Tales from the Box

The design of our kitchen was something that we mulled over for many a night and day - because we tend to be the sort of people who live around our kitchen. The arrangement of our kitchen was the first thing we designed in our reno process, but was one of the areas that was constantly being changed as it was being built. The island bench was important, and the position of the cooktop in the middle was a stroke of genius, but the alignment of the bench with the rest of the kitchen and room (roof beams in particular) was causing hurty brain issues. It wasn’t until we changed the design of the kitchen - moving the floor to ceiling cupboards so that two of them were at the oven end of the kitchen rather than the sink end.  This smoothed things out quite nicely and thus our kitchen felt much more balanced.

We added to the same IKEA kitchen that we bought in 2004 and used it to build off for our new space. We had customize the kitchen a far bit to make it fit and look integrated with the design of the house. A few people have asked what appliances we used - our cooktop is a Fisher and Paykel CT560X, oven is a Fisher and Paykel BI603E .

We still have the little matter of a dining table - size and where to put it....

Lets face it - we are all going green. And if you haven’t been swept up along in the greenie goodness, you soon will be either by complying to environmental factors when building any type of home , using cleaner electricity either from renewable/alternate sources of energy or simply using better light bulbs, or from buying a tank and getting some hard earned cashback for your troubles.

We bought a tank and I am proud of my tank (as said photo demonstrates). We live in a water conscious world and a tank is small way that I can do my bit to recycle to continue to keep my small patch of the world green. 7 years of drought and 10 out of 11 years of below average rainfall have changed our perceptions of how we value water.

For me, the water revolution has impacted me marginally. Like all, I take shorter showers, wash the car with a bucket, do bigger loads of washing, but in reality this is a small, insignificant sacrifice compared to the hardships that are endured by those living on the land where the every drop is precious, and every drop literally translates into survival. The biggest impact on me personally is keeping the natural environment around me green and lush. Not being able to water garden frustrates me - seeing trees die that you have planted and nurtured is deflating. Thus a big shinny tank was necessary.

Tank selection is now like buying a new car. A visit to my local tank retailer turned what I thought would be a simple decision into a complicated and highly provoking one. PVC, corrugated, tall, squat, round, square, oval, coated, colour, pump, first flush. These are the tank terms specific to this tank tales.

As the moment, buying a tank isn’t as easy as rocking up with your trailer and taking one home. There is about a 12-15 week wait on most tanks at the moment with some places not delivering until late July/early August.

I chose my tank on 3 points. Price, availability and flexibility. I purchased a 10000 litre Aqua Clear Tank, made from Bluescope Aquaplate corregated steel with a galvanized exterior. Aquaplate steel has a plastic lining which prevents corrosion and that yucky metal taste from infiltrating the water. Surprisingly the steel tank was much cheaper than a PVC tank and had a much shorter turnaround than the PVC (4weeks compared to 15 weeks). The practicality of a steel tank is worth addressing. Most PVC tanks have special mounts for intake, outlet and tap fittings. If those areas don’t correspond to the orientation of your tank, you then end up with a mess of plumbing to solve this.

Tank site is also important. We relocated our shed to use the solid foundation of the shed slab, as well making use of the location of the slab in relation to the house. Our tank is plumbed underground using a gravity level method, rather than a drainpipe method where runs directly into the top of the tank. Also the slab itself needs to be sturdy. Remember that 1 litre of water weighs 1kg and 10000 litres is 10 tons in of weight. Our tank installer recalled some very messy situations where tanks had sunk into the ground because the base was dodgy.

Currently our tank is empty (or near empty). We had the wettest beginning to a year in 10 years while they were completing the building of our house but since the tank has been completed we have had next to nothing. However our roof will catch 55 000 litres of rain every year of average rainfall. How do I get this figure? For every millimetre of rain that falls on a square metre, 1 litre of water is captured. We get 1050mm on average a year, thus 55 000 litres.

Our tank stands proud and ready to capture the rain that should fall over the next 8 weeks. Hopefully we can get it full enough to get us through the dry of winter and spring. 

