Down she comes and some past is revealed.

Well, I never thought I’d see the day. Three long years we have waited to begin our ‘exteno’ (that’s what I’m going to label the renovation come extension). Delays in selling a property necessary to fund the project meant we just had to be patient and wait. Well, the waiting is over. Here is the official start of our project.

The boys arrived on Tuesday and got straight into demolishing the old sections of the property. These old outbuildings that within were the washhouse and woodshed with the dunny tucked around the corner, just too far gone to be salvaged.

The white room is a sixties addition of a bedroom,

but that’s gone too now.

The back door has been temporarily swung round into the hall so we can maintain security. How lovely it is to get some natural light in and to be able to see right down the passageway to outside.

The house was originally weatherboard and has at some stage  been rendered with lime plaster. The builder was amazed at how strong the render is and had ‘fun’ removing it.

Here’s a peek at where the old weatherboards were covered over with render.

Well look here! This is what the original back of the house would have looked like apart from the kitchen window originally being small. Because the render was so tough to remove (it was set in chicken wire) the builder removed it as a separate process first. We cannot believe these original cedar weatherboards are still intact under the render.

I think it looks better already!

It does of course mean that not only do I have a kitchen set up in a bedroom, I also have a laundry set up in the shed! It works, I’m OK with that. Stay tuned for regular updates.