber and then pry it off. For long pieces, like either side of a doorway or a long stretch of skirting, you may need to lever it off in multiple places before it will come away. We're saving skirting and architraves so that we can match up new doorways in this old house - if so you'll want to be a bit more cautious. They tend to come off in one piece reasonably readily, though.

5. Let the smashing begin!

Finally, the fun part. If your walls are just gib it'll be easy to break through and then take it off in big shards. Though smashing stuff into smithereens is fun it's not really the most efficient method so try not to break up the sheets too much - this will help reduce the dust and the job will go a lot quicker. If your house is old like ours there might be sarking behind the gib, which does increase the work - two layers to remove.

Where you've removed trim you'll probably have an exposed edge which will allow you to start levering the wall lining off. So you might not have any excuse to smash - but I won't tell if you do a little bit of smashing anyway. ;-)



So that's our process - not sophisticated but gets the job done. I probably don't have to say it but I definitely recommend checking in with a builder or similarly qualified expert before doing anything - I'm not advocating knocking down walls all over the place, and I'd hate for your house to fall down. But there's room in this process for amateurs to get their hands dirty - we'd know because we are definitely amateurs!

Before and after - looking towards the kitchen

And we're far from finished our new lounge, but we can already feel the difference in the space - heaps more light and it feels huge even though all those studs are still limiting the useful space.

Before and after - looking down the passage

Have you ever knocked down a wall? Do you think it looks like fun or would you leave it to the pros?

A geometric tiled backsplash

One of the things we were busy with last month (resulting in a bit of silence here on the blog) was tiling our kitchen backsplash.

Choosing tiles was the first obstacle, and slowed us down quite a bit. We started with a vision of colour, thinking we could incorporate some vibrancy into our kitchen that way. Unfortunately the range of coloured tiles that are (easily) available is fairly limited, and we couldn't find any that looked right. Since colour was off the table we shifted our focus to texture - and pretty quickly discovered the cool 3D tiles we ended up using.


The tiles are hexagonal, and moulded so that they appear cuboid. This gives an almost Escher-est effect when combined, and together with a dark grout to emphasise the outline gave us a finish we're really happy with.

There are two drawbacks to these fantastic tiles; first is the price - retail is $4.10 per tile. Definitely negotiate, though - we were offered a 15% discount without even asking, and then when we saw them cheaper (but out of stock) elsewhere we went back and asked if they could reduce the price further, so they did - not only matching but beating the other store's special price.

The second drawback is that they're tricky to cut - and because they're not square there's a lot of cutting needed. Due to their raised shape we were advised to use an angle grinder rather than a tile cutter, which worked fine but is a bit more labour intensive.

Prep work - making sure the power points are perfectly aligned

Dad made a nifty little cutting template which held the tiles neatly in place for cutting, and precision in the cutting department was exceptional as a result. There was also excellent efficiency in using offcuts to fill opposing gaps, which meant there was very little waste. We had been told to allow an extra 15% in our tile calculations but we were able to return a full box and still keep a dozen or so spares in case of future breakage.

In terms of how to tile - as ever, online instruction video is the name of the game. Mr Mitre 10 sorted us out this time (well, Dad had done it before but we wanted to educate ourselves a bit too). To get a nice symmetrical finish we started in the middle and worked out. We used 3mm spacers, again to ensure we had a good bold outline of grout, and cut the tiles around the rangehood (the shape of the tiles meant we didn't have the choice to tile behind it as it wouldn't be able to sit flush).

The most time consuming (and frustrating) part was working around the power points - the 3D tiles don't really mesh well with fiddly areas. I think we ended up with a decent finish, but this is definitely the least awesome part of the job, and we might still touch them up later. Luckily the toaster lives in front of one set and the jug in front of the other! We debated whether we would have put them elsewhere if we'd chosen our tiles earlier in the process, but the layout of our kitchen doesn't really give us any other sensible options, so that result was inevitable.

It took about a day and a half to finish - not a quick job - but it looks fantastic, and it's so nice to have the kitchen another big step closer to completion.



