I’ve watched a season of The Block before, so I am an armchair expert when it comes to house renovations. I mean, how hard could it be, really? The contestants seem to get on with it and whip up brilliant rooms, albeit a few tears and, of course, tradesmen on call, which surely helps. It can’t be that hard, right?
Mixing My Ambitions With My Capabilities
From indoors to outside. Nothing is as easy as it seems. Even painting becomes a massive pain in the ass when you want to remove cupboards and re-arrange elements of the house.
The property needed work when we bought it. That was obvious and it has been fun. Being such a rural property, it is hard to get trades or anyone out here to do jobs. So the task falls on us to turn the house into a home.
As hard as certain elements of this are, the sense of achievement once a project is completed is second to none. We drove the five hour trip twice a week for the first month while our lease on the Gold Coast was still active. During that time we re-painted the inside of the house, demolished areas we were not happy with, ripped up all the carpet, laid floorboards and dismantled the kitchen shelves. We also threw out a mountain of items the previous owners left behind.
I See a Red Door and I Want it Painted…. Blue?
Well not quite red, it was an off yellowish colour. Kind of like someone’s fingers after they have smoked a full packet of cigarettes a day for 10 years. That lovely yellow that might have been “homely” back in 1979.
The first thing we did was paint it a nice light blue colour. Giving the inside a brighter and less tarry feel. This made a world of difference straight away. I tell you though without air con and faulty fans, it’s bloody hot inside painting. I can say my sweat is indeed in these walls.
My wife Audrey handled the bulk of the painting and colour choices. Smart move considering my colour palette is akin to a four years olds colouring book. The cupboards, the drawers and the rooms all have different, yet matching styles that really look the part.
I Do What I Do Best: Break Stuff
While my wife was painting, I was using a crowbar and hammer to rip out a cupboard. Breaking things comes naturally to me, most of my friends will attest. So it made sense for me to smash this cupboard up. It came out in pieces, but I realised towards the end there had been wiring running through it and that was live.
ChatGPT happily told me it was an alarm and low voltage so I could cut through it with no worries. Luckily I have some common sense and don’t listen to that idiot half the time. There were three wires hanging down, including an earth. That usually means mains power, not something you casually snip through.
My volt meter confirmed this and if I listened to the overly confident ChatGPT, I would have had a lovely shock. So off with the mains, then rekindling my knowledge from twenty years ago when I studied electrical supply. I realised I had no memory of what I learnt and questioned where my memory and education went. I certainly remember paying for the class though.
See I understand electricity. The Dunning-Kruger effect is in full force with me and on that scale, I am in the limited understanding but know enough to be dangerous category. It all worked out well. The shelf came out, I sanded it back. Put up some cornice (I think it’s called) and painted it all in. Now the room is much bigger and you can’t tell there was a wardrobe there.
We turned an extra small room into a walk in robe for our clothes and linen. It’s unique but works well for us.
The House Has Life
After a fresh coat of paint and new flooring, the next logical step was the kitchen. We removed all the old handles and replaced them with new ones as well as stuck new tile stickers over the horrible original tiles. This is a quick and cheap solution but it looks a million bucks. I think Shayna Blaze would be proud.
The furniture all came in next and this is where the house really started to take life. Nothing makes a place feel like home more than your own things filling the space.
The only area we have not worked on is the bathroom. This still looks like a 1970s Norman Bates style area. But it is on the checklist and probably needs more professional work than we are capable of at this stage.
Filtered, Fixed and Finally Flowing
When we moved here, there was one water tank connected to the house. It was on a broken tap that a slight breeze would disconnect. The other issue is this old concrete tank leaks like a sieve. This is also why we nearly ran out of water in our first month, as covered in Chapter 3 of these Moringa Farm Chronicles.
We didn’t know what the water quality was like here. Most places in the area drink tank water just fine. However, I could not tell how dirty the water was or what could be in it. I know there is a frog in the third tank on the other side of the house as it croaks the song of its people each night.
