#once more the season be changing can't believe the sun was still out at six LOLOL

[speakeasier]

i know it's not SPRING quite yet. but today is the first day i actually smelled the early beginnings of it. kind of how when it's not quite fall and the leaves haven't fully come off. but you smell the crispness of the air??? kind of vibes??? feeling it with the cool breeze now.

[tricewithaz]

THOTS ON SHADOW AND BONE

Hello everyone! it is I, Trice, and i come with my thoughts on the Shadow and Bone show cause ive got many

I'm gonna divide this in what i liked, what i disliked, and what i think could have been better but didn't really bother me. Feel free to send your opinions too!

As a whole, I really liked the show and I think it's a great adaptation that both fans and newcomers will enjoy. It's super well done! and every episode had me glued to the tv even though I knew what was going to happen.

Beware this is long

To start,

What i liked

Mal and Alina

I never really liked Mal in the books, mainly cause he had like, nothing going on for him, and not having his pov made him no favors whatsoever. Alina's perception of him was everychanging, two factors that didn't make him unlikeable necessarily, but that made me not want to read about him. In the show he's way more likeable and even though he still doesn't have a lot going on for him, you can see that he's always trying to protect alina, and you also see a bit of his demeanor through Archie's acting. I think he made a great job at portraying him. And Alina! Alina who in the books was essentially a y/n sort of character (although she did get better over time), her character, likes, dislikes, her DRIVE was incredibly portrayed in the show. Also Jessie (loml, marry me) and Archie have incredible chemistry together and they sold their yearning SO WELL (and so did the kid actors portraying them as children oh my GOD)...yall...i cried when they held hands. My favourite scene was definitely when Alina took care of Mal's wounds (a favorite trope of mine). And the HURT in their eyes whenever they thought the other was in danger....i saw the show dubbed but I'm sure their voices made it beyond incredible as well, their face acting was just on. point. Overall the show rEALLY makes me root for them both individually and together which is something the books didn't manage to do.

The Darkling

AAAAA i really enjoyed the Darkling omg, incredible charisma, Ben does such a great job (and so did his voice actor in Spanish oh my GOD). His acting was just as I imagined it in the books and i loved how he could be as sweet and mysterious as he could be menacing. In fact! i liked him more than i did in the book, and i think it was a great choice to make him more human. I'm not sure if this was Ben or the writing, but i could really see his yearning for an equal, for Alina, his loneliness and his thirst for power and control too. Great love interest, even greater villain. And his wardrobe was phenomenal. I also really liked how they implied that The Darkling was a name given by other people, it was very believable that people would call someone who literally controls shade something akin to "son of the dark" or something of the sort, instead of it being a name he gives himself or his job title (both if which are incredibly pathetic and cringy to think about).

Jesper

No comments. He was just great. I love Kit.

Nina

Omg Danielle did SUCH a great job at portraying Nina, it's exactly how i imagined her in Six of Crows.

Helnik

THE. YEARNING. THE. CHEMISTRY. I didn't love their scenes at the boat but once that was over I was practically screaming at the screen to jUST KISS ALREADY. Calahan and Daniell have such good chemistry together and the few changes they made only served the story better. I did wish they had development over more time cause Matthias' change of mind felt too quick, but i get why they had to rush. Because of how good their chemistry was, their fallout also was incredibly painful.

Inej's fear of the Menagerie and her morals

Amita's portrayal of Inej's hurt, devotion and her refusal to kill (and later hurt cause she has killed) is incredibly subtle but so SO effective. She's so talented really and truly sold Inej's feelings throughout the show.

VFX

Man.....the fold, the volcra, the grisha powers.....kudos to the animators and overall artistic team cause they were incredible. Also seeing the different title animations in each episode was such a tiny detail that made me so excited and they all looked so good.

Ketterdam

Again, kudos to the artistic team, everything about Ketterdam felt so alive (and weirdly moist), truly sold a kind of aesthetic and life that is so characteristic if the Barrel, even when i didn't imagine it that way in the books.

David

He appeared like, twice, and both times were so cute and charming I can't wait to see more of him both on his own and with Genya.

