This story starts in 1999. That was when two London residents flew back to Australia and NZ to get married, and thought to invest in the NZ property market. We both love Wānaka and we expected to visit often and thought that a holiday house there would be ideal. So we bought a nice wee house that was comfortable, but old and a bit run down. It was definitely due for renovating sometime very soon.
Fast forward 22 years and that renovation was now very overdue. That much deferred maintenance was also going to be very expensive! So to keep costs down a little, and to actually experience the house and see its condition on the ground, I decided to spend a week living in the place and do the demolition work myself.
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| Its best angle - from the outside |
27 Feb (Sat) - To Wānaka via Dunedin
An early start saw us both blearily out of bed and off to the airport for a relatively early morning flight to Dunedin to see my Mum. My adventure would start there as I was borrowing her van for transport during the renovations; plus it was a good chance to see her.
I came with a heavy suitcase, with all the tools I thought I would need, that I could also carry on the plane. A jemmy, hammer, handsaw, screwdriver, crescent spanners, jigsaw ... that sort of thing. 20kg of metal. No battery drill because batteries are verboten on the plane. No sledgehammer because of the size and weight. I figured I'd have to buy things like a battery drill and sledgehammer when I got to Wānaka.
This is my first time on a jet since before the Apocalypse. Over a year.
It was lovely to see Mum and spend some time with her. We chatted away, I helped her get a flybuys kettle and took her broken, boils-til-it-boils-dry-and-burns-the-house-down kettle away. She also had a log splitter that looked an awful lot like a sledgehammer with one sharp edge that I took; and some old PC speakers of mine from probably the same era as the house.
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| Selfie on the deck |
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| Dunedin's views are stunning |
While I was there, Vivienne's birthday present for Mum arrived. A fantastic quilt with screenprinted photos of family sown into it, that she had started for my Dad and had just come back to. It made Mum quite emotional. What a wonderful gift.
I was planning on staying the night in Dunedin, but some of my friends had incredulously listened to the work I needed to do and all decided there was no hope of me getting it all done in a week. So I was anxious and decided to get on the road early, and get to Wānaka by the evening.
My property manager, Victoria, had warned me about the condition of the place in quite a flustered phone call. Rubbish everywhere, dirty and grimy, and it stank. And yes, it was all those things. But the grimy stinky bits were all getting gutted out, and the rubbish was all where I was expecting it to be - I'd told the tenant that I was getting a skip so happy to clear anything if he left it in the garage. Well, the garden also had rubbish thrown into the bushes, and had an overgrown vege garden right in the middle of the backyard. But not really unexpected.
Still, the kitchen and lounge were very unpleasant. Nicotine stained walls, it really did stink, and if you touched anything your hands came away greasy.
The upstairs was in better condition and I cautiously set myself up in the bigger bedroom. I had my tramping gear with me - I was basically going to treat the house like a DOC hut for the week. I laid out my sleeping bag and sleeping mat, with a large plastic sheet between me and the dubious looking carpet.
My second night ever, staying in our wee holiday house! And the first night ever while we actually own it (the seller let us stay pre-settlement when we bought it, back in the previous century).
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| Home sweet home |
28 Feb (Sun) - Time to get stuck in
I wanted to keep my running up so first thing was a 5k run along the lakefront. Gorgeous. I followed a walk/bike track with the lake on one side and a series of mansions on the other. It's not 1999 anymore in Wanaka, and you wouldn't pay bach/crib prices for a house here now!
That was the only run I did all week. Oh well.
Then into town for breakfast at a nice cafe, and trips to the supermarket for the week's food, and Mitre 10 for some of the things I knew I'd need.
My biggest concern was lifting the lino. The asbestos backed lino. This is the task that would be super expensive to have done professionally, and also the biggest unknown - what was the glue like that held it down? Would it just lift easily, or would it fight me centimetre by centimetre? So to find out, I started work on the small toilet room.
I assumed the toilet itself would be simple to remove, but I was proven wrong. Turns out they'd filled the whole base in concrete and made it part of the floor. It took many swings of the log splitter/sledgehammer to smash it off its base.
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| I had to hit it harder than that! |
Now I suited up and attacked the lino. I apprehensively tugged at one corner. It all came away easily enough. But, leaving patches of evil grey behind. First things first, I wet the whole area down with a hose. And then I got to work.
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| I'm reusing the suit from that time I went to a 'heroes' fancy dress as a Fukushima plant worker |
The patches left were slow going, using an old spade as a scraper and trying turps and boiling water to soften the glue. But within a couple of hours, every last trace was gone. I mopped the whole floor out thoroughly and declared that room complete and decontaminated.
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| First job done |
Now for some fun, I decided that the bathroom cabinetry was the next job. The cabinets were surprisingly well built, no chipboard and glue/nails in the 1970's! But the sledgehammer made short work of it. Even the steel bath wasn't as heavy as I was expecting. (That was my other fear - finding a two person job like moving a heavy bath, that I couldn't do.)
