Hello ensuite

 I did want to do a succession of blogs about the ensuite development, but it coincided with one of the busiest times of year and a busy time in our lives too.

To summarise the background situation: we had had the original consent amended to allow us to build an ensuite. This came through in mid November and we quickly got the builders back in.

Here's the corner of the room before we started work.  The room is huge - measures about 6m * 4m with 3.6m ceilings, and is actually so big that it was difficult to feel cosy in it.  So the plan was to build a small (1m * 3m) ensuite and two wardrobes in this handy corner. 

The before shot.  this corner measures about 1.8m * 3m. Note the pre-polished floor...

Looking the other way...

 It's worth observing the location of the radiator... too close to the new ensuite.  Annoyingly we (actually Steve) had decided to place it away from the corner near the window, but now this turned out to be too close to the new wall, so we had to move it, at a cost of $100...

Wall lining stripped away with shower tray in place.

inspecting the new framing

 As the builders started putting in the framing with a false ceiling they were able to create a big cavity above.  The ceiling on the ensuite is just 2.4m so that leaves a full 1.2m cavity to the true ceiling height.  We did briefly consider turning it into a sleeping loft, but as we have no need for an extra bedroom at the moment, didn't progress that idea, but we did ask them to put a light and socket up there for storage.

note the framing for the new loft above - big enough for a bed!

the toilet tries its space out for size

 

A blast from the past, gib in the hallway again

Just to show the great level of framing the builders do.  It seems superfluous to me but I guess that makes it a quality build

The gib starts to go up

plastering

 We bought a cool mirrored cabinet which the builders installed recessed into the wall.  This is a great idea in a small ensuite because it minimises space above the basin as it doesn't stick out into the room.  It also has a socket inside it so you can charge your electric toothbrush or whatever. 

mirrored cabinet

 With the wardrobe doors we asked for an upgrade on the builder's quote to bifold doors.  The main reason for this was that one of the wardrobes is immediately by the door into the bedroom and a bifold door doesn't take up as much space as a normal door, so the door to the bedroom and wardrobe doors don't collide.  We are pleased with this decision - it cost another $200 ish but it's the upgrades which (from experience) we tend to like.

wardrobe doors go in

 So after about 3 weeks we finally had more or less the finished product, but with Vicki and Steve coming to visit on December 28th we were under the gun (AGAIN) to get the room finished so that we could move back into our bedroom and vacate the spare room.

After some consideration we decided to be bold with the colour choice.  Steve consulted numerous possible colour charts and came up with Devil's Backbone - a sophisticated red shade.  I guess it wouldn't work so well in a small or modern room, but we think it looks good.  The painting took a long time to do - with walls as high as ours and a dark colour paint which takes 3 coats to get the correct depth of colour it took us about 3 full days to finish. 

Steve clearly loves painting

 The loft above the ensuite was great but we realised it would be really annoying getting the ladder from the basement each time we wanted to access it, so we asked the builders to make us a simple ladder attached to the wall.  This cost another $200, but I think it was well worth it.

the closet all nicely painted

the mirror on the sliding door cost us another $200

 Steve was very naughty with the paint colour inside the ensuite.  I had the veto rights on the colour but Steve was in charge of buying paint and bought a more purply shade than I had chosen.  Mine would have been more grey, but on the whole it's not too bad....

new shower and basin

mirror cabinet

So we are now all finished in theory.  There are though a couple of outstanding problems. Most importantly we have a leak under the house.  The builder is away at the moment so we can't get it fixed, so it's back to shower no. 1 for the time being.  I haven't paid the bill in consequence, but it will amount to around $16k in total - about $1200 for the bathroom furniture. maybe $400 in paint, $300 ish for lighting and the rest for the builder.  

 

On the whole though, we are quite pleased with the end result.  It was great having a second bathroom with guests staying.  The wardrobes are not perfect as they are just boxes - without drawers it makes it difficult to select items.  So I might purchase a few trays to fit inside them, if such a thing exists.  We have no longer got enough wallspace for chests of drawers so they will have to be enough one way or another!

 

The loft space and ladder is probably my favourite thing, it means we can finally clear up some of the other parts of the house where we have things like boxes of cables and wrapping paper cluttering up the place.  I also really like the paint job - Steve was responsible for walls and I did the cutting in.

 

 

 

 

Paths and Tables

So back in the day the stairs to our house looked like this.

Notice the hefty treads, still in good nick after 100 years outside. When the stairs were demolished I asked the builders to keep them as I thought I'd think of a good use for them.  There are 9 of them, probably about 4kg each, about 900mm long by about 250mm wide and according to the builders, made of Oregon.  I suddenly had a brainwave - I'd turn them into a table for the deck.
The treads sat under the house for months before I managed to persuade Paul to help me build the table.  I wasn't very confident starting by myself especially as we had to cut out the legs which needed a rotating saw.

Anyway with Paul there to help we were quickly cutting up the wood.  I bought some pine posts for the legs, and for the rest of the frame, we had timbers from the demolition of the back door lean to (probably rimu, not 100% sure.)  The timbers from the house had lots of borer holes in (do you think I should be worried that structural timbers in the house have borer!?) so I painted them with anti borer stuff before we started.

Paul helps with the cutting while Sheryl does some weeding

 We discarded one of the treads because it would have made the table too long for the deck doors to miss it.
The chopping up took ages because the reach of the saw is probably only about 5cm, but the posts we were cutting to make the legs were 10cm * 10cm, so with two different cuts I had to sand down the cuts to smooth it out.

The wood all cut but not screwed together

 It then sat like this for a few weeks while we went off on holiday, before I got around to screwing it together.  I had bought some hefty bolts which said they were self tapping, but thought I'd pre drill the holes anyway.  In the event our $30 drill/screwdriver was not strong enough to screw the bolts in, even with the pre drilling (smoke was coming out of it!), and by hand it was such hard work that I got blisters on my hands.  But luckily for me Phil the builder was in doing the ensuite and he had a super powerful drill which finished the job for me.

You can just see the brackets I used to attach the table top to the frame beneath.  The treads are so heavy that there's not much danger of  them coming off unless you pick the table up by them, so the brackets are just to hold them in place really.

Finished article

So here is the finished table.  It measures 1.6m *900mm.  We may still sand down the top but I quite like the unfinished look.  Definitely need some better chairs though!  It is so heavy that if there are any slight uneven finishes on the base of the legs, you can't tell because it's so well weighted down.  It takes two strong people to move it so no chance of blowing over in a Wellington gale!  Cost was around $100 for the posts, brackets and bolts.

So while I was finishing the table, Steve was working on the path.  It is a slow process which we've been working on for about a year and half using bricks from the chimneys we've pulled down.

Mid construction

 Steve works in a very scientific way, with levels, and string lines.  You lay the bricks on a bed of sand.  I think a compacting machine for the sand before laying the bricks would have saved all the hammering in of bricks Steve was doing.  He kept hitting his thumb with the rubber mallet!

hard at work at the door to the basement

The path is finally finished!

 This is immediately after the path up to the steps was finished, the grey bit under the steps is where the sand covers the newly laid bricks.

The view back to the street

 In total we (mostly Steve) built about 30m of path, using around 1000 bricks.  Cost was no more than about $200 in sand, although at $1 a brick it would have cost us $1000 in bricks alone if we had bought them.  We still have over 350 left - brick pizza oven?!?

Relaxing on the deck in the morning sunshine

Our deck is south facing so gets morning and evening sun in the summer months.  Best of all, it is sheltered from the prevailing northerly wind so we often find it warmer than anywhere else in the garden.