First Reno Project @ 23yo - Sydney

(1/3)

Bought this place in Dec 2016' with parents. The previous owner decided to stay on and rent the property for 2 months and towards the end of his tenancy I asked if I could come in to inspect and plan my reno. None of this is me ranting or complaining...just what I found and learnt during this project.

The property was very poorly kept...well the tenant was well into his 80s and I couldn't blame him for not being able to maintain/clean the place but it was horrible during the reno; I found a flat and dried up dead rat in the pantry, heaps of other dead insects everywhere as well as decades worth of piled up dust.

My plan for project (1 month and a Budget of $5000):
-Remove the carpet and put laminate floorboards throughout bedrooms and living.
-Remove the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and replace with tiles, remove existing cupboards and benchtop and replace with some modern joinery units
- Remove wallpaper and paint throughout (doors, skirting, ceiling, architraves, exterior etc.)
- Fix and paint the patio in the back as the wood was rotting away
- Repair wooden fence at the back of the property

Here are some of the before photos!

 

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Week 1 into the project:
The previous owner paid for a council pick up of his rubbish...I didn't want to spend a few hundred of my budget on a skip bin (which I didn't even plan for) so I quickly removed the carpet and 'bulky' items from the house first and stacked it nicely outside for council to pick up.

Bedrooms and Living:
After the carpet was removed, we found really good hardwood flooring underneath and wanted to sand it and polish instead of buying laminate floorboard. Got a quote the same day for $3000 for someone to repair some areas of the floorboard (with a wood filler) and to sand and polish; 3 layers. Got a bit demotivated after that because it was so expensive so stuck with the original plan to use laminate floorboards.
Decided to not waste time and started with removing the old wallpaper and applying an undercoat for the walls.

Kitchen:
I really wanted to renovate the kitchen extensively because of all the renovating for profit videos and seminars that I've seen and how beautiful the end product was. First we cleaned up everything inside the cupboards, ceiling etc. We were going to remove everything but during the cleaning phase we were told that having the kitchen tiled would be difficult and costly which did demotivate me again but my tradie uncle said that we should try steam-cleaning the vinyl first and see how we go...

Bathroom:
I planned to use ceramic paint for the bathroom but was told that the results were not going to be that good....(very demotivating again) so we just cleaned the place up quickly and thought how we can improve it without replacing much...

Backyard:
I wanted to save money and just repair fence with old wood but when we started to tidy up the area we found that the existing fence was all rotten there was no point in repairing it. The property behind me was applying for a DA to construct a house but I couldn't get in touch with the owner to discuss details about sharing costs to erect a colourbond fence.

 

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Finishing up, decisions, final product and options...

We are second week into the project now and it has been a tiring week.

Bedrooms and living: We didn't go ahead with laminate flooring because we didn't feel that it was needed and ended up using the existing hardwood floorboard. Out of the whole project, the floorboard maintenance was definitely the most time consuming and back braking exercise. We had to remove a lot of nails and staples from the floorboard (I'm talking 1000s of them) before we can quickly sand and polish. Then we realised that there were so many holes in the floorboard so we got wood filler to patch it up. No problems with painting in general except we decided not to paint the ceiling.

Kitchen: We rented a steam cleaner from Bunnings and cleaned the whole kitchen extensively...and the results were pretty satisfying! At this point in time, I decided not to do anything to the kitchen but to just clean everything. Maybe I'll renovate it extensively once I decide to sell?

Bathroom: Same as the kitchen...we just painted part of the walls and replaced a few items in there.

Backyard: We painted the outdoor toilet box and the garage/tool shed. We also erected a colourbond fence...the owner of the property behind me was no where to be found but I decided to put the fence up anyway.

 

Conclusion:
My initial timeframe and budget for this project was 1 month and $5,000. We only spent a total of 2 weeks on this renovation and only 5 days total (some nights they worked till 2am). Excluding our labor cost (everything was done within the family) we only spend a total of $2,372!

It has been a somewhat long two weeks filled with lots of emotions and problem solving. Pretty much close to nothing went to plan but we did manage to save time, money and came out on top with a good product. I was pretty happy with the improvements and change...now I'm thinking if I should upgrade the kitchen and bathroom?

Please tell me about your renovation projects, ideas and how you would've done it!

 

It looks nice and neat, and the floors look great!

I think to get real bang for buck you'll need to do the kitchen and bathroom. Tile paint will go a long way in the bathroom, it's very dark in there. Even just do all the wall tiles.

 

Don't get me started!

For what you have done it is neat and clean and presents well. You have the option of adding value in the future with a kitchen reno. The last kitchen I installed was secondhand from gumtree but I have some carpentry skills and tools to modify the cabinets.

As @Jess Peletier suggested, painting the tiles in the bathroom would brighten it up a lot. You can get tile paint from Bunnings.

 

Great work mate! I took on my first minor reno a year ago when I was 25 years old with some elbow grease from my old man so your story sounds very familiar!
I know the experience can definitely be exhausting both physically and mentally, but the end result is definitely worth it as you would be discovering.

As others have suggested paint the bathroom tiles. I'd also paint all the blue bits in the bathroom also (fairly sure bunnings stock the type of paint for the job).

For the kitchen, I'd look into painting the cabinets, painting the benchtop if possible (depending on the material), replacing the cabinet handles with something more modern and even vinyl plank flooring.

Let us know how you go and all the best!

 

Hopefully these links help to get the ideas flowing:

How to paint a laminate benchtop

How to paint laminate kitchen cabinets

 

Good results fella, but you put laminate floors over hardwood floorboards?????

 

I wouldn't paint the blue bath or basin. Not if it's going to be a rental, anyway as it would look terrible if scratched with household cleaners.

 

Great job.

 

Looks really good.

1. Paint bathroom wall tiles a light colour.
2. Replace toilet (very easy and a $149 one from bunnings works beautifully - get the full porcelain one, not the plastic one).
3. Paint the bath white.
4. Replace vanity with a cheap one (or use the same paint as bath to make it white.
5. Replace vanity tapware.

Will cost less than $500, and look like you've spent thousands.

 

Did you do the floor sanding yourself or how did you get the $3000 quote down?

 

What's under the vinyl in the kitchen? If the floorboards continue I think it would look amazing to have floorboards in there also- really adds to the "flow" of the house. Agree with the suggestions also of simple cosmetic updates to bathrooms- paint tiles, new toilet and vanity, maybe paint bath. For the kitchen, if you put a new laminate benchtop (there are some reasonably (priced ones at ikea) and new handles, it would look heaps better!. Great job so far!!

(Interested also how you did the floors- did you do it yourself?)

 

We did it ourselves. Rented a floor sander from Bunnings after watching a few youtube videos (the staff at Bunnings had a few tips too) and that was actually the easy part...the hard part was removing the staples and nails in the hardwood floorboards

 

Haha I know but prior to us realising that we could sand and polish the floorboard ourselves...it would've been cheaper to buy and install laminate compared to hiring someone to sand and polish.

 

Yup we did it ourselves. Ripped up the carpet, removed all the nails and staples, rented a sander from Bunnings and off we went. We also had to buy wood filler to patch up all the holes in the wood

 

Nice work Elvis, looking good.

I second the question about what's under the vinyl in the kitchen. Unless it's concrete, there's a very good chance it's also hardwood! If you haven't already, peel up a corner and take a peek. You can always glue it back down if it's something else.

 

It's hardwood floorboard under the vinyl! but the strategy is to hold and rent out the property and we thought that keeping the vinyl would probable be better and we could remove it once we decide to sell!