Renovations Underway!

Way back in Janu­ary I did a post about mov­ing into the house my grand­par­ents built. I was so excited.  We had a plan for the renov­a­tion, we had a time frame, we had a good budget.….we had no idea!  Eight long months later we are still liv­ing in exactly the same house and life just seems to get cra­zi­er.   We thought we could stay here while the renov­a­tion and exten­sion happened… as if!   Clearly delu­sion was per­meat­ing our every wak­ing thought!   Good news though, we pick up the keys to a rent­al and next week the work will finally be start­ing. Yay!

Pat the Build­er (ahhh yes we do call him Pat the Build­er — all. the. time.) has me run­ning around like a chook with my head cut off at the minute so there isn’t much time for sew­ing or social media.   Insert sad face.  So today, while I should be mak­ing a decision about extern­al col­ours I thought I’d get on the com­puter and show you a little of our plans.

We’ve made a few changes to save some money like remov­ing the per­gola from the side of the car­port but this is basic­ally what the front of the house will look like.    Pretty much the same as the ori­gin­al house.

The back is def­in­itely very dif­fer­ent.  There’s a big exten­sion and a big covered deck ready for lots of enter­tain­ing and parties.  The shut­ters have all been deleted from the deck as anoth­er cost sav­ing meas­ure but I still think it’s going to be awe­some out there.

The col­our pick­ing is hard though!   I can­’t decide wheth­er I want a light, neut­ral look like this house I found on Pin­terest which just hap­pens to be in the next sub­urb from me (ren­ov­ated by Ham­mers and Heels!).

Or like this one which has dark­er trims to go with the neut­ral weather­boards like this house by Ever­more Designs.

If you have any thoughts, or altern­at­ives, please shout!   I’d be happy to pro­cras­tin­ate this decision a few more days by look­ing at more pic­tures :).  I fig­ure I need to make sure I get it right because we’ll be liv­ing with it for a very very long time.

I hope you’re hav­ing a great week and that you are get­ting lots more sew­ing done than me!   Don’t for­get that the book tour for A Piece of Cake is still hap­pen­ing.   You can check out all the blog­gers makes so far and maybe even enter the giveaway Moda has organ­ised by click­ing on the links in the last post.

 

16 thoughts on “Renovations Underway!

  1. Hi, we have sim­il­ar vin­tage houses near us . The ones that really look fab­ulous are painted a mid grey blue with either white or dark­er blue trim. I admire them whenev­er I see them.…..definitely a change from neutral.

  2. I per­son­ally would opt for some­thing with a bit of con­trast cer­tainly since you’ll be liv­ing with it for a con­sid­er­able time. The second option provides much more curb appeal.

  3. Oooh, that’s a hard one. I must say, I think I do like hav­ing the con­trast there (the 2nd pic­ture). The most import­ant ques­tion, of course, is which one will look the best in the back­ground of your quilt photos? 🙂
    Wish­ing you tons of luck and patience for the reno — it will look amaz­ing and you won’t even remem­ber the pain a year from now, as you sit in your beau­ti­ful, remod­elled home x x x

  4. Lucky you! It’s gor­geous and it’ll be won­der­ful! I always like a con­trast bet­ter so, the 2nd one. Can­’t wait to see the inside!

  5. I love the one with the dark­er trim but I also like the idea men­tioned above with the dark­er house and light­er trim. We fin­ished our remod­el 2 years ago and choos­ing the col­ors was the hard­est by far. Good luck and I can­’t wait to see what you choose.

  6. They are both beau­ti­ful, how­ever, I like the second photo with the con­trast. It brings out the rest of the house. It’s a won­der­ful pro­ject with many memor­ies. Enjoy!

  7. I like the first one — neut­ral on neut­ral. Both pleas­ing and peace­ful. I must tell you about a house I pass by fre­quently. It is an amaz­ing egg­plant col­or with pale taupe trim. Very strik­ing and the house has a sim­il­ar struc­ture to yours. Good luck.

  8. I am so envious!
    My take is a bit dif­fer­ent. Keep the body a light to medi­um col­or. Trim—go dark and have the win­dow sashes painted a white or cream col­or. Make the door a con­trast­ing col­or, but not dark, (a dark col­or makes it recede into the house).

  9. Speak­ing from exper­i­ence, I’d say go for a pale to medi­um grey back­ground with a mod­est amount of dark­er trim, or you’ll be wash­ing down the weather­boards all . the . time as they get grimy. The con­trast­ing trim gives a nice crisp fin­ish, it’s a more soph­ist­ic­ated effect than the oth­er one, which I find a tiny bit ‘ginger­bread fairytale cottage’.

  10. My good­ness that ori­gin­al photo looks not unlike the house my Dad built in the 50’s for us in Sydney. Well done to you for tak­ing on such a big reno. I think neut­ral with a mid grey trim would look lovely. Just a thought. Take care.

  11. I’d sug­gest you look to the col­or of the ori­gin­al house. Also keep it simple how much do you want to pay for paint­ing a bunch of dif­fer­ent shades. Also keep in mind up keep will it get lots of sun and fade a dark color?
    Just an also ques­tion why a car port and not a gar­age? If it’s rain­ing you stay dry if it’s hot the car stays cool­er if you are not home or if you are home all your cars and things are closed up
    For me I would pay extra for an enclosed gar­age now. While they build they can store their tools sup­plies and keep them locked up on the job loses cost
    I’d look for ways to save on somethings but spend to get the bones right and wir­ing and duct work.
    Land­scap­ing and plants can wait if you make sure you have the grad­ing correct
    Try for simple roof lines cheaper
    Pay atten­tion to the mater­i­als and time line
    If you cause a delay because you can­’t decide on a faucet you pay extra
    You make changes as you go you pay extra
    We paid extra to have our gar­age insu­lated and sheet rocked but being done while the house was being built was cheap­er than hav­ing it done later
    Everything you can do to pre­vent delays saves you addi­tion­al costs
    Vis­it often stay out of the way make friends with your laborers do nice things for them but don’t keep them from their work
    Inde­cision is your enemy
    Be kind to your husband
    There will be mis­takes .… if no one dies … it will be ok

  12. So excit­ing to finally get star­ted!! I prefer the dark trim to have a nice con­trast, but either would be gor­geous. I’ll start plan­ning my trip now, so let me know when it will be done 😉

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