The Wardrobe

So, at first i hated the keftas. I thought the looked tacky and costume, but when you see them on screen they're just perfect (although i have to say the patterns on some of the keftas were kind of...cheap looking? and the training keftas were just kinda boring. My favourite was the Darkling's. Aside from that, i really liked Kaz's and inej's clothes too. Very distinctive and recognizable (although it was kind of weird seeing Inej in teal instead of purple lmao).

And the queen's dresses. Chefs kiss.

It's...so cheesy (affectionate)

The whole show felt like the kind of movies I would watch as a kid like Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. The writing was stylized enough to make it incredibly dramatic and overall there was just so much heart behind all of it. Definetely a show to watch again and again and feel all of it, cause that's what it being so cheesy managed, to make me actually feel for it. It feels like something to watch on a rainy afternoon after a bad day....it's great okay i really enjoyed it, even (specially) the most unbelievable parts of it. And here's the thing, it's something that i think a lot of newer tv and film have lost, so this is good.

What i didn't like

Zoya

Mostly cause of the writing. Originally, in the first book, i didn't like her, neither as a character (stereotypical mean girl with no other motivation than to bang the love interests....all three of them....what's new i still think it's an incredibly sexist trope) or a person (hey at least this was intentional), but over time i grew to LOVE her (mean girl turns out to have a good heart and actually respects the mc and decides to fight alongside her cause it's what's right, without necessarily liking her or giving up her character??? AND she has strong motivations??? now THAT'S new). In the show, i hoped they would keep her mean girl nature while foreshadowing her depth, but all they did was turn her into a petty seductress with barely any screentime, and that only makes her not even a bad antagonist but just a boring character to watch. Not only that but they took away a big part of her character that needed to be developed in the next books. I wanted to watch her rivalry with Alina, her unjustified venomous tongue too, I wanted to be entertained by her and I wasn't. This was also a problem cause when she finally changed teams, and when she hugged Alina, it was incredibly unsatisfying, it would have had a way stronger effect if we had seen her being Ruthless Zoya with a big ambition. I also didn't like how we were told that she didn't like alina, or that she had a family, instead of it being shown on screen. Just from the show, all i can tell you about her is that she likes to bang people and she has a good moral code i guess. Yall, I'm so petty about this.

Kaz

So, I didn't hate him, in fact i think I would have enjoyed him if I hadn't read the books first, cause the two things that bother me about him were two essential characteristics of him in the books. FIrstly, he seems so strained, instead of the seemingly laid back, almost chill looking (even though we know he's not chill at all) Kaz we see in the books, the Kaz that always knows something that you don't. Show Kaz doesn't seem to always be in control, to always have the last word, the last laugh. Instead he seems strained, all the damn time. And I think this is mainly a writing and directing issue. And he also seems weak, something Book Kaz would never do. This is also an issue cause because he doesn't have the same presence he has in the books, the times where he is weak, don't seem as effective. Sure, Pekka Rollins has essentially reduced him and humiliated him, but I haven't seen enough of Kaz being actually dangerous for this to be shocking and for Pekka to seem even more hateable (and, i really liked Pekka, loved him as an antagonist more than i did in the books). Idk, Kaz was so charismatic and just fun and engaging to read in the books that his portrayal in the show felt lacking.

Alina's power's VFX

The little suns were cute and all but the light coming from within her was just ugly I'm sorry.

SFX

A lot of the sound design was just too stylized for the tone of the show i think. I particularly remember the sound of Mal's punches....what's that about.

What i think could have been better, but didn't particularly dislike

The Crows' storyline

And i think part of this is a consequence of Kaz not being as witty as he was in the books. Where's the incredibly complicated heist moves? the even more unbelievable C and D plans when something goes wrong? I didn't like that them getting Alina was essentially just luck, cause i didn't see enough of them being smart and quick on their feet. I also think it was unnecessary to have their storyline mixed with Alina's, i would have enjoyed watching a different heist, maybe in Ravka as well, and them incidentally crossing paths with Alina, more than i liked this storyline. ironically enough, the heist was the part i was least interested in

Genya and Alina

I just feel like her relationship with Alina wasn't strong enough, and i think it's because the show tried to make us believe they were much closer than they were without spending the necessary time in them.

Overall, I really really enjoyed the show, i will be watching it again (particularly cause i want to watch it in English) and i cannot wait for the second season omg (although i have to say, I'm scared for Nikolai)

I think that's all! I would also love to read yall's opinions and have a conversation.

