Week Two - plumbing begins

The demolition guys have gone, Johnno begins getting the plumbing into the sub floor, the site is levelled and the cellar grows considerably.
A stone mason meets to assess the front wall and salt damp is a bit of a problem.

The first site meeting is held with the four partners followed by a trip by Thoma and Paul to Reece and Luxe to sort out some of the bathroom fittings.

Week One - Demolition

Sev and the boys, a great bunch of guys wasted no time in clearing the site. The front veranda concrete turned out to be the problem child and required the rock breakers.

No turning back now.

Before the building begins

The fun began the week ending 16^th October. The tenants were out of 17 so it was a case of taking out anything that we may be able to salvage or sell such as the kitchen and bathroom fittings that were only installed in 2013, clotheslines and air conditioners.

The tenant in 19 was out on the 14^th but there wasn’t a lot to be salvaged before the site was turned over to the builder on Monday 17^th October.

Everyone had some fun getting things started.

I think we need more light in here...

That's better!!

Do not let them use a real sledgy, someone will get hurt.

Here's Jonny!!

It took a lot of work to save the sash window, scary how much local rubble had been employed in the original construction, definitely stones from the creek.

Selecting a builder

From the beginning, we have spoken to a number of people who have built recently, checked out display homes, visited a number of places through the Sustainable House Days and spoke to the owners and builders, all the time sussing out who we can engage to build what we want. The project builders aren’t interested in anything unique particularly if it’s added onto something 116 years old.

For the term of the build, it is clear there must be a good 3 way relationship between the proprietor, the Architect who is responsible for administration of the contract during construction and the builder.

Tenders were sought from 3 builders that Keith knows well and one put forward by Paul through cycling connections.

The successful tender came from Thoma Liapis from Acropol Constructions with work to commence mid-October with construction scheduled to take 10 months.

More detailed planning

Getting things from concept to reality requires a lot more work with Keith getting serious and engaging a structural engineer, happy when we agreed for Janet to do the work. The cellar, given the large dimensions and location close to the new party wall was always going to add to the cost and a stud wall quickly replaced an existing rear wall. A skeleton of steel was required for the 2 storey section and steel planned for the pergola’s and carport. All this fits with what the council glowingly described something like an effective use of space with a contemporary design while retaining and renewing the streetscape to its former glory. A recess on the northern side was added for the hot water system and doubling to give a delineation of old and new.

With each revision of the drawing file and associated pdf’s produced, there was more detail added and a few tweaks were required. Luxuries such as underfloor heating were ditched due to cost and Adelaide’s daily variable climate.

Finishes had to be specified which included bathroom fittings.

Show homes were visited but provided little inspiration, Deb took the day off and was dragged around the short-listed bathroom suppliers and kitchen manufacturers.

Spandek was chosen over traditional corrugated iron to give a sharper look and Paul insisted on Alucobond for most of the other surfaces on the first floor. The ground floor will be bagged concrete blocks. Commercial grade double glazed aluminium windows should ensure optimal efficiency.

While this was being sorted, Paul was building from the plan using Sketchup. If you want to spend many hours in front of a PC, this is the program to use. And yes, you can get carried away but it’s great to get a 3D perspective of what you’re building and what is required. It can be fun, is certainly addictive and gets easier the more you learn.

By June 2016 most of the detail was sorted, planning approval was sought and given and it was time to look for a builder.

At the same time we decided that it would be opportune to get the property from one title to two. For more years than we know, the property has always had separate electricity, gas and water meters. We receive separate council rates and ESL bills. The only thing in common is the sewer. Hennig Surveyors were engaged to assist in getting things onto separate titles and council approval was given with a few proviso’s which should be easily achievable as part of the build process.

Engaging an Architect

By July 2015 we’ve sold the house at Colonel Light Gardens, renting just down the road at Kent Town wondering when is the right time to get started. Clearly, the answer is now, why wait?

How do you pick an Architect?
Find a house or project you like, find out who did it and speak to them? Tried that.

Speak to someone in the industry who works with a wide range of Architects and ask them? That someone was Janet Thompson, a structural engineer who was also our neighbour for 28 years.

Janet knows us fairly well and while the Architect she recommended was retiring, we met with Keith Teagle, an associate of said retiring Architect from Billson Sawley and we were comfortable from the outset discussing our requirements.

The sketches we had done were shared, we had a site visit and measurements were taken.

Early September 2015 Keith presented his initial drawings. 17 was pretty well as expected but 19 was a bit of a surprise.

Gone was the curved roof of the first floor in the centre of the development to a boxy design as much to the south as possible. With the view that 19 and 17 may well become separately titled properties, the first floor extension had to be set back from the northern boundary.

With polished concrete flooring specified from the outset to be a source for thermal mass, Keith's diagram showing the extent of the winter sun onto the floors made perfect sense with great simplicity.

We’d given up on the idea of a walk-in wardrobe and "Craft Room" looks so much better on a plan than "Bike Room", time will tell its actual use. The cellar has reached swimming pool proportions but with a lack of a shed, will no doubt fill pretty quickly.