Left on the kitchen to-do list is:

• Plaster around the built in cupboards 
• Paint built in cupboards and top coat the rest of the room
• Final coat on the floor 
• Replace the glass in the overhead cupboards (I inadvertently ordered frosted instead of clear)

It might be the New Year before it's 100% complete, depending on when our plasterer can slot us in (we've decided to outsource that bit), but we are getting tantalisingly close. 

Meanwhile we're starting to finalise the design for our downstairs bathroom, and having some tiling skills is likely to be useful there (note that the building code requires using a professional for wet areas though, so if we tile the shower we won't be able to DIY that). There's just one rule: no 3D tiles!

My top 5 essential baking tools

This list was harder to compile than I expected it to be. We like to think we're towards the minimalist end of the scale, in that we prefer to keep things as clutter-free as possible... But I love baking and that brings with it a bunch of tools which, while not all essential, definitely help things along - and that means the kitchen is not really sticking with the clutter-free theme.

There are a few things that get more use than everything else, though, so here are my top five baking must-haves.

1. A bowl with a splashguard 

Mine is Tupperware and so was stupidly expensive (maybe $85?). So useful for mixing without spattering batter all over the room, or sending clouds of icing sugar through the atmosphere. Stand mixers often come with these but I haven't seen them elsewhere, which is unfortunate because it's so useful! Anyone in the bowl manufacturing business who could produce these for mass market?

2. Kitchen scales 

These are essential! Although the next item contradicts this a little, I prefer to weigh ingredients where I can: it's more accurate and reduces washing up. Digital definitely wins on precision, and they've got to be easy to clean. My set is a few years old and I can't see them on sale anywhere anymore, but these look good.

3. Measuring cups and spoons

For when you don't have weight measurements, or for liquids a good set of cups and spoons are pretty key.

My favourite measuring cups are this awesome Joseph Joseph set (includes a large bowl and a couple of other bits as well) - though I use pyrex jugs for larger liquid measures.

When it comes to measuring spoons, I have three sets, but the best are these basic plastic ones; they're easy to use and can be kept on the ring or separated very easily. 

4. A really good spatula 

My favourite for the last five years was a Tupperware one, but it's just given up the ghost so I've switched to another well-designed Joseph Joseph product, which works just as well but seems a bit hardier. I especially like that the Joseph Joseph one is strong enough to use to stir as well as scraping down the edges.

5. Electric beater

I don't have a stand mixer, but my handheld electric beater is very well used. Mine is a Breville similar to this (again, mine is quite old so the model I have is no longer made) and after nearly six years of thrashing the motor is beginning to sound a little sick, so I've been eyeing up snazzy new ones (maybe a coloured one? Or maybe I should get a stand mixer when it finally gives up?).


So tell me - what are your most used tools? And how do you keep kitchen clutter at bay?

Some links are via affiliate programmes, which means I may get a small commission if you purchase one of these products. I don't recommend products I don't use and love, though! 

DIY - a finished side gate

As with every DIY project, it took us longer than we anticipated, but we've finally finished our side gate. This means we have a fully contained patio, otherwise known as a Little Monkey Catchment Zone.

We still need to clean it up, but that's a relatively easy task that can largely be done with a Little Monkey in attendance, because he is now TRAPPED.

Before and after - at least now you can't see the weeds... 

And finished is a relative term... Well, it is here, anyway. ;-) Sharp eyes will notice that we haven't yet trimmed the gate posts down. We're still debating whether to take them flush with the palings (most likely) or to put caps on them to show the gateway. We will eventually fence off the front boundary of the property with the same style of fencing, and will need to make the entrance obvious when we do that round - so just mulling over our options.

Woohoo, a post!

The build was fairly straightforward, though divided over many naptimes over the past couple of weekends.

First we put two posts into the ground. The boundary fence had a conveniently-placed post we could attach the little bit of fence on that side too, and the fence on the house side is so small that we have just used extra supports on the gate side and left it hanging free on the house side (we could have attached it to the house with brackets but prefer not to drill into the weatherboards).

