The kitchen area is now gutted.
The bathroom floor is gone. We weren't quite expecting that.
View through the kitchen to the family room and the new opening which will have double full light glass sliding doors.
And here is another lovely surprise. It was a miracle that our other bathroom hadn't fallen through to the kitchen. There was no wall holding it up. This room has now been completely gutted with floor and ceiling removed and this wall needs to be replaced.
Really there is very little of our house unscathed at the moment.
Do you want to hear about our lovely neighbour? She's gone quiet in the last week but over the last month has been going overboard calling the council. The council have been around three times with complaints that the builders start too early. This is the classic Sydney complaint. Builders can't start noisy machinery before 7am. My neighbour was calling council if the builders walked onto site before 7am. One time the council decided they needed to do something so they told the builder that they needed an extra permit for the cement pour. Cost of this permit? $2000.
Sadly, talking to friends and work colleagues it appears that we are getting off lightly in the neighbour department. A brief survey of experiences reveals that everyone has one difficult neighbour during renovations. One friend had a neighbour who was so incensed with their (approved) building works that he would go behind the workmen with a shovel scraping off cement render from their fence as the builder was applying it. A work colleague (from the UK) said one of his neighbours would fire his shotgun into the air when he was unhappy with anything - trying to intimidate the builders.
We have friends who are about to do a complete knock-down/re-build and they have 13 neighbours due to their unusual block design. Heaven help them I say.
Why are we so uptight about change? If you live in a good council area with the proper approval processes renovations should result in better surroundings, not worse. Really some people just need to get a life.
8 comments:
Why haven't the council worked out that your neighbour is a lunatic and just ignored her calls? Seriously!
It's interesting to see what's really behind the plaster and paint...or not!
That wood really has rotted away!
As to neighbours... who knows what makes someone so self-absorbed that they can only see things from their own perspective. It's sad really. Not how I'd like to go through life.
It looks like a complete re-build not a mere renovation to me! It's wonderful seeing it happen to someone else as I absolutely hate it when it's happening to me. All you would-be renovators out there don't be put off by the neighbour factor. They really aren't all like that. EasternMax is just unlucky and gets all my sympathy. The neighbour is stupid. I'd call it cutting off her nose to spite her face as she'll be cutting off all sorts of friendly communication which result in help, socialising and other benefits when needed. Our neighbour, sadly dead now, allowed our whole extension to be built from her drive to the extent of allowing a temporary little road to be put in from it through our adjoining fence as it was next to her house and it saved EVERYTHING coming along the front of our house. She capped it all with giving the workmen a drink (alcoholic, of course, this is the N.W. Highlands) at the end of each day!
There really is little if your house unscathed, isn't there? It looks like fairly major work!!
What Stompergirl said. That is ridiculous!! Surely they have her pegged now?
This makes me glad our neighbors live about 700 yards away.
Your neighbour will make the petty problems that can happen with a reno look like child's play. Can you take her away in the skip?
hello M - merry xmas and all - so where did you put the tree - what a huge undertaking - best for 2011 le
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