Before we got too much into the finer points of the design, the next step was to find out what the City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters thought of our proposal so a meeting was convened to discuss the first draft plans with the urban planner.

We were very pleased with the reception received and with advice that it should only require Category one planning permission, we wasted no time and had the development application lodged by the middle of September.

Things dragged on for a few weeks and another site meeting was arranged with the council and shade drawings were presented to ensure the council that the additions would not adversely effect our southern neighbours. The good news came on 17^th November with Development Plan Consent being granted, it was now down to some detailed planning before seeking Development Approval.

Design requirements

The plan has always been to live in 19 and rent out 17.

Deb wanted a walk-in wardrobe and a bath, Paul knew there would be no space for a separate shed so somewhere to store bikes with some level of workshop would need to be under the main roof.

19 already had a cellar but it was fairly small. Ceiling access for storage was a must.

Having flexibility with 19 to allow 2 living areas with separate access to each fairly quickly led to the requirement for 2 stories at 19. This could have been done in a staged build but chances are that that wasn’t really an economic option.

Knowing that the front wall of the house was bluestone, we were keen to remove the rendering and flat veranda to make the street aspect look late Victorian as it did when first built circa 1900 with pointing and a concave veranda.

Space for one car would be enough.

En suite bathrooms were considered with a couple of options, one being turning the second bedroom into en suites but you end up with too many doors leading to dead space.

Separate the toilet from the bathroom please.

First floor balcony's were not required as there is really no view in a flat suburb.

The block is sited east/west which is not ideal so planning required to protect from the summer western afternoon sun and capture the sun from the north in winter.

While it was a great learning experience, reading up on the building code, understanding the requirements of council, undertaking a course on sustainable design, by July 2015, enough time had been spent playing with Smartdraw and with Sketchup now the weapon of choice, it was time to engage someone who knew what they were doing to get on with it.

Planning Change

So what do we want?

We’re not big on moving, having lived in the same place for 26 years from 1988 to 2014, happy to only move again once. Gardening has been fun but not something we need to do. We need an income stream into retirement, we like to meet new people, possibly share a meal with them.

We like a mix of old and new styles, protect heritage but have modern amenities. We want to minimise energy usage and minimise the need for car travel.

The location in Norwood is excellent, the existing dwelling has always been split into 2 so flexibility is there. Without a lot of land, 2 stories on at least half is a likely option to give flexibility.

So we went in search of inspiration which involved a fair bit of walking, looking over fences, checking out places on realestate.com.au, getting ideas from the occasional TV show and websites such as houzz.com.

One such place that inspired was in McLaren St Adelaide, a 2 story rear extension to a Bluestone maisonette with interesting use of a walk-through bathroom with creative use of stairs. http://harrisrealestate.com.au/3983259/56-McLaren-Street-Adelaide

We tracked down the architect, met with him on-site at Norwood and the first thing that became obvious was that the rear of the house wasn't in a fit state to handle any major alterations, it would be far more economical to knock over the back.

We tried following up with this architect but he never got back to us, clearly not the right person but his design did give some inspiration and Smartdraw got a hammering. 

17 Upgrade

So we needed a new plan of attack. We still were not ready to sell up the family home and move or do any serious changes but it was clear something was required to get it tenable. It was decided to blow away the current bathroom and kitchen, replacing the bath with a shower and adding a toilet into the bathroom.

Again we had great help from Faccenda Shopfitters, PC Plumbing, SA Allsparks Electrical and Marc Gould with the tiling and while it took longer than planned, the end results were a good clean finish.

Planning the upgrade gave us a new respect for a builders' skills at pulling together different trades to get a job done in a timely manner. It also introduced us to a new tool for playing with different floorplans and Smartdraw was downloaded followed by way too many hours spent playing with different options.

By January 2013 things were ready to go, new tenants were found and it was back to the long term planning.

Finding Tenants

So by August 2011 things are ready for human habitation and we advertised in a number of different places, Gumtree, additionally through Adelaide Uni and UniSA without much joy so to get exposure through the trusty realestate.com.au we opted for a real estate agency who had filled other rentals vacancies in the street. 17 had a tenant at the end of September and 19 was let by mid-October.

With both rented, it should have been a case of sitting back and watching the rent flow in, right?

That would be true if it weren’t for a very old sewer system shared by both properties that kept blocking up.

Add to that a bit of a mould problem in 17. “Bit” may be an understatement. Even after putting in a better exhaust fan, when things got really black, the tenant gave us notice which was fully understandable.

Results of the changes

Ishtvan Nemeth made suggestions and did a great job

Star Doors did a great job and with everything on each side keyed alike, the key collection shrunk greatly

Gas heaters gone

A surprise when the paint was removed from the surround purchased and it's faux marble

A weird sized screen door, clothes lines both sides, a shelter over the back door and replaced louvres

The windows replaced but fans installed to give ventilation

The tank plumbed in to dodgy gutters, the vines tied back and clothes line installed into stone walls I think