I cleared everything out except for the shower - I wanted to keep using it! I kept the laundry sink intact and moved it outside. After putting an old rusted-out barbecue beside it, running a hose off the washing machine hot tap out the window, and plugging in Mum's broken kettle on an RCD lead out another window - I had a fairly functional kitchen. I was just missing a camp stove (or a working barbecue).
I still wasn't settled in yet, so I went out for dinner again. This time for Beef Rendang at a great little street food shed close to town. I chatted to the other patron who was down from Auckland and had just finished a drywall building course in Cromwell. Now he was mountain biking for a few days and wondering what returning to locked-down Auckland would be like.
1 Mar (Mon) - Clear the Kitchen
One thing I really didn't expect to need the jemmy for was emptying the cupboards. But there was a dubious jar of preserved plums that was stuck fast to a kitchen shelf. I got the jemmy under it and with a bit of effort eased it up. It had leaked and glued itself down extremely thoroughly. I gingerly took it outside and added it to the increasing pile on the front yard.
I opened up wall linings for the first time, and delightedly discovered pink batts in the outside walls! My renovation budget immediately reduced itself by a few thousand dollars. The lounge walls were also in much better condition than I expected, in spite of a very generous coating of nicotine and filth, so I could also de-scope replacing the gib board in the lounge. Things were looking up.
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| Look! Batts! |
Most of the kitchen came out easily enough. The exception was the hot water cylinder cabinet and the cabinet beside it - where pipes and electrical wires had been run through holes. I demolished around the wires and pipes and left the rest for another day - the last day when I took out the shower and hot water cylinder. Again, the hot water cylinder could wait for the last day so I had hot water during the week.
I ate home cooked meals all day today. Well, 'cooked' is a stretch. I lived on muesli for breakfast and wraps for lunch and wraps for dinner, all week. I didn't get sick of them! It's lucky that I like routine rather than variety in my food.
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| Preparing my meal |
2 Mar (Tue) - Chores and filling the skip
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| Will it all fit? |
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| Yes but without much room left over! |
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| And with just some of the junk in the garage, it's full |
3 Mar (Wed) - Lift the lino
Right, all my prep was done and I couldn't put it off any longer. It was time to sort out the lino, in the bathroom and kitchen.
I started on the kitchen and it was very encouraging. The lino peeled right off, leaving the odd grey patch but not nearly as much as the toilet. Until I got to the last metre by the front door. There it stopped and stubbornly refused to come up. I scraped and pulled and tugged to no avail. The best I could do was peel off the vinyl, leaving the evil grey asbestos behind, and scrape it off centimetre by centimetre. I was armed with a sharp scraper and some toluene spray from Mitre 10 that I'd bought yesterday, but the spray seemed to do very little.
I decided to give up for now and hit the bathroom. The bathroom was much easier - same story as the rest of the kitchen, easy up and a few small patches to clean up.
My boss Roanne had mentioned boiling water as a solution - I gave that a go using Mum's broken kettle. Success! With a strong smell of solvent the glue softened and the grey backing lifted in one piece. Now it was slow and steady progress - the water really needed to be boiling to work and after a few minutes it cooled down and didn't work as well. So my slow process was: boil the kettle - tip the kettle slowly over the paper while running the scraper under it - until the kettle was empty or cool, then refill the kettle - mop up and decontaminate while the kettle boils. And repeat.
A steady couple of hours' work and that 1m strip was done. I double bagged everything up, did another wash and mop for luck, washed myself down and headed to the tip with my hazardous waste. My hazardous waste charges were all of $10 and the tip man was delighted with me coming to him instead of quietly throwing it in the skip.
Whew! That was a big weight off my mind. That whole job could have been as hard as that last 1m strip.
Well, that was a long day. I treated myself to a burger and a beer at the Speights pub. No wrap for me tonight!
4 Mar (Thu) - Chores and a surprise under the carpet
I've been working (as in, day job working) on and off during my renovations work and today I had a couple of meetings that I fitted around trips to the grocery store and Mitre 10 yet again. I also did my washing at the laundromat attached to the local Caltex service station which was nice and easy. I had a meeting on my phone in the laundromat to the amusement of the people on the call. One asked if Angela had kicked me out if I was having to do washing at a laundromat!
Next job, get the carpets up and out. This was surprisingly easy. Probably only took an hour or so, and a surprise awaited underneath. The lounge had lino under the carpet! Thank goodness, not the ugly 1970s asbestos-backed kind, but the 1990s 'tested negative' kind. It'll be fine under the new laminate flooring I reckon.
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| Photo makes the lino gleam ... it's not that nice, really. |
The house smelled so much better once the greasy dirty carpet was gone.
