Learning curves ahead!

Talk about a baptism by fire! Our first renovation was as challenging as it gets. We planned to buy the worst house in the suburb and flip it for a pretty profit in just six weeks. As soon as we set foot on this property for our first viewing, the stench hit our nostrils and we thought, ‘ This house stinks – it’s perfect!’ We knew that most people would be scared off by its poor condition, so we were in with a real chance of buying it at a good price. And we did.

Because it was filled to the brim with rubbish, accomplishing even the most basic of tasks was tough. We had to guess some of the sizes of the rooms because we couldn’t get the tape measure from wall to wall. It was very dark inside and the front yard was so overgrown that you couldn’t see the house from the street. One neighbour told us she’d been looking at the same bed sheet hanging on the Hills Hoist for a decade. Talk about a bad view!

But it was the run-down condition of the house that made it so rewarding to renovate. The changes were rapid as we knocked out walls to create an open-plan design that was light, breezy and modern. We were even able to save the original floorboards.

The neighbours loved us. They told us that in just six weeks the house had gone from an eyesore to the best house in the street. Locals were honking their horns and stopping their cars to tell us how much they loved and appreciated what we were doing. It was an unexpected perk of this particular reno.

Keep that green pristine!

Always lay your turf last to protect it.

Erin

“There’s no denying it … rendering over bricks delivers the greatest exterior transformation – but rendering a whole home can cost a packet. We’ve found one of the best ways to update an ugly brick exterior is by spraying the bricks using a premium exterior paint. It’s much cheaper and can be done in 1–2 days by a professional, or you can tackle it yourself. If you’ve got your heart set on that rendered look, you can render just the front façade and spray the sides and back to match, like we did here.”

LET’S TALK TURF

If you can increase the amount of green grass out the front or back of your house, DO IT! It will make your home look more appealing. #moneybackguarantee You may need to clear away a few dead or dying bushes, but the end result will be so much stronger with a neat patch of turf out front. Our landscapers built a white picket fence, then we laid the new turf ourselves over a weekend and voila! The old barren front garden was transformed into a beautiful new yard, perfect for a family.

A CLEVER FLOORPLAN HAS THE ABILITY TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Improving the floorplan of a house is the FIRST thing we look at when we’re renovating. Reimagining a floorplan can make the biggest difference to the way a house looks and feels, and it can also be an expensive thing to fix if you don’t get it right the first time.

REMOVING WALLS ISN’T SCARY

Most older houses were built with lots of separate rooms. It’s just the way things were done back then. Open-plan living wasn’t even a concept and many thought ‘alfresco’ was a pizza topping. When planning your reno, remember that some of the walls will be load-bearing (holding up your house). If removing those walls is the key to your plan, you’ll likely have to factor in extra time (and money) to put structural beams in the ceiling to replace them.

TO KEEP, OR NOT TO KEEP?

Original flooring can present a real dilemma. If you’re renovating adjoining rooms and plan to remove walls, it might be difficult to keep the original timber flooring — you’ll need to patch the floor where the walls used to be. This can be costly and challenging if you’re after a seamless look for your floors. You may also be forced to lay a plank running in the opposite direction of the existing floors to fill the gap left by the wall.