[dtrhwithalex]

BOOK | Grisha Trilogy (Leigh Bardugo)

Shadow and Bone (2012), Siege and Storm (2013), Ruin and Rising (2014)

I came to this world through the Netflix adaptation SHADOW AND BONE which came out earlier this year, and after, to my huge surprise, falling in love with these stories, I decided I would have to give these books a go as well. I've been aware of the Grishaverse for quite some time now but probably especially since SIX OF CROWS came out in 2016 and tumblr went completely batshit for one (1) Kaz Brekker. I am always kind of wary when it comes to entertainment that tumblr goes nuts for, especially when it is YA fiction, because I do not quite trust the general consensus (I was sorely disappointed by Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY which I found tremendously boring). So actually, I've been actively avoiding reading this book series until now. But then the Netflix adaptation happened and well—you can blame (or thank) Ben Barnes, because he is pretty much at fault for this alone. Anyway, enough preamble.

I've just recently finished reading the last book of the trilogy and I have to say, I have to my surprise really enjoyed these books! I've also read the short stories THE WITCH OF DUVA after the first book, and THE TAILOR and THE TOO-CLEVER FOX after the second, and will be reading LITTLE KNIFE and THE DEMON IN THE WOOD before I move on to the Crows duology. I am reading the short stories according to publication year and not specific date, so they might not be completely in release order.

Reading SHADOW AND BONE I was very much always thinking back and comparing to the plot of the show since that was my original basis for the story. I am not too fond of first person narratives as I prefer things to be written in third person, but I've found that it did not bother me all that much in these books. What I realised though, was that I liked the show a bit more than the book, because it goes beyond Alina's story and the information a reader gets through her focalisation. We get to see Mal's story instead of only hearing of some of it when he and Alina are finally reunited once she leaves the Little Palace, which to me also made the character a whole lot more likable and interesting than in the books. I've also found that I really enjoyed the integration of the Crows in the show because it made the time leading up to and including the Winter Fete that much more interesting. Generally, I really liked most of the changes they made to the story for the adaptation—Alina scheming to get on the skiff, the Darkling's claw ring instead of the knife, that Alina seems to ride the entire way to Os Alta with the Darkling, the explicit consent given at the Winter Fete, erasing the scar, the fact that Alina and Mal don't kiss during the search of the stag. I would have loved to see some of the early scenes like in the book though, especially Alina and Mal on the way to Kribirsk and nearly getting run over by the Grisha carriages. I am also not entirely sure what I want to think about the change of Morozova's collar. I thought it was super dope that it was actually mended into her collarbone, but I am uncertain about her being able to completely melt it into her body and have it disappear like that. But generally, I really liked this first book. I think it does a pretty good job of establishing the world through Alina's eyes and gearing up the plot of the three novels.

SIEGE AND STORM then, of course, gave me my first look into the Grishaverse that was not completely informed by the adaptation. I was super surprised how quick it became clear to them that the Darkling had survived the events in the Fold and for him to catch up with them. I loved the sequences on the Volkvolny with Sturmhond though. And although I was aware that there was a character called Nikolai in this universe, it took me forever to catch on that he was Sturmhond, and when that reveal came I was very much happily blown away. I am super excited to see that character translated to screen (when, not if, the show finally gets renewed for a second season). I really enjoyed the hunt for Rusalye, the introduction of Tamar and Tolya, and for the role Genya gets to play in that sequence. Also, when first getting into this universe, my immediate first thought was, why don't they just fly over the Fold. Do airborne crafts not exist in this world (yet)? No balloons or something like it? And then of course Sturmhond delivered which definitely helped solidify how much I like his character. I am an incredibly visual person, so I think my favourite bits of this book are all somehow related to how much I would like to see them brought to screen (it's either that, or just how much I want to see Ben and Jessie be brilliant in scenes together). The bond between Alina and the Darkling I really enjoyed a lot and also absolutely the scene in the chapel at the end with him believing that she has finally chosen his side, only for her to then try and kill him with their combined powers and merzost. An absolutely extraordinary scene and if Netflix does not renew this show and I never get to see Ben and Jessie fucking nail this scene, I might just riot.

