Day 18 of the renovation. Day 1 of detox.

That's right. You heard me. I'm on detox. But I got here with a bang. I had a Final Night On Booze. Phew. Cigs, karaoke, multiple taxis, an abandoned car, wine wine wine.

So today I woke up nice and hungover to remind myself why I'm doing this. It sucks being in a dirty, cluttered, freezing house while hungover.

And I need to pay for it to be clean, uncluttered, insulated and heated.

I can see my breath (which probably smells like a badger's arse) and am wearing everything I own. I've drunk two litres of water today. Haven't peed once. MY life is one of pure glamour.

Day 17 - Yes. I know that.

Ok so maybe, just maybe, I am pandering for a little sympathy. Perhaps I have mentioned to people that I'm a little cold. I may have pointed out that it's a new level of HARD to make it to work (a) fully dressed and (b) not covered in dust. It is possible that I have highlighted that as a slight clean freak, it's a little stressful living in a house where everything is always filthy and one whole room is literally piled to the four metre high rafters with stuff. Potentially I've been banging on that it's tricky to maintain a normal life when your shower floods every morning, your roof is leaking, you have to visit every room in the house to pull together an outfit and you're not sure what room you'll be sleeping in tonight...

But yes. I realise:

"It will be great when it's finished"
"It's much better to do it all in one go"
"It will be so much warmer next winter"

That's why I'm doing it. You don't need to say that. What you should say is: "Lorraine. You are amazing. I could never in a million years do what you are doing. Because I live a life of luxury in my house that isn't being renovated. You are incredibly strong and possibly the bravest person I've ever met. Let me buy you dinner."

Day 16 - new lows

My third clothes rail collapsed today. This should probably indicate that I have more clothes than I need. But strangely I don't feel that way. Since I will actually have a wardrobe in a few weeks, I can't possible justify buying a new clothes rail. So my clothes are currently hanging on a telescopic painting pole that's suspended across my lounge window. Which faces the street. I'm officially white trash.

The house continues to be all kinds of freezing and everything everything everything has dust on it. Cooking, brushing your teeth and wearing anything black are more complicated than you could possibly imagine. I've also had to move all of my stuff from my bedroom to the lounge and in the process misplaced my watch. This. Is. Driving. Me. Crazy.

Other essential items I have 'safely packed away', absolutely can not find and now urgently need:

Clean towels
The vacuum cleaner
Books
Tea towels
Spare bath mats
Laundry baskets

In other, non-renovations related news, I attended a conference today entitled "The Future of the Book". Initially fascinating, often confusing and towards the end downright boring stuff. One guy literally cleared the room with his meanderings. But some interesting stuff on digital technology and how 'books' (and by that I mean text and images not necessarily paper in bindings) will be formatted and consumed in the future. And in some cases the really really near future.

But if I'm honest I really just wanted to pop home and check on the renovations!

Day 15 - demolition versus building

I got home quite late last night and the renovations had moved on HEAPS. When I spoke to my builder about it he pointed out that it had moved on even more the day before but then putting up walls and fences is always going to look more impressive than ripping them out.

I've got my 'novelty buzz' back on and it's making it exciting again. I also did a Very Brave Thing and actually made a spreadsheet of what I think the additional costs are going to be outside of his quote. He's also doing this. I had a look and I think I might just squeak through on budget. Just. And that's a revised budget to be fair. And only because my builder is a super hero and has got me cash work wherever possible, pitched tradesmen against each other to get them to undercut the competition and talked me out of some very expensive options. There will be no horizontal stripes in the hall for example. But I can always do that later.

And speaking of getting stuck in, that's exactly what Pinot had done to the sheets of foam insulation left by the builder.

I think Pinot has an eating disorder. She used to be a big binge and purger but that's stopped since we moved to the new house and her latest thing is eating packing foam. You know the stuff that cradles appliances in their boxes or fits under your floor to stop your tootsies from getting cold. That stuff. and when you move house, buy new things and are getting underfloor insulation there's plenty of it around. I think it fills her up so she doesn't have to eat cat food. Yuck. Anyway there was a whole sheet (about two metres by one metre and five cm thick) that she's pretty much shredded creating a snowstorm in the laundry and a full little tummy of toxins for her. Mentalist.

