Our First House

 

Retaining Walls

In the months leading up to our wedding, we made the enormous decision to completely knock our first little house down, and rebuild a giant two-storey mansion of a house. And there began the process of deciding on floorplans, paying deposits, choosing, then re-choosing, and then re-choosing again tiles, carpets, light fittings, and colour schemes. Because our block sloped about 1.5 metres from front left to back right, we also spent the Easter weekend in 2008 knocking down the chainwire fence on our North boundary and building a metre-high retaining wall in its place, in preparation for the builder to level the block.

Later, once our builder had levelled the block, resulting in this...

Doesn't the block look giant?!!!

We then moved onto our next El Cheapo retaining wall on the South side of the block.

 And then it was time for the demolition.

The Demolition

Once we had decided to knock down our little first house and rebuild, the logistics had to be worked out.

The plan was to get married on 19th April 2008, shoot off on our honeymoon, and then begin demolishing the little house upon our return, so that construction could begin on the big house ASAP, which in turn would enable it to be finished by Christmas of 2008! We had arranged to move in with my mother (and brother, who was still living at home) during the construction period.

Let me claim right here and now that I was NOT a bridezilla in the weeks leading up to our wedding, nor did I succumb to the urge to be one on the day. However, I did lose my fragile inner calm when I returned home from work about a week before the wedding, to find that Tom had gutted the little second bedroom in preparation for the post-honeymoon demolition. NOT HAPPY JAN!

Needless to say, he rethought the error of his ways and decided to postpone further demolition efforts until the wedding was safely over and we could move our combined focus to the next project.

So! We had our lovely wedding, and jetted off for our wonderful honeymoon in Thailand. We couldn't help starting to plan the next stage, and somehow came to the conclusion that we needed to move out of the little house immediately upon our return, so that we could start demolition right away. So, we emailed my mother to ask if she could book the removalists for the day after we got back, and the wheels were set in motion.

What with a flight that arrived at midnight, then some time in customs, we didn't actually get to bed until the early hours of the morning that the removalists were due to arrive, with none of the house actually packed up in boxes. Thus, fighting the jetlag, we leapt to action later that morning and frantically started emptying out our furniture. Admittedly, this really wasn't a major task since the house was so tiny.

The removalists arrived, we got ourselves moved out, and the demolition began! Note, we did have to bring in the professionals to remove the sheets on the walls, because they were full of asbestos.

Ripping out floorboards

A friend and I pulling out nails

Another friend enjoying wielding his hammer

Tom and yet another friend removing the corrugated iron on the roof

Once we'd removed the frame and roof (so it was basically just a platform on stumps with a few beams sticking up here and there), the only other thing remaining was the toilet. Tom decided to drop his pants and pose for a photo in honour of the occasion.

Dreaming of couches to fill our new home

Tom unloading the giant pile of broken floorboards at the dump

And now finally, it was on to construction of the second house! I'm going to deem this the point at which our first house then became our second house.

Our El Cheapo Retaining Wall

Allie trying not to get rain in her eyes

After our builders levelled our block at Salisbury, they needed us to build a second retaining wall on the South side that they had cut away, so our South neighbour's yard didn't fall into ours. We decided to go the 'el cheapo' route with this one, and Tom managed to score some star pickets and corrugated iron for free from somewhere.

Compared with our effort on the retaining wall on the other side (see here for the details), this retaining wall was a cinch. Easy for me to say of course, from my vantage point on the front footpath under my umbrella. Tom and Allie worked very hard in the rain, holding the corrugated iron in place and sledge-hammering the star pickets into the ground.

Tom hitting in one of the star pickets.

Tom hard at work. It looks like he chose the right side of the fence to work on, not only because of the height advantage!

 

Allie scrutinising Tom's progress, as always

The rest of the block, where you can't even see our North retaining wall anymore (from our side at least) because the dirt has been shoved up against it

The whole block from the other side of the road

To see the process of building our first retaining wall, click here.

To see the demolition of the little house, click here.

Our First Retaining Wall

Over the Easter weekend in 2008, Tom and I took it upon ourselves to demolish the chainwire fence separating us from our Northern neighbours and replace it with a 1-metre-high timber retaining wall.

Here's the existing fence, along with our higher dog-mesh addition to prevent puppy escapage.

The reason this was necessary (besides the fact that the existing fence was rusty and old and ugly), was because our block fell by 1.5 metres from front left corner to back right corner, meaning that it needed to be levelled for a concrete slab to be poured. Therefore, the high side on the left (South) had to be cut away, and all of that extra dirt used to 'fill' the right (North), creating a level dirt platform. So, to prevent all of that dirt on the right spilling into our neighbours' yard, a retaining wall was needed!

So, we got to work.

First step, obtain timber.

Next, hire a digger to dig the holes to support the vertical posts. Bearing in mind that this wall would hold the entire responsibility for retaining our block (and house) on the North side, it was extremely important to dig these holes deep, and allow the posts to have a significant portion of their height submerged.

The view of the house from the retaining wall in progress, with a little happy helper from over the back fence

Allie scrutinising our placement of the holes closely

Next step, concrete in the vertical posts!

And then, of course, the sleepers are bolted to the vertical posts, and later the vertical posts are cut down to the correct height.

And so it was complete

See here for our next retaining wall project.

How It Started

We settled on our first house in January 2006. Isn't she a cutie?

We didn't move in until December of 2006, just before Christmas, and amazingly enough, we managed to live there relatively comfortably (bearing in mind that learning to live harmoniously together for the first time in a tiny 4-room house with a dog is not particularly easy) until 2008, when we got married.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves! We must admire the beauty of the little cottage first!

The cute little doorbell near the front door. None of your prissy electric buttons for this old girl!

The resident guard dog, who just happens to still grace the front patio of our second house!

The kitchen, which just happened to perform the function of lounge, dining, family and media room as well.

It's amazing. Even just looking at this photo, I immediately recall the smell of the house when we moved in.

Note the little timber bench on the left of the sink? That's the only bench space there was. To the right of the sink was the space for the fridge, and then the front wall of the house.

The bathroom (also carpeted, might I add)

One of the two bedrooms. They were so small, I couldn't actually get the entire room in the photo.

The northern side of the house, with both the front ramp and the back stairs visible.

Actually on the day we moved in (with my great grandmother's antique piano), one of those back stairs gave way under the removalists. Fortunately the piano only bounced a couple of steps down and was rescued. Thank you giant Maori removalist men!

That little add-on to the building that's on ground level and not raised on stumps is the laundry.

And here is the laundry! All class.

The giant backyard, shed, barbecue and classic hills-hoist.

After much consideration, we then decided that our best move was to demolish the house and rebuild, and so started the next chapter in the little house's life - a chapter that involved building retaining walls and demolition!