Thread: Tortfeaser's reno. This will not go well.

Thought I'd start a reno thread for our new place. I don't imagine this will go quickly, or well. But I'll give it a crack.

We'll move in soon, but I've a bit to do before then. Here's the place on the big ACT real estate site

Its a bit of a fixer, and the orientation is poor. We paid $510k, probably around $40k less than market for properties that size in the area. But the $40k really needs to be spent on fixing the single brick garage that looks like its falling down and regularly floods through the high-side wall, and on the pool which needs a new liner at least.

Here's the current floor plan and a few shots of what its currently like in the living areas:

Our aim for the new house was to have a bedroom each for the kids and a guest room for the frequent family visits from our out-of-state relos, a study, and two seperate living areas, one more relaxed for the kids to roam around in, and another for us to watch a movie in or do whatever if the missus is having a tupperware party. Amanda wanted a pool and I wanted a decent size shed. We both wanted a liveable outdoor eating and lounging spot. We want to improve the street appeal of the place and try and sort out the odd entrance.


We've had a few ideas about what to do with the floor plan, but we've also engaged an architect to come up with something better. Our initial thoughts were to:
* remove the wall seperating the fifth bedroom from the family room, opening up that room to the northern sun, and installing some big bifolds on the back wall on to a new deck and some big skylights/light wells;
* turn the dining room into a study, bumping out the wall into the eaves and breaking up the front facade, closing the door to the kitchen and opening it up at both ends to the lounge room and family room;
* remove the wall (as much as possible) between the kitchen/meals area and the family room and make the kitchen bench into an island;
* add a deck to the rear with the living areas and bedrooms opening out on to it;
* render/paint the exterior, replace the existing windows, redo gutters, paint roof (before eventual re-roof maybe).

I tried a few thoughts, here below. The ideas above are in the second rendering:

Right now, before moving in, I want to repaint the bedrooms and hallway, build in some wardrobes into the kids rooms, replace the windows in the E facing bedrooms with french doors that will eventually lead on to a deck, and recarpet.

So far I've removed all the carpets, repaired some holes in the plaster in the hallway (light fitting disasters). I've built a couple of stud frames for the wardrobes and effectively lined them with IKEA wardrobes (easier for me to do than fabricate interiors from scratch, plus the doors look good and the hardware is good). Plastering the frames is still to be done. I've removed the window architraves and skirting, ready to cut out the wall below once I've built the door frames and sized it accurately.

Today I bought $788 worth of hinges and flush bolts for the french doors 8) and ordered the doors, they arrive Thurs. I've got Thurs and Fri off and a friend is coming around, hopefully to knock off most of the door install.

I'll update this as I go, I hope, and come back with questions about what I'm up to.

[This will be a bit of a mind dump for me as well as an update, please excuse the obvious. Questions in bold!]

The immediate job is to install some doors where there are currently windows. The current windows extend up to the soffit and are 1800 wide inside the reveals and the brick hole is 1820 wide. This bites a bit, as the biggest standard doors go is 820mm, times two, plus jambs and clearances leaves me with a door frame 1700 wide. I'll need to narrow the window opening about 1/2 a brick (standard brick is 230mm wide).

As for depth, the wall is 250mm thick with a 110mm brick, gap, 95mm stud and 10mm plaster. If I went for standard 140mm jambs the jamb would end up right at the edge of the brick and I'd need monster hinges to clear the brick so the door can open up flat on the wall. I've gone for a 190mm jamb (nice big chunks of timber) with double rebate so the jamb edge will sit 60mm from the edge of the brick. I've ordered 150mm parliament hinges so should get around 15-25mm clearance of the door from the wall when open.

The doors I've ordered are 820x2040x40mm single light solid meranti. They're not rebated in the middle to overlap so I need to do that, but can't 'till the mortise locks arrive. They've got rebate kits but I'm not sure the depth. If standard I think I'll need to rout (is that the verb?) out 12mm for 1/2 the thickness of the door. Is this right? Should I leave more of a space (ie cut out more than 20mm of the door thickness) for a seal?

I'm not sure what to do about a sill. I've some of the jamb material and maybe I should use that. Eventually a deck will be laid that hopefully will come to the same height as the doorway, so maybe I should leave the 60mm between the sill and the edge of the brick for the moment and fill that with the decking timber. Maybe I should cut away the inside rebate of the jamb being-used-as-sill?

So my process will be to:

• dummy up doors on the ground, build door frame, mark hinge locations, brace door frame in the corners with some ply or something (hang doors after install?);
• remove window architraves, remove interior plaster under the windows;
• make good any wiring;
• cut through fasteners between window reveals and studs, remove window;
• remove jack studs, sill plate and bottom plate beneath the window;
• cut through the brick, retaining the bricks to use to fill in side gaps;
• trial fit the door frame, see what needs to be done to trim above the door;
• fit jamb studs between the bottom and top plates, fit noggings behind the jamb studs at hinge locations;
• fix brickwork by toothing out existing half bricks and replace with whole bricks, fit half bricks next to existing whole bricks. Should I do this now, or after the frame is installed?;
• install door frame, screwing through jambs only for adjustment with packers as required;
• make good plaster either side of door frame;
• hang doors, install mortise locks & flush bolts.

Oy vey, the list looks horrific now I've made it. Grateful for any tips!

Here's a couple of pics of the current windows.