I am guilty as charged. Yes - throw your hurls of abuse - as a designer renovator and manchild, I took the easy way out. Rather than go through the whole “tiles, basin, toilet, fittings..” thing.. we simply hit the repeat button and used the same of everything from our first bathroom reno to our second.  Because of our low ceiling height were were quite particular to duct the ceiling cavity in order to stop any mold and dampness that would buildup there. Remember that simply exhausting your bathroom into your roof cavity isn’t the smartest idea if you then don’t vent the cavity itself. Many a perceived dampness problem can be directly attributable to this very setup.

We also utilised some spare areas underneath the stairs to create an interior laundry. Initially this was going to be part of Bathroom 2 - but to make better use of space and walls, we made it an external access cupboard type laundry and is working a treat at the moment.

Originally we decided that a rangehood was something that we didn’t need. We didn’t have one in our old kitchen...so why in our new one? I admit their was occasions I was lulled and seduced by those sexy showrooms which feature kitchens so sleek you would feel out of place cooking in it. In particular, the large expanses of stainless steel made me drool homer style. But I had resisted, simply because I couldn’t visualise this big (albeit beautiful) thing hanging down in a space I wanted to keep open and uncluttered because the of the low roof.

However one dry January afternoon, our builder Ben, while discussing the layout of the kitchen kept at me.
“So you’re not having a rangehood?”
“And the rangehood...oh you aren’t having one are you?”
“You are sure you don’t want to duct over your hotplate - perhaps a rangehood...?”

These subtle questions kept at me and shortly after this conversation, while flipping through an old copy of InsideOut I saw a picture of boxy looking kitchen, with a shallow, undermount rangehood set into a box which only hung slightly lower than the kitchen. This box was clad with a oak panelling like the featured kitchen, but I liked the idea, thinking that something like that set into gyprock (you know how I love my gyprock) and set about trying to find something that fit.  We looked around at a few brands, and it was hard to find what we were after. Most were the usual pull out types or giant stainless steel ones I had sworn off.  We finally found ‘the one’ in Harvey Norman - pretty much sitting above the same cooktop we purchased 6 months earlier. It was interesting because we were quizzed far more asutely by sales assisstant about how we ‘use’ the stove so he could gauge whether the rangehood would be powerful enought to suck out what we wanted. Luckily, this on the beefier side of suction, but other, more expensive brands promised to suck the paint off the wall if needed. 

So we purchased the Smeg p52/2 model. A tidy unit that has some nice halogen lighting which will work a treat with the copius wok based dishes I will cook.

For those wondering how we are ducting the rangehood. We boxed in the beam with gyprock and a duct runs along the beam and outside. You can see the end of it in the top right of the first picture.

In a crazed wilderness called Warrimoo their once lived a man and his wife. They sought to work the land; to tame and subdue it. Over many a year they tore down the spindle and cut away at the jungle that reckoned to invade and destroy their protected home, set aside for relaxation and prosperity.

They built towering structures that cast shadows across the plains, moved volumes of earth to satisfy their hungry delights for transport and technology and changed watercourses to catch and harness the rarified resource of H2O.

Once there was a shed, rusted and ill-formed in its appearance, that stood on a misshapen slab of stone, set down in layers of concrete so twisted that one could see the very work of the gods in its chaotic, sloping form. It had seen the passing of time and been a home to the ants and birds which played from its sheltered vantage.

The man and wife one day looked at the slab on which the shed sat with jealous eyes. The proximity to the house and position in the yard made it a suitable candidate for a watertank.

Thus over 3 days a new slab was rendered for the shed, one more level and more sturdy than had ever come before. It was cut from the earth, paved and concreted. The shed was carried in a military like operation that required skill and precision by the man and wife, brother and father.

The shed now lies upon foundations strong, further down the yard. And the new tank stands proud and strong where there once was shed.

When we moved into The Box some 39 months ago, we were beset from would be vandals who decided that our newly purchase abode would be the best place to scribble their poorly spelled thoughts and feelings. So we purchased some rather crude lightning to light up underneath and around the house to stop this; and it worked. No graffiti or vandlism since.