I'll try to get some photos on Facebook of the advances tonight but I have to also pack up my room. I'm going to be sleeping in the lounge for a few nights. Bye bye electric blanket. This is going to be tough.

Day 14 - not according to plan

Things are slowly coming to a grinding halt. This is bad.

Basically the two things I've been glibly joking about (the resource consent not being through and Vector being morons) is completely holding up the job.

At the end of this week it will have been six weeks since we submitted the resource consent but since the person looking after it was off sick last week and apparently it needs to go to some committee it's not only not signed off, it's looking like another couple of weeks before it's even likely to have an outcome. That outcome might be 'you can't have a deck or bifolds or change the back of your house in any way'. This would be tricky.

Meanwhile the person I spoke to in Vector when I decided to go ahead with bringing gas in from the street gave me a whole heap of absolute lies about what I needed to do next. This meant that my request wasn't progressed at all for a further two weeks.

Have I mentioned just how cold it is in my house at the moment? My builder says he doesn't know how I'm doing it. My builder. Who shows up to work in shorts and a hoodie when it's five degrees outside.

I will look back on this. I will laugh. It will all have been worthwhile.

Remind me of that.

Day 13 - booze versus renovations

Just got my first official invoice. Jee-aysus. I mean you realise that they don't work for free and there's a lot of wood in my back porch but BLIMEY.

It was a pretty chilly weekend and I had a small hangover on Saturday and a Large Hangover (capitals deliberate) on Sunday. My house is not currently a calming refuge of a place to hang out in with a hangover let me tell you.

On the plus side I didn't worry too much about how dirty everything was because any cleaning would be a short term fix anyway. What I did fret about was the horrendous amount of money I spent the night before on the horrendous amount of booze I consumed.

I couldn't afford bottles (note the plural!) of Veuve Cliquot before I was renovating. I certainly shouldn't be buying them now. Nor is this a particularly good time to pick up my smoking habit again. Nor should I be abandoning my car and taxiing places. Eating out, needing to dry clean frocks I passed out in... basically getting drunk while renovating is not smart. You end up sick and cold in your messy house with a vaguely uneasy feeling that you drank the money you need to pay for your dishwasher.

So does this mean no booze for the remainder of the renovation? I'll keep you posted.

Day ten - going Zen

About a week after I went unconditional on the house I had a moment of pure, unbridled, total panic. I had agreed to purchase a house that needed EVERYTHING done to it. From the foundations to the roof and everything in between. I have never changed a tyre, hung a shelf or even wired a plug. I wear six inch heels at all times, even to the hardware shop and I don't have a burly builder boyfriend.

I have never renovated a house before.

I have never owned my own home before.

What in the sweet, mother of fuck was I doing?

That kind of panic.

Then the panic settled and I was left with a small feeling of unease that lingered for about five months. What if I should put in two bathrooms? Maybe I should keep the door into the dining room rather than the lounge. Is decking over the back garden going to make it feel all built up and yucky?

And then I went all zen on it. You know what? I have never renovated before. I've never owned my own home. It's inevitable that I will make mistakes, I'm taking it as a given that I will look back and see things I should clearly have done differently. There may very well be tears at some point.

But all of that is ok.

Let's see how long that lasts shall we!

Day nine

I can't explain how cold my house is. So I won't even try. But I had to stick a hot water bottle down my hoodie for an hour so I could thaw my fingers sufficiently to type.

There are holes in floors and walls and it's zero degrees. And the only socket in my room is now in the wardrobe. But I do have a giant, industrial power chord running from what used to be the kitchen to my electric blanket.

I tried and failed to upload photos here so they're on Facebook. If you're reading this blog I'm guessing you're on Facebook too so you can see them there.

I may not sound very happy but its actually so frickin exciting to get home every night and see what they've done. Check out the photos and I'll write more when I can feel my fingertips.

