Gutting the house

We knew we had asbestos in the bathrooms and laundry but we thought that was probably it. Fairly standard for a Canberra house built in the 60's. But no - we were in for a less than pleasant surprise to discover that previous owners had loved asbestos so much that most of the extensions had this glorious substance involved in one way or another.

All the cladding and eaves. Not the insulation, although that also had to be removed in a similar fashion as they weren't quite sure what it was. We later found a bill that confirmed it was just normal, non toxic fibre fill.


So the next step is to get rid of it safely.

Just a hint of the work done -

 Our bedroom

 View from laundry through to bathroom - all walls here were asbestos and completely removed -

 Matt's room - easiest way to get to wall insulation is to rip out the walls... (even my beautifully painted purple wall)

 Meaghan's room - Sonic hedgehog survives for now -

 Outside upstairs - more asbestos - fairly breezy  -

Ducts and bags of insulation -

 

and the backyard - too late to turn back now-

 Not much left to be knocked down.

Trees

The first thing to go were the trees. We are keeping a couple of large ones, but two big gums had to go. One had already been shedding very large branches, easy decisions.

The lonely, never used BBQ, once surrounding by large wooden fence and shrubs -

They didn't have to worry where the branches fell, makes it an easy job for the most part - all electrical wires had been removed.

 The west side of the house has more space than we realised. This is where water tanks will be located in the new house.

 Starting to get an idea of how much room had been taken up by bushes trees etc. (ok mostly morning glory, privet, blackberry..). Should be interesting to see the cleared block.

Graffiti Day

 It started off with a little colour and art - all Meaghan's work -

 But soon descended into outright graffiti -

 

 Geoff's work -

 And mine-

The old house

About a year ago, after painting both Matt's and Henry's rooms, we decided it was time to update the house. We had plans for renovations but we knew they were a compromise. So off to display homes for us.

Many, many homes later, only one or two builders had interested us.

And then we stumbled, purely by chance, upon a display home in Yarralumla. It was the last weekend it was open to the public and we fell in love. The builder was also there and after talking to Ivan we were pretty sure we had found our match.

A little under 12 months later, our house lays in rubbles and we are hoping that by winter 2013 we will be in.

So a photo heavy blog was required to follow our journey.

The old house - from the outside -

 

The asbestos laden addition to the very original house

 

 The original bit of the house, laundry door, bathroom and Henry's room - 

all taking full advantage of the north facing wall (!!!)

 And the front. Nice and private, cleverly concealing the house.

Will miss the plants out the front...

Will not miss the grey bricks, the asbestos brown cladding, the loosely fitting windows, the dodgy wiring, the clogged drains, the overhead wires, the list is pretty well endless.