First Home - Reno Update

So the other week I shared the dining/lounge reveal but I realised I haven't been sharing much else and a lot has happened! We pulled down our back and front entrance (too much cement damage!), repaired and painted our 2nd bedroom and hallway, got solar installed, and painted all our doors.  I still want to get a bunch of nice finished photos but today I'm sharing the before shots!

I shared the completed lounge/dining and before shots previously but as a bonus, some during photos!

Team work!

A dream was seeing these casement window fixtures scrub up (previously covered in paint!) 

Although (a bad dream!) having to remove the paint :P

Freshly painted dining room :)

This is a shot I took when we first moved in and you can see the cement back porch.  I think it's super cute with its little curve but it was falling to pieces so we had to remove it!! So many trips to the dump carting heavy concrete (not fun!)

ARGH!

It looks absolutely terrible now but it will eventually have a big deck that will wrap around we just need to get on top of the bamboo battle first! One thing at a time :P

I made it my personal mission to strip, prep, and paint all the doors in the house.  It nearly broke me.

Looks kind of fun and easy but the job ended up being mammoth 

All the fittings were covered in paint.  I tried to capture it above but I think the next three photos do a better job!

The previous painters definitely didn't tape up their doors when painting :P

The first result after scraping off as much paint as I could!

The final result after loads of sanding! 

Isn't it shiny and pretty :) :)

I still need to take shots of all the finished doors but for now, here are the front and back doors awaiting their second coat (stuck painting inside because of rainy weather).  The colour is Tamale red by Haymes Paint.  The photo doesn't do a great job at capturing the colour, the true to life shade is a bright solid orange :) You can also spy our freshly painted hallway.

After watching the David Attenborough's doco 'A life on our planet', Ben and I were inspired to get our butts into action and organise solar.  So glad we did!

Isn't it pretty!! You can also spy one of the windows sanded back, that is the window belonging to our second bedroom.   
We're sanding back and varnishing each window as we slowly move through the interior reno :)

Getting ready to paint the 2nd bedroom - yes rocks holding down our drop sheets :P

Goodbye pink and yellow!

The second bedroom needed the least work of all our rooms just some patching and light sanding.  We actually painted this bedroom and the hallway at the same time, so what started out as a little paint job ended up being a mammoth one!

You can see a very unattractive mold stain on the bedroom roof!

Wa-Lah! So nice and fresh, just needed the window frame to be screwed back in at this point :)

Our previous front entry ramp.  This is one of the first projects we completed.  Actually, it was a solo Ben job with assistance from his friend Drew with ramp construction :) Despite the concrete being in terrible condition, Ben and I became accustomed to the ramp entrance so we decided to keep this style, instead of going with stairs.

Close up of all the damage.  We actually had to step on strategic panels to be able to close the door properly :P

Ben bought this jackhammer second hand.  It ended up being a money saver because after using it for the front and back entrance, he resold it :)

The new ramp.  I absolutely love the plain pine but since it's out in the weather it needed to be sealed.  Ideally, I wanted a neutral sealant but when we went to the shop, the clear stains all had a yellowish tinge, so we made the bold move to go black.

I love the black BUT it does pick up dirt and probably not the best choice with a dog and two cats in the mix.  Maybe in the future, we'll replace the pine with darker hardwood planks that wouldn't look terrible with a yellow-tinged stain *shrugs*

Right now our current home projects include battling bamboo and trying to get it cleared so we can start out deck.  I'm also digging out our back eating area (that was just a tad too small) and once the rain eases we're going to make a start on our master bedroom which needs a lot of work and will force our mattress out into lounge until we finished it!