Renovation update: My Home

I’ve been meaning to do this ‘in progress’ post on my home renovation for ages now, but have felt totally demotivated where my alterations are concerned. What I thought would be a fun project, filled with inspiration and collaboration with enthusiastic suppliers, has left me feeling quite disillusioned with the industry in Durban and I’m baffled at the lack of professionalism shown by some contractors.

Over the last 6 months though, I’ve managed to get all the demolition and new dry walling done (bless my father’s cotton socks for putting up with all my shit!), take up the carpets throughout, plumb both, but only fit one bathroom, install new ceilings in the bathrooms, install new & move old electrical points and get my kitchen quotes done.

I moved an aircon unit, installed adsl and waterproofed the new shower area too and am now officially flat broke! But hey, it was always going to be a 2 year project and I’m taking it slow and doing this in baby steps.

Here are some before and after pics of the spare bathroom, lounge/kitchen area and what will eventually be the new main bedroom:
 New bath, basin and toilet, white tiled walls and grey floor tiles, no paint on the walls yet and will be doing a full mirror on one wall too – eventually :)
Verandah wall now demolished, making one large room for new bedroom, that steel beam was an absolute bitch to remove! White shutters will be installed in the window (no I don’t want a view of the next door block ;))
Wall between kitchen and lounge now demolished, old sexy butternut kitchen and exposed geyser in background, but that will all soon be gone :)

I was going to do a post on all the crappy suppliers I’ve encountered, but it’ll just spew far too much negative energy forth. So instead of sharing with you who didn’t pitch for appointments, or who moved the goal posts on work they had quoted up front for, I will share the list of suppliers I could not have got to this point without:

Ashcon – Alan Ashe (my dad!) – for alterations and additions – 083 255 5309
Greg Frizelle – for plumbing – 079 150 4964
Pacific Blu – Warren Buckhard – moved my aircon unit – 079 239 5261

Will keep you posted on the kitchen update, all the boring stuff is being done first like plumbing and electrical work, buying appliances next and then I’ll count my pennies to see what’s left over to build the kitchen…