The beginning ... start of the renovations ..

The past twelve months have brought lots of changes, once again I am back in my beloved Tasmania, though in a different area to where we previously lived. This time fate has brought us to the central west close by the majestic Cradle Mountain area.
We purchased a cottage, sight unseen, via a realestate website; to be honest we did know the area and had house hunted here previously, it was the cottage itself that was an unknown factor. The photographs looked promising, it certainly had potential and looked as if more hard work than cash was involved which suited us fine. In reality it needed a lot more work than we had anticipated, although I think this was reflected in the purchase price at a time when house prices were on the rise everywhere.

Our friends and former neighbours offered us the use of their campervan to sleep in until our furniture arrived; I was so glad at night to escape to the clean, snug van after a day spent cleaning and scrubbing. The cottage itself is small, basically 4 main rooms, divided by a central hallway. An addition at the rear which comprises a large laundry/ mudroom, a small study (converted from a former pantry/storeroom) and the bathroom is still on the “To Do” list although urgent changes have been made.

All of the cottage was layered in nicotine smog … I can think of no other words to describe it. Walls, ceilings, light fittings, carpets, kitchen cupboards, windows .. everything!! To a non smoker the odour was abhorent and even after we had cleaned everywhere, I could not return home without a faint odour of smoke assailing my nostrils, infact it remained like this until the new paint went on some weeks later, long after the carpet, curtains and light fittings had been flung outside awaiting transportation to the tip.

The cottage had a newish kitchen fitted .. so new infact that the oven and cooktop had no wiring to connect them and naturally, being an old cottage there was no easy way of adding the wiring. I only found this out after putting the kettle on and waiting patiently for it to boil. A frantic phone call to the local electrician followed. On inspection it became clear why the appliances had not been wired in, the entire cottage needed rewiring and a new switchboard was also needed before anything could be connected. In the bathroom the hot water system had been altered to plug into a powerpoint instead of being wired in correctly and one light bulb hung down between two rooms with a piece cut down from the ceiling into the wall for it to sit in … a disaster waiting to happen. This work was likely to gobble up thousands of dollars from our already small budget.

As usual things got worse before they got any better … next day as we were out inspecting the garden, (which was thank goodness very pretty if wild and overgrown) we had a visit from a local council officer, asking if we would like to buy the adjoining 2 blocks of land to ours. It turned out that our land finished right on the edge of our driveway and half of our garage plus the hothouse and clothesline were actually next door!!

Council was in the process of sorting out vacant land (unpaid council rates/tax) to be auctioned off in an annual land sale. Some fast negotiating saw us purchase the 2 blocks, one of which has a lovely natural water well/spring and the other a creek boundary for the grand sum of $750 each. This was really bargain basement buying and gave us a total land area of almost 1 and ½ acres with the creek meandering through all of the blocks. It did however further deplete our small budget for renovations even further.

I have attached a couple of eary photos, look at the marks on the walls from the smoke!!

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