Our new balcony - also known as the perils of starting one "small job"

So we have now owned the Crooked Cottage for two years.  Actually I think today is the anniversary day of when we settled.  And after the initial push to renovate before we moved in, followed by a period of extreme dislike of building work, I've swung back to wanting to get stuff done around the house.

The quest to get the balcony fixed started last year, when I got a builder to quote on fixing the railing.  We hadn't been letting people go out onto the balcony, even though we do have a little view of the city, and can see the fireworks at New Years - but the balcony rail was quite low and not sturdy so we wanted to fix it.

Seemed simple enough.  But nothing is ever simple here!

This is how the house looked when we bought it.  Those palms are long gone.  But as you can see, the balcony railings quite clearly do not meet any safety requirements.

Builder turned up. (bonus).  Looked at railing.  Bounced up and down on the decking.  Looked underneath.  Pronounced the boards to need replacing.

Ok - so we will replace the boards too.  Good idea.  New balcony.

Then he looked under the base.  Our balcony doesn't have any support posts - which means the joists are cantilevered under the floor of our bedroom.  The joists were also pronounced rotten.  So suddenly the "small job" of fixing the railing height had become taking up the floor in our bedroom, putting in new joists, new decking, new railings....  And the numbers he was "quoting" me kept climbing - first $5000, then $9000 then maybe $12000 - but all rather vague.  He never did send me a detailed quote.  And I didn't chase it up.

Then this year I spoke to our neighbour who had replaced our fence.  Asked his opinion on the matter of the dodgy balcony.  He had a look, agreed with the first builder and called a builder he works with.  So this time I got a proper quote.  The floor would be taken up, new joists put in, new decking (the right way up this time - it was pointed out to me that the ridges on the decking should go on the under side but people think they go on the top side for "grip"), new railings with regulation height and also no child sized gaps for anyone to stick their head (or entire body in the case of the old balcony) through.  Plus as the weatherboards had deteriorated these would be replaced.  

Not sure if it is very clear in this photo but previously there was quite a large hole under the balcony.  Also, the joists had been "fixed" by a second piece of pine attached to the first joists.

So we went ahead.  And as usual, Sydney's unseasonably dry weather stopped the day work was meant to start - we lost probably 4 days in total to rain.  

I didn't actually take any internal pictures, but for a few days it was very painful removing all the stuff out of our cupboards to allow access to the roof space and under floor.  But the results are complete (apart from painting - still waiting on quotes for that!) and I'm so very pleased!

The joists were cut off, and floor inside pulled up.  Weatherboards were also removed.

New joists were put in place and remain cantilevered so the balcony remains the same form and size - but is no longer rotten!

I tried to take some photos of the joists that were removed to show how rotten they actually were - very glad now that we didn't let anyone out there before! 

Base all framed up nicely, with the decking down, and new posts going up.

The finished product!  Looks so much better (and will be even better when we get it painted).  A nice sturdy, safe balcony which meets requirements.  I might even be able to sit out there sometimes and watch the world go by!

Of course, the problem is that now the upstairs looks so good I have to do something about the downstairs.  So next project will be replacing all the weatherboards and architraves at the front of the house.  And of course painting it a new (non bright blue) colour.  Won't be long and the Crooked Cottage will be one of the best looking houses on the street!

A productive Saturday

I do love the feeling of being productive on the weekend.  Although it is nice to have those lazy days where you do nothing much, I've decided that I prefer the weekends where I manage to garden (or DIY - or maybe both!), catch up with friends AND have a bit of a relax.

It's only Saturday night, and I already feel pleased with my achievements.  So naturally, self congratulation is only so good - I feel the need to share with everyone!

Friday night was quiet but I did watch Better Homes and Gardens, and then my new favourite show - Selling Houses Australia.  I admit I do occasionally end up feeling a bit smug that we did buy one of those houses without the "Shayna Blaze dressing"-  and paid less because of it.  I always wonder if the people who did buy the houses see it on TV and curse that they could have bought it cheaper. 

Then this morning my productiveness (is that a word?  Probably not) began.  A trip to the Orange Grove Markets was first order.  I have blogged about the markets before (read it here) - I'm not so interested in the organic produce (after all I am trying to grown my own!) but the plants and flowers are good.  So today's purchases were cauliflower and broad bean seedlings, and a kaffir lime tree. 

So turns out I could carry a tree after all #gardening #tree Kaffir lime means we can use the leaves already! pic.twitter.com/UIHlotQtFh

— Crooked Cottage (@crookedcottage1) June 13, 2015

The broad beans and cauliflower seedlings prior to planting.

I came home, and spray painted another pot (there were quite a lot of large pots left here, but all were ugly and scratched, so I am gradually trying to pretty them up).  I weeded, and I sifted an awful lot of dirt (I've been sifting dirt for months, as the previous owners seemed to have had a pebble landscape at some point - which means there are rocks in every garden bed.  I use a colander that I bought for $2 at the local Vinnies, which we then drilled larger holes into.  And I decided to remove my basil plants, which had become very woody and were totally gone to seed.  I am going to try to dry the plants and keep the seeds though.  