Day 3

Wow. I mean I was pretty excited before all of this kicked off but it's just getting better and better.

Some favourite reno moments so far (since starting the repiling)
1. Going into my bedroom and shutting the door behind me for the very first time because now that the house is straight the door fits in the hole. Shame I didn't have a handle at the time and so couldn't get back out. Had to jump out the window (note to self, the right shoes are important in this, plimsolls don't cut it).
2. Showing the builder that most of the plasterboard in the lounge is fine and shouldn't need replacing, only to spot the MASSIVE damp patch from my roof that just started leaking on Day 1.
3. Getting my first kitchen quote. $15,000 more that I was planning to spend.
4. The mucky paw prints everywhere now that the cats realise they don't have to subject themselves to the indignity of a cat flap via a concrete path, they can come up through the holes in the floor, via the dirt under the house
5. Calling my builder urgently to tell him the deck's still not consented so to get on with other stuff to be greeted with, "Hey Lorraine was just going to text you to tell you we got the concrete poured for the deck before it started raining".

I'll pop some photos up on the weekend.

Budget versus reality

I have often joked that you can show me a selection of anything and my favourite will be the most expensive one. Almost always. A selection of dresses, shoes, handbags etc. This is before I see the price or have any inkling as to what they might cost.

It's not funny anymore.

Today I went into a bathroom showroom. I found a bath I love. It was three times as much as i was planning to pay for a bath.

Three times as much.

Luckily I only have baths about once every six months so I can't possibly justify it. But what's going to happen when I have to pick curtains and a cooker and flooring and crap?!?!?!?!?

I'm not sure I'm made for renovating.

And the outcome was...

... it will cost $300 to get gas in form the street.

All that for $300?? I cost them more than that in calls to the 0800 number and Aaron and Adrew's time.

Morons.

The Rennovation Blog begins

I got told off on the weekend so I'm getting back into it. And what a way to get back into it:

It's the 'Renovation Quote of the Day'

My house is cold. I have written this about other houses in other blogs. This is definitely up there. This is down to no insulation, no heating and walls made out of wood. That's right international peeps who still read this blog. I have a few bits of wood between me and the elements. Like those huts we built in summer but then abandoned in winter because why on earth would you subject yourself to that level of cold for several months?

Welcome to NZ.

Anyway, there is a list of things that I am doing to attempt to address this issue:

1. Using heaters: This only works if your wiring isn't a hundred years old. I plugged two heaters into one socket and it sort of melted. My fuses are also 100 years old so it didn't just trip. It melted. This socket no longer works. Leaving one other socket in my lounge for telly, dvd player, broadband, sky, laptop and the cool lamp I rescued form the garage of some crazy half way between Aucks and Rotorua.
2. Getting insulation. This is underway but first I have to sort my wiring so the insulation can go in around it.
3. Getting gas fired heating installed. You see, first I need to get gas. Two options
(A) Get gas bottles
(B) Get gas plumbed from the street.
I am endeavouring to find which of these is the best and most cost effective option. To this end I have phoned the gas company about eight times. In fairness one of those times was me calling back because although the project manager looking after my 'quote' said 'please leave a detailed message' his answering machine cuts you off after 15 seconds. Clearly Andrew C does not live a detailed life

And neither does the receptionist (we're getting closer to the quote of the day)

I called today because neither Andrew nor anyone else has responded to my eight day old request for information that would help me to make the above decision. I asked to speak to Andres C but instead the receptionist put me through to Aaron C.

When I called back she immediately apologised, "I'm so sorry, I put you through to a slightly different person"

Em... what? How can one other human being be 'slightly different' to another, entirely other human being??

They have the same initials, possibly the same role within Vector (the company in question). Maybe they're the same age and have similar likes and dislikes, but at the end of it all they are ENTIRELY different people.

Especially for my purposes which is to shout at Andrew C that he should sort his F%^&ing Sh!t out and send me a fricking quote for having gas installed. For Chrissakes.

B@sT@rds.