Home renovation

We first met this client in 1996 and they were so impressed with our work that they have retained our business card. They called us back many years later to fix a simple electrical fault.

Starting out as a simple electrical overload fault which was easily rectified, the client learned that we were also builders. They had already been toying with the idea of updating their dated residence and were more than happy to have us carry out the needed renovations.

The electrical fault we were initially called to fix was rectified by splitting an overloaded circuit to eliminate the nuisance tripping. The switchboard for the house needed an upgrade to comply with the current safety regulations and also make management of the supplies easier. We replaced the old re-wirable fuses and put each circuit for the house on individual safety switches to ensure the residents were protected.

Externally, this house was dated and in need of some maintenance. We started by repointing the tiles to seal the roof and fix leaks. The old wooden fascia boards were peeling and broken so we installed metal ones to the entire perimeter to improve the aesthetics and eliminate the need for any future maintenance.

The house had asbestos eaves which were broken. We removed and replaced them to ensure the client’s safety. Then all the eaves received a coat of paint. 

Inside the house was also dated. The kitchen is the centre of activity for the house and it had a large dominating, dark timber canopy rangehood over a central island cooktop bench. We opened up the kitchen and created a much brighter space by replacing it with a modern, slimline stainless rangehood and patched the ceiling to seal the previous hole left behind.

The lounge room ceiling was partially removed and replaced as it was damaged by the leak in the roof. All the ceilings were then painted throughout the entire house. Particular attention was taken to provide additional stain sealing to the bathroom, after a mould treatment was applied to the ceiling.

The central stairs in the house had a dark brown varnish which was worn and didn’t match the parquetry flooring at the top of the stairs. The stair well was lined with a dated wood panelling creating a very dark passage way. To create a modern look, we removed the wood panelling from the walls and replaced it with plasterboard. We then stripped back the 4 layers of varnish and refinished the stairs in a complementary tone to the parquetry.

To create a clean, simple look, we replaced all the old light fittings with modern energy efficient LED fittings throughout, including colour matching through downlights to ceiling fittings and pendants.