There was still time in the day so I tackled the bathroom walls and ceiling. (But not the shower!) The seratone wallboard broke easily but once I got the hang of easing it off, it all came off in big pieces. Job done pretty quickly.
Tonight I had a home cooked hot meal. I'd bought some frozen chicken slices and veges to make up as a stir fry - before I discovered that removing the stove was one of my first jobs. The blurb on the back of the chicken mentioned 'fully cooked' so I thawed it and ate it cold - no dramas. But the veges? What to do? I considered buying a camping stove but that was a false economy to 'save' $5 worth of vegetables. But... the kettle! The kettle was pressed into service again. I threw the frozen veges in, topped it up with cold water and set it boiling. Perfect. My coffee might have had a tang of broccoli the next morning but that was a small price to pay.
5 Mar (Fri) - Get everything else done
It's Friday and my week is drawing to a close. I've made great progress but let's face it - today is really my last day. Saturday I take out the shower and HWC, and tidy up; then Sunday I pack up and leave for Queenstown Airport. So I better pull finger.
My tasks are:
- Take down the pinex ceiling in the lounge, dining room, toilet and foyer;
- Take down seratone wallboard in the kitchen and toilet; and
- Take down the gib board in the dining room, then
- Take down the gib board in the hallway
- Finally there are hundreds of nails to pull from the ceiling and the walls.
The ceilings popped down nicely. The pinex was soft, and a little tug brought each sheet down more or less intact. I carefully punched around the light fittings to avoid them coming down as well.
I was now adept at taking down seratone and that was sorted pretty quickly too.
Gib was another matter. It's weird; on one hand it's brittle when you tug at it but on the other it's super strong at holding onto the walls where it's nailed up. I'm glad that gluing as well as nailing wasn't a thing in the 1970s. But with judicious jemmying and hammering and sledging it was soon down too.
That was a long day. It was past 8pm when I called it quits. Still the hallway walls and the nail pulls to do. That's okay. Time for another wrap and a couple of beers. I ended the night listening to Europop.
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| Lounge Ceiling ✅ |
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| Miso break |
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| Kitchen, dining ceiling ✅ Kitchen walls ✅ |
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| Dining room walls ✅ |
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| Second skip looking full |
6 Mar (Sat) - No more shower and really get everything else done
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| Snow on Treble Cone in the morning! The view out my bedroom window. |
I still had leftover tasks to do this morning - I quickly got stuck into the hallway ceiling and walls, and cleaned up and swept out. Messy, dusty work and definitely something to do before my very last shower in the house.
Then it was time to do the real last task. I got stuck in with the sledgehammer. This is a 1970's shower; no plastic or fibreglass box here. It's made of 4x2 framing, doubled up and with many huge nails locking it tightly in place. It took a great deal of persuasion from the sledgehammer as well as the jemmy and hammer to give up its place in the bathroom. The 4x2 nailed to the walls took a two pronged approach; jemmy them away from the wall a little, until the jemmy wouldn't work anymore, and then smack them sideways with the sledgehammer now there was a little room for movement. Whew!
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| Going ... |
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| Gone. |
Next the hot water cylinder. I'd been pondering how to do this all week. It should be simple. Turn off the header tank tap; turn the shower and my tricky 'outside kitchen' hot tap on; finally drain the base of the cylinder by duct taping a hose to an awkward fitting at the end of the drain tap that I didn't have. Job done, then just pick the thing up.
It all went wrong at step 1. The header tank tap was seized; it didn't turn easily and when I got the wrench on it and turned it hard off, there was still water dribbling out of it.
Oh well. Water off and try to disassemble everything. Nothing would budge (with the wrenches and spanners I had). The only fitting I could turn was where the copper pipe attached in - and I had no way of capping that off! Gah! A quick trip to Mitre 10 for the $4 fitting I needed and I had everything capped off.
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| Well, that was harder than it should have been |
This is where I discovered how scary the HWC installation was. Everything was basically just sitting there like a Jenga game, held down by gravity and optimism. The stand the HWC was sitting on had three light nails stopping it from collapsing. I'd demolished the cabinet around it the day before and noticed it was moving about quite a lot; little did I know how close I came to having 200kg of scalding water falling down while I did that. Oh well.
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| Those three nails. |
Home stretch now. I was back to interminable nail pulling and then a last sweep down and a last clear out of the junk in the garage. The skip was full (again) and the house was ready for builders to build.
So that was that. No vege wrap for me tonight! I celebrated with a Speights pub chicken burger. Luxury.
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| A few of the hundreds of nails I pulled out one by one |
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| Kitchen, dining room |
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| Lounge |
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| Hallway, toilet |
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| Bathroom |
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| Skip #2 all full up |
7 Mar (Sun) - clean up and home time
I slept so well last night. I was asleep by 8:00pm and didn't wake up until 7:30am this morning. I felt nothing but weariness the night before - it must have been a more tiring day than I'd thought.
