Our building designers Richard and Michelle Hall of Lateral Building Designs asked whether they could take some pictures to enter into a design competition.
Their draughtsman Renzo is a whiz with a camera and came and spent a couple of hours taking photos. The results are great. Sometimes i think that they are of a different house, not ours. See what you think!!
Front of our house
Extension from North
North at dusk
East side at dusk
Inside from North
Looking North East
The new laundry is a small space off the kitchen. In the original house layout it was a space under the roof line that was a short hallway outside of the back door. All very strange and not a good use of space. It is about 1200mm wide and 1700mm long.
Old laundry, accessed from outside
Before we started
It was one of those jobs that I had been putting off because I knew it would be quite a grind. Waterproofing, tiling, painting, installing washing machine, making a bench, shelving etc etc etc.
Anyway after the kitchen was finished we set to and painted the walls down to where the tiling would meet after first doing the cornicing. the we laid villaboard down onto the plywood floor. Then a waterproofing compound up the prescribed 40mm up the wall. In fact much higher than that. Photos taken all the way to satisfy (I hope) council.
Waterproofing first coat
All waterproofed
Now for the tiling. This is when I found out that the seconds we had bought were seconds for a reason. Not quite square all of them so made the laying of them a little awkward as was cutting them as my tile cutter is 300mm wide and these tiles 330mm wide. So out came the diamond tip grinding wheel.
After tiling and grouting the walls and floors it was time to install a bench. Now when our glass for the extension siding double glazed doors was shipped from the mainland it came in a big plywood box. The sides I used in the building of extension, but the top and bottom were 75mm thick planks of pine. I had kept them for this very purpose so out came the biscuit jointer, belt sander, and orbital sander. Two coats of Volvox hard wax oil to protect the whole bench and a couple of holes for the washing machine hoses and voila.
Meanwhile for the splashback Mandy had been working on a mosaic of chinese dragons in red, black, and yellow. This was made in four panels with pre-drilled screw holes where studs were. It all fitted a treat and was protected with grout sealer.
Grouting the dragons
Dragons, bench and red laundry tub
Lastly our pulley system washing hanger upper was installed and a blind on the window. No dryer but a space for one on the wall, the laundry tub resprayed fire engine red, a couple of shelves, and our super efficient front loader Asko washing machine and it was finished. The washing machine and tub are plumbed into our rainwater tanks.
Dragons, bench and washing hanger
Well as we are in the middle of several things at once but not far enough along on any of them to post them I thought I would re visit the steps we have taken to make the house thermally more comfortable than when we moved in nearly four years ago.
This year is the first year that the house stays noticeably warmer inside than the outside temp, even in the morning. Now winter is not here yet but we have had several mornings of below 5 degrees.
Here is a list of improvements we have made and there links to the relevant posts.
Now individually each thing has only helped a little, some more than others, but put together it means that the house is so far consistently warmer than it was and is using less fuel, in this case firewood, to warm it up.
A green Tasmanian renovation 