Fastforward 35 months to renovation when the builders had to remove the lighting to continue the renovation. Almost as soon as it was down the odd little thing started happening (bottles in the front garden, graffiti on the neighbouring lightpole). So that made us think seriously about lights and lighting our house. Its something that isn't always thought about when doing a reno but a considered lighting scheme can really lift the nightime appearance of a house. So we went for some funky lights at the front door (up and down lights 240v) and some regular downlights under the deck upstairs. The upstairs lights really lift the colorbond which we have added on the front facade and spill out to light up the front yeard quite nicely. However its still too dark to play night cricket. Maybe some flooodlights are in order....

We are definitely in the home straight of our renovation race. We are at BRDAY +113 and we have only a few days until we are shipped back home.

The deck is the last hurrah, the final act of our stupendous production. And now the decking boards have been layed and the final form of the deck has taken shape.

My brain has officially entered some sort of shutdown procedure so much so that I cannot operate on any creative level, which includes writing my usually witty disarming prose. The only creative thing is the title - but since technically there is no tale (apart from my mush-like-brain), its a failed blog post.

But here are some pretty pictures...

We realise that in our renovation we are doing things back to front. Most start with a bottom storey and work up. Not us! Filling in beneath out current abode has caused us a few headaches. Mostly issues about access to the top storey while they are installing stairs. But one of the trickier things was ceiling clearance. When examining potential flooring options for downstairs we always came back to the sticking point that nearly all flooring adds height. And when you have a low ceiling (like we do!) that is undesirable.

After a lovely wine tasting tour through the hunter valley we stopped at Tempus Two winery. They had very similar styling intentions to our own - and had polished concrete right through the place.  So we thought that was a terrific idea and followed suit. However there are a few sticking points to polished concrete - its pricey. Not comparatively pricey but considering when they build you a new floor they actually bring wood, nails etc to build something. With concrete polishing they actually grind back the concrete and then polish it up. Now that isn’t earth shattering - but that process was almost dollar for dollar the same as getting a brand new wooden floor built.

We could have had a smooth coating over the current slab to hide the aggregate that is in all concrete - or they can just polish the current slab. We went for option two - it was slightly cheaper and had a bit more character - however this usually results in a patchier finish.

The polishing has been done but we still have some minor issues of finish (newer concrete sucks in the polish far more readily than older floors) but overall its a very cool looking finish.

It is a curious notion that when we dig a deep hole - we have come up with the colloquial description that it’s so deep that we are ‘..halfway to China’, when really if we were to bore a hole so deep that it could penetrate the core of the earth (and withstand the 7000 degree temps!) and come through the other side - from Australia - we would come out somewhere in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Anyway - we have been digging giant holes recently - for our big deck which will be the final masterstroke of this renovation. In digging the holes we have found a couple things - and back to the headline; we hit China! Literally. An old porcelain toilet buried in the ground. We have also hit what appears to be sewer systems, old storm water pipes and grease traps/pits. It appears that there are a couple of sewer lines that don’t appear on any map - awesome!

You might be asking, Why o why is there metal in your glorious new deck?. Well, we have to. We love wood and all its woody glory - but that part of our house (i.e. the bush-facing bit) is classified as a level three fire zone, thus has restrictions on the use of timbers in building. We are allowed Merbau decking and hand rail but not much else. Hence the Duragal posts. You might also notice the completed cladding around the bifold windows. That means we are all cladded and, apart from one or two little edging things, are sealed in dry and cool.

Maybe a completed deck by this time next week?

For slideshow -click on image

I am not about to prattle on here talking about foreboding doom or whatever the ides of march are supposed to represent (just beware of them...).

Yes - March has arrived - and we have officially reached the point that every plucky renovator reaches where they just want the damn thing to be over... We have no fridge, no tv, no home cooked meals, no place to relax, no Sunday morning coffee and toast. I wouldn't say that I am addicted to TV (although 1000 DVD's might say otherwise...) but I just miss that place to crash after a hard day/ week at work. Currently our bedroom has the feeling of some dingy cabin from an overstocked ship.

But we are near the end! The windows went in (Glory!) and the floors are completed - although not entirely finished (to our statisfaction...more on that later). The upstairs of the house has finally been entirely cladded.