Window-less Views

View from master bedroom

Great news: The camera cord has been found! It was squirrelled away by hubby and he couldn't quite remember where! So now I can download my photos and show you what's left of the house.

View of the back garden from the living room

You could call it draught-central.

The study window where the built-in desk once was

Or empty rooms with window-less views.

The kitchen - the orange splashback hangs precariously from the wall

Or just plain, demolition-city.

The girl's bedroom

As you can see, all the interiors bits - from the large bits ie the kitchen to the small bits ie the mixers to all the ones in-between ie laundry tub, ceiling fan and toilets - have gone. Except for the bath - too hard to get out without causing damage.

The main bathroom

The only hardwood floors in the house are gone - carefully uplifted and are now stored in our garage awaiting a magic revival and transformation into a table. They were in the part of the living room where we had a small dining table and two leather armchairs. The space was once an outdoor verandah that had, at some point, been enclosed.

This is where our small six-seater (just) round dining table sat

The area once looked like this

You can see the two layers of brick used to clad the house. The lime and mortar is crumbling away so you can just pull them out by hand. Apparently the bricks are better quality than what you can buy now so, instead of letting a brick recycler get their hands on them, we're going to use them as part our reverse brick veneer (where the exterior cladding is timber, followed by insulation, followed by brick, followed by wall - a sustainble way of getting a good heating/cooling system going).

The study

I'll leave you with a view from the study window when there was once a window ...

 

Goodbye Windows

I'm very excited as I've found a beautiful home for our stained glass windows and doors (and maybe even the timber floors)! A builder and his family who've bought a turn-of the-century weatherboard cottage just out of Newcastle want to re-use our windows and doors as part of their home's restoration.

So it will soon be goodbye windows and doors, and hello new, temporary windows and doors in a soon-to-found rental property (but more on that later).

How on earth did I find this man, you ask? Well, through a rather circuitous route that started with Peter Orlando from Orlando Designs in Mosman, Sydney, which used to deal with remnants of old houses such as stained glass windows, but now mainly specialises in antiques and decor.

I met Murray the builder this week on a reccy trip to Sydney and he told me all about his plans to renovate his house and how hard it is to find multiple window sets from the same house with the matching stained glass pattern. I felt very chuffed to know these babies will be going to a good home, with heart and help keep some of Australia's old architecture alive.

There's even a chance the timber floorboards can be successfully (depending on how they've been nailed down) uplifted and re-used. My recycled timber table is looking promising and Murray may also be able to use the timber in his house. Let's hope so.

Now, my next job is finding another place to live. As the four builders we've chosen peruse our plans to present their quote, we need to secure a renter and move house.

Finally, it feels as if this build is really going to happen.