Today I packed up and tidied up. I double checked that I'd left everything okay. I packed up my stuff from the upstairs bedroom. I was planning on leaving a big crate of stuff behind - but I had no need for my tools down here, so back into the suitcase they all went. I left behind just the sledgehammer and the work platform I'd bought.
The last of my wrap ingredients went into a paper bag. Other food I'd bought, like cans of tuna and corn and packets of soup, went to the food bank at New World on the way out of town.
It was a bit sad leaving the wee house. I'd grown to love it over the week. The upstairs is delightful with its quirky peaked ceiling and its views of Treble Cone and the lake. I can't wait to see what it's like as the new kitchen and bathroom go in.
So off I headed over the Crown Range road. It's certainly had a lot of work since back in the day. Okay I do remember it from when they'd sealed the whole length at least! But it's properly two lanes wide now and not a bad drive (without snow and ice that is). It still has the switchbacks I remember, coming down to Queenstown. Only place in NZ I've seen 15km/h corners. But that bit is short and sweet and soon over.
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| Top of the Crown Range (squinting into the sun) |
Queenstown Airport was confusing as airports usually are, but after a couple of laps I found a place to short term park to sort out check-in. My now 23.4kg suitcase passed with a cheery smile - apparently you have leeway until 23.9kg so that was good. No need to put on an extra jersey or leave a hammer in the van.
Next was to find long term parking, aka park and ride. A short drive out to yet another development with big sections and wide roads. Parking was straightforward, with the usual sort of parking meter you find in a big private car park... it just let you dial in much longer time periods than usual. I selected 30 days which is when I'm down next to see how the work is going.
The 'ride' part of the park and ride was conspicuously absent but it was a pleasant enough 15 min walk back to the airport. Not something to do with too much luggage but perfectly fine without.
Now for lunch. Which of course, was the last of my wraps. I still wasn't sick of them! Especially with double salami and double cheese to use everything up. I sat in the nice benches outside the airport and tucked in. I was ready for home.
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| Same lunch - new outside kitchen. This one had espresso. |
Epilogue - How did my packing and planning go?
I think I did pretty well with the tools I brought down. Here is my list, to fit in a 23kg suitcase:
- Order a skip
- Builder's apron - I didn't use it at all, since I was only using 2-3 tools at a time
- hammer, jemmy - were the main tools of trade, along with
- sledgehammer (from Mum)
- nose grip pliers (for nails) - another essential.
- wrenches, crescent spanners - I could have done with another big crescent for my amateur plumbing work. I had a big one and a small one, and the small one was too small. Of course, proper spanners and/or a plumbers wrench would have been better, but a spanner set was too heavy and I don't own a plumbers wrench.
- box cutters
- measuring tape
- jigsaw - another of the few items I didn't use. The only time I felt the need for it was to cut past holes for electrical cables - and I wasn't game to do that with the power turned on!
- hand saw
- Chisel - which I used extensively instead of the jigsaw. It's a bit stuffed now, I think I cut through nails and stuff as well as wood.
- earmuffs - needed for hammer and jemmy sometimes
- Pencil
- Multi screwdriver
- Large flat head screwdriver - less useful than I expected.
- Hacksaw - just the blade. I used it exactly once, but I needed it that one time.
- overalls, cap
- work boots (aka my retired tramping boots!)
- Work gloves
- Extension cord - didn't bring one but I found one there
- plumbers tape
- pipe caps (to plug where the taps were)
- Electrical tape, masking tape
- battery drill - would have been convenient, but can't bring big batteries on the plane and not quite useful enough to buy a new one locally
- radio / speakers - I found some old PC speakers of mine at Mum's, and they were perfect!
- Vacuum cleaner - I borrowed the property manager's to give the upstairs a clean down
- Ladder - I bought a really useful raised work platform instead. It will be useful in future.
For lifting the lino, I brought
- Dust mask and paper overalls
- spade - found on site and hopeless to use. I bought a scraper and that was much better
- hose (bought locally)
- plastic sheeting, duct tape/masking tape - I didn't sheet off my work area as everything was wet and came away in big chunks. So very low risk of stray fibres I figured.
- Bin bags, duct tape - for double bagged disposal
- Mastic solvent - I bought some and it was hopeless. Hot water was definitely the trick here.
- Disposable mop, & bucket
For staying at the house, I basically brought my tramping gear. Sleeping bag, sleeping mat and bowls and a spork. A tupperware container with collapsible cups and coffee filter and dried soups and Muesli bars and stuff. As well as that I brought my work/gym bag with laptop and running gear, and added a motley collection of 5 days' clothes. During the day I lived in my overalls, then put on 'going out' clothes if I had to be seen in public. It seemed to work okay. But I did miss having a pillow and a pillowcase.
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