So we needed a water filter. Getting advice from my friend's parents, we knew the setup that needed to happen. But it turns out plumbing is a bit more difficult to work out than I realised. Maybe that’s why it’s a four year trade and not a digital marketing task.
With help from the neighbour, my attempt at the task was completed. I was on the right track, but it turns out there are blue pipes and green pipes, they won’t connect to each other. Inch and three quarter connections in both imperial and metric. Step up and step down connections and what feels like a one kilometre wall in Bunnings filled with pieces as complex as a black hole jigsaw puzzle. I almost have my own library of incorrect parts for display after that task.
After weeks of trial and error. More errors. And then a bit more error. We got filtered water into the house.
Gravity, Grit and Questionable Plumbing
After our water woes, I noticed the third water tank on the other side of the house was not doing anything. Except housing a frog. It was full as well.
The water was dirty though so I used it to bucket water down to the plants each day as we still don’t have running water. I broke the solar bore 30 minutes after I fixed it. I’m really good at just destroying utilities.
We bought some crackerdust from Bundaberg (an hour away). The delivery fee was more than the actual product, but that’s what happens when you live what feels like a domestic flight away from civilisation.
After leveling out the crackerdust and emptying the frog sauna, it was time to get the tractor out (after another flat tyre of course) and move the tank to its new home. This was fun, towing it around the yard and positioning it into place. The tank was placed in the right spot, levelled properly, and it is by far the most fulfilled I have felt on this farm so far. It was a month ago I drove a tractor for the first time and now I am using it to move heavy equipment around. I am turning into a farmer slowly.
Relocating the tank. One month ago I barely drove the tractor. Now I’m towing infrastructure.
Brick by Brick
I bought a small ryobi pump to help move water around. It acts like a hose but screams like a banshee. I placed one end into the old tank with the goal of watering in some concrete powder around the tank and crackerdust.
As a proud representative of Murphy’s Law, I knocked a brick off the top of the old tank, it fell onto that dodgy connection cracking it in half. It bounced onto the tap piece, breaking that as well, and water started spraying everywhere. In one fell swoop, I disconnected all the water to the house. Most people use the term brick by brick for achievement. Be it building something, working towards a project or a million other ways that term can be used. I use it to break things brick by brick.
So now we have to do an emergency run into town, the same town that still rents VHS in the hopes they have parts to connect the water back up. Looking through the museum of parts every plumbing section in a store seems to have, my neighbour could translate what felt like hieroglyphics to me into the parts we need.
They fit perfectly, and now instead of having water run under the ground, I have a tripping hazard above ground. But the water works and that’s the main thing. The second tank will be hooked up to it soon once I fill it and get rid of the resident frogs.
Bringing Colour Outside
The outside area is a bit slower to work on. Mainly because I am constantly battling weeds, lawn mowers and tractors so it all needs to be done by hand.
My wife Audrey planted a beautiful row of Marigolds out the front of the house. We learnt the next day that they have a life cycle of about three months…
I cleared the gardening area near the bar outside which was full of rubbish, weeds and overgrown foliage. From here I planted some chillis, lemongrass and my Gold Coast Titans gnomes before I noticed all the wooden structural pieces are being eaten by termites. Another fun problem to fix.
Most importantly though I have managed to get the first lot of Moringa in the ground out in a fenced off field. They are taking to soil well, I need to neutralise the pH slightly but it is off to a ripper start. This field will be expanded in the coming days and more Moringa will be placed in the ground. The makeshift gate I made into the area was smashed in the other day. My heart sank as I thought the wallabies got the Moringa leaflings but they did not.
It’s a constant battle here with wasps, snakes, spiders, termites, wallabies and freeloading frogs. But I enjoy the challenge immensely and at nearly 40 years old, I feel I am learning new skills every day and my mind is loving the education. I just wish my body was as enthusiastic.