My excellent dirt and pebble sieve.

The flowers of the basil plant, which I hope I can dry out and keep the seeds from.

Once the garden bed was prepared I planted out my cauliflower and broad bean seedlings.  I also planted beetroot seedlings I bought last week, and finally planted the hyacinth bulbs which have been sitting in my fridge for a good month or so waiting to be planted.  

Caulis and beans planted out in my freshly sieved garden

Beetroot seedlings planted out

Hyacinth bulb is already shooting a little

Once the pot was dry I planted the kaffir lime tree out as well. 

I took a few more photos of my garden - just because some of the flowers are looking lovely, even if it is June and the middle of winter here!

One of my snap dragons 

Quite an extreme close up of one of the snap dragons

Lemon tree blossoms - hopefully that will mean I will have some fruit.

Plus I took a trip to Fedwood timber to try to find out about replacing the palings on our fence.  It seems it will be a lot more expensive than I expect, so I'm still considering.  I discussed it with my neighbour, and we have decided that to start with we will try to remove the disgusting green paint on the retaining wall  - so tomorrow morning I will be borrowing my neighbours gurney and taking on a green painted sandstone wall.  (yes that's right.  They painted sandstone green.  Why??)  

So that was just the morning!  I had lunch with a friend and a wander through Rozelle.

And then this evening I was lucky enough to go to see the screening of the film "Women He's Undressed" as part of the Sydney Film Festival at the Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne.  I went with another friend who was able to get tickets through her work.  It's a documentary, directed by Gillian Armstrong, who was at the screening.  The film was great, and I've never been to the Orpheum before - it's beautiful.  Definitely recommend checking it out! 

The organ being played before the performance

The ceiling in the theatre (The camera phone doesn't really do it justice!)

The great bathroom window debacle - also known as council compliance

So this post is really a warning to all those DIY renovators like myself who may not realise the areas you can get into trouble with from your local council.

When we were renovating the bathroom/laundry, we had already removed the asbestos and so needed to get the walls resheeted.  The ceiling is sloping, and also had exposed beams.  Our plasterer/handyman suggested we put in a new ceiling to remove the beams.  All of which was fine.  The problem was the windows that had previously been in place.  When we went to prepare to resheet - it was discovered that what had previously been in place was two sheets of glass fixed to the outside of the house, and a frame on the inside to make it appear like a proper window - but these were never attached together!

So once we realised this we had a dilemma.  We couldn't reuse these windows, it was just not possible.  But the two windows which were there were unusual sizes, and to find windows to fit this seemed difficult.

So my plasterer came up with a  (seemingly) great idea - he could get a frosted glass window, "only a little bit bigger" and he would put one larger window in the place of the two smaller ones.  I naively said ok, go ahead.

So the window was installed.  As soon as I saw it (completed, as I had had to go to work while this was all going on) I knew it was a fair bit larger than the previous windows.  And was lower down.  But I still didn't think too much of it.

The offending window once bathroom was complete

So this is the new window - window is great but still need to finish the tiling!

Until I came home to the business card from the council compliance office stuck in my door.  And discovered my neighbour had made a complaint about our new window.  She did come to see us afterwards, but unfortunately the damage was done when she had already spoken to the council.  So even though we came to a mutually satisfactory agreement (we would replace the window with a fixed frosted window of the same size, in place of the sliding one we had put in) the council didn't care - we had to replace what had been there (impossible) or lodge a building application for what we had put in (what's the point - she would not allow it?!)  They were quite inflexible which is frustrating.  In the end, we had to get custom made windows of the same size that had previously been there.  Although they had previously been clear glass, as I pointed out to the council guy - frosted is much more practical in a bathroom.  So we were allowed to have frosted glass.  (technically it should have been exactly the same, so clear - which to me just shows how silly some things are, however at least the council officer did give us some leeway on this).

In the end, we had the windows custom made by Select Windows, and although rather pricey (it came in altogether at approximately $3000 but this included replacing our other side window, which had been glass bricks but we had knocked out and had been using a nailed on board!) we are really happy with the end result.  The neighbours are also happy - and given the large bunch of flowers we found on our doorstep not long after the whole debacle I think they appreciated us not kicking up a fuss - and possibly also felt sorry for not speaking to us first, as we could have worked it out between us at less cost!

But the take home lesson is - look up on your council website the restrictions in your area.  And windows are probably always something that you need to be careful with - I really hadn't thought of it but no one wants the neighbour to be suddenly able to see into areas they had never seen before!  Making an error like this can be costly, so even though a fast decision might seem like a good idea - look into it first.  We were lucky that as we had made an honest mistake, and moved quickly to fix it, the council did waive what apparently could have been a sizeable fine on top of the costs to replace the windows.  So maybe Leichhardt Council isn't all bad.  Maybe.