The gate itself followed the tutorial we found when planning, though our timber was a bit gruntier that what was shown - mainly because we didn't know what to buy and the staff at Placemakers weren't very helpful. Because we're already a bit self-conscious about our skill level (and therefore worried the things we make might break), when we're unsure we tend to go for the most heavy-duty materials, so our gate is probably stronger than is necessary.

We went with costly but durable kid-safe hinges and latch - the hinges are self-closing and hopefully it'll be a few years before the gate stops being childproof (unless our Little Monkey learns from those kids who broke out of their daycare the other week).

We could have done it cheaper but we're pretty pleased with the result and are confident we can do the rest of the fencing in the same style, but faster and cheaper - so a worthwhile project.

Have you been working on any landscaping projects this weekend?

Side gate
Budget: $100 (ha!)
Timeframe: 8-10 hours work (spread across three weekends)
Who did the work: Us
Actual cost: $456 (including a couple of clamps and a new level)
Learnings: The timber for the gate should ideally be the same thickness as the posts; measuring and pre-drilling the palings made attaching them much faster; Bunnings beats Placemakers for helpful service and it's cheaper!

Recycling - stuff you (maybe) didn't know

A wee while back I went to a Waste Free Parenting workshop with the Nappy Lady, who works with councils across New Zealand to help people reduce waste.

I went because I was interested in learning more about cloth nappies, but she also inspired me to think a bit harder about other household waste. One of the most compelling things she said was that if a load of recycling was contaminated with something messy, say food waste, that the whole load could end up going to landfill because it's just not viable to clean everything.

While we want to reduce our waste as much as possible we're easily confused - we thought we couldn't put pizza boxes in because they had food on them, and the recent news about plastic bags had us thinking we couldn't put those into our recycling bin, but here in Wellington we can (but Aucklanders can't).

It turns out it's not just us: confusion is rife, and easily explainable because what you can recycle varies a lot across different regions. Here are a few important tips which will help ensure your household recycling is actually getting recycled.

General tips:

• All recycling must be clean, as if it's not it can contaminate the load (and unclean items won't be recycled anyway). It's also hand sorted, so pretty gross for the sorters if you don't wash it! 
• Items should be loose inside the bin or bag.  



The plastic recycling categories


• Plastics should have a recycle symbol on them and a number - which numbers are 
• accepted varies by region although many regions now take all numbers from 1-7. Check with your council if you're not sure. 
• Styrofoam meat trays can't be recycled here. Some supermarkets are moving to recyclable trays, though!
• Pizza boxes are okay so long as pizza scraps are removed (we've had a few debates here about this).
• Glass must not be broken, and generally only glass jars and bottles from consumables are accepted (not kitchenware or other household glass). 

Each region has specific rules and exclusions. I've compiled a table of few of the key things for the three big centres - I wanted to do a more exhaustive chart but it would take me weeks! So sorry to those of you outside these areas - but at least it demonstrates how variable it all is.

Recycling in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch

It's a fairly mundane part of life but important, I think, to minimise waste as much as we can - and since we all eat and most of us create a lot of waste I thought this might be useful.

And if nothing else I've learnt a few things. For one, I've always put plastic milk bottle lids in the recycling - turns out that in Wellington they should go in the rubbish. Oops!

Are you surprised by any of this? Are there any other important pointers that I've missed?


Sources: Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch City Council websites; The Nappy Lady; Wellington City Council Waste Education Team

DIY - A floor story

This post was originally posted on A Kiwi Dream, my short-lived separate reno blog. Over the next couple of months I'll be migrating the content there here so please bear with me if you were following me there. 

One of the most depressing things about this house when we moved in was the upstairs carpet. What had once been a pristine, high quality wool carpet was completely threadbare in places (we know where the previous owners had their furniture!), was grungy and grubby, and had a giant hole in the middle, roughly patched with secondhand underlay but no carpet, where the fireplace had at some point been removed from the house.

 Putting a picnic rug over a small patch of the old carpet wasn't really enough, somehow... 

We knew that where the fire had been the floor was chipboard, but the condition of the floorboards under the rest was lucky dip.

I think the carpet came up from the old living room/new kitchen on day 11 of ownership (the first seven were consumed with getting the downstairs liveable, day eight was moving day and days nine and 10 were consumed with organising). We had just gotten some semblance of order, our son was having a nap, and we felt like doing something. It wasn't practical to start bashing holes in walls but ripping up carpet seemed like a good option.

If you haven't tried it, it's dusty and can be hard slog (depending how well it's fixed down), and moving big rolls of it requires a bit of brute strength (which I lack... Working on it though!).

I recommend using a face mask (for the dust), some gloves (we used our gardening ones) and you'll need pliers. A flatbar or similar can be useful to get under tricky corners but mostly it's just yanking it up, and then working around the edges with your pliers to remove tacks and staples left in the floor.

 The more of the staples come out in the carpet (left) the less annoying, fiddly work you have to do with the pliers. 

It's one of those jobs which, though a bit gross and not at all glamorous, can be transformative, especially if the floor underneath is glorious native timber. We were rewarded that afternoon with the revelation of matai floorboards in pretty good nick.

Before and after pics provide satisfying evidence of an afternoon's work

Unfortunately the patched area in the middle of the floor from the old fireplace was chipboard - and naturally that area will be the most used and visible part of the room. So we set about searching for a company specialising in timber floor repairs.

Chipboard - not exactly a character feature in the traditional sense.

This job was definitely beyond our DIY abilities - stitching the planks in sounded too tricky even to our builder so this was definitely a specialist piece of work. 

There were plenty of search results but Total Timber Flooring stood out because they had a photo showing how they had repaired a big area of flooring, like ours, by stitching the new boards into the existing floor, instead of just butting the pieces up against the existing square edge, and therefore making the patch almost undetectable (I'm sure other companies exist that do this, but not all will go to the effort).

Nathan came out to check out the job and provided the quote within a few hours of his visit. It ended up being a touch under $2,700 in total - that includes supply of the recycled boards for the patch, all the repair work, filling and sanding, and three sealing coats on 34.5sqm of floor.

I was around for most of the process so I annoyed the crew a lot by asking constant questions and taking lots of photos. :-D

 

Day one was all about the repair - before they could put the new boards in they had to run some joists at the right intervals, as there weren't enough underneath. Then they carefully removed the short pieces of board to permit the stitching, and fitted the jigsaw together. They managed a quick sand of the patched area before packing up for the day.

Day two involved lots of filling of gaps and holes, and lots of sanding. It looked pretty amazing by the end of the day, though:

Once it's sanded back it's best to minimise use as the wood isn't protected from stains and spills. We'd arranged to move out for a couple of days in anticipation of the stinky sealing coats, which was a good move - no risk of us messing it up.

Day three started with another round of sanding, followed by a very thorough clean-up to ensure nothing got stuck in the sealing coats. The first coat is a protective sealer that soaks into the wood and dries in about half an hour (it took a little longer, actually, due to the brisk temperatures in Wellington that week).

The second coat is a gloss polyurethane - Nathan told me that even though we're going with a matte finish, the gloss is harder so he uses it for the middle coat to better protect the timber.

The third coat won't go on until we've finished installing our kitchen cabinetry, so that we don't risk scuffing it up - and that'll be a few weeks away yet. But it already looks pretty good so here are the obligatory before and after shots:

Looking towards the kitchen

Looking from the kitchen towards the dining room - you can see the boards used for the patch in this one but it's less obvious in real life

The entrance passage (I didn't take a picture of this last week so a few other things have changed since the "before"!)

We're thrilled with how well it's come up - we knew it would look good but hadn't quite imagined how good. And I highly recommend Nathan and his team - they clearly know their stuff!

Oh - but I do recommend sussing out somewhere to stay for a couple of days - you can't walk on it for 12 hours or so while it dries, but even if you can work around that the smell is fairly strong, even in distant, closed off parts of the house.

Are you a fan of timber floors?