I had to take a bit of a break in-between books two and three because of uni responsibilities, but I finally got around to reading RUIN AND RISING and finished it two days ago. I am very unsure if I liked the ending or not, but more on that later. I was very glad when they finally got out of the White Cathedral and back to the world above ground, because as cool as this undergound world is, the Apparat creeps me out and so does religious culty stuff. I loved the plotting and scheming though and the fact that Alina can control shadows to some extent. Very cool. Prince Nikolai to the rescue once more was also fantastic and the existence of the Spinning Wheel fascinates me to no end. That I definitely want to see translated on screen. Make me a beautiful observatory to fall in love with, Netflix, make me one! Loved the return of Baghra as well, and generally all of her moments at the Spinning Wheel. The Darkling's attack too was right up my alley, and nichevo'ya!Nikolai? Fucking dope, I love it. This novel especially makes for some great visuals that I can't wait to see on the show. Just gimme, all of it. I liked that the Firebird was not the third amplifier, and I find the idea of Mal being the amplifier instead quite intriguing. What I am not so sure about is the actual ending. I once again really loved the bond scenes between Alina and the Darkling, and I now absolutely see why some fans are upset about him giving up his real name so quickly in the show. I do wonder how that is going to play out eventually. I did like the Darkling's ending—his desperation at Alina losing her power, his plea to her that there will be no grave, and him asking for her to speak his name one last time. And I loved that, as horrible of a person he was, as much gruesome things he did, Alina still understood what drove him and still felt a certain kinship to that, and ultimately did also mourn him in a way. There is this echoing of that line from the show—"we could have had this, all of it"—if only he'd asked, and I absolutely love that. Their dynamic is just incredibly intriguing. The thing I am not sure about is Alina losing her power. Mal coming back to life, yeah okay maybe. The power of the Sun Summoner splitting and finding root in every otkazat'sya in the vicinity, that was amazing. But Alina completely losing her power? I don't know. I am not sure what I want to think about that. I see where it comes from but I don't think I like it.

Overall, I have to say, I really enjoyed this trilogy. I don't think I've read a YA series since the HP one which I grew up with. I am honestly very positively surprised by this fact. I am very excited to read on, especially since summer break has now officially started for me and I actually have the time to read. I know I mentioned some of the short stories in the beginning, but I think I will talk about those separately once I've read them all.

For now all that I can say is, damn you, Ben Barnes, for being this attractive as a bad guy, you alone are to blame that I am falling down this particular rabbit hole. Thanks so much.

[nicholasbickford]

Let's just ignore the fact more than six months have passed since I last published a post on this site. Let's also not talk about the numerous post ideas I have listed in my notebook that haven't seen the light of day. Let's instead focus on how we came up with the design for this extension of ours (which, despite six months later is still three roof sheets short of being watertight from above! It's been... well it was all good until last month when the rain didn't stop and we had no roof. But that is a story for another day... Not six months away though, promise!) 

So. When we were house hunting four years ago we had a few musts: it needed to be a fixer-upper because we wanted to make our own stamp on it. Location was important - we wanted to be close to the water. It had to have good light, good structural bones, a decent yard and the potential for us to add to it. We found the ugliest house in the best street with water views and snapped it up. The good thing about it being an ugly house was there was no history or architectural details which we had to work around which is often the case with old houses. This was fibro. It had plain walls, plain windows, plain cornices, plain everything. It was essentially a blank canvas (and I hate using that term, but it's true). Our last home had pretty cornices, timber windows and a real cottage-y feel to it we tried to keep while modernising it. Our first house was a historical semi we didn't dare touch aside from paint in tones true to its style. This house had nothing really. It gave us freedom to do what we wanted without feeling guilty about veering away from its "style" or stripping it of character. I believe in working with what you have and if it had any redeeming features, we'd definitely have worked with them in the design process. As it happened, we ended up creating the story of our house once work started - we recycled parts of the old roof into stair treads, changed the floor direction in the extension and kept a few original parts like the old knocker and house numbers. We have piles of hardwood from the roof that will become a bar top and library shelves. We reused the huge beams as heads above doorways and windows, moved some windows around and recycled doors. It's nice to have a kind-of-cool answer for the "why is that like that..." questions that might come.

But before we even got to creating a story, we had to create a plan. And while it's tempting to look at magazines and Pinterest and blogs and imagine yourself in that space, there are so many more factors to consider aside from loving something because it looks pretty. Captain Obvious, right? Well yes and no because despite all my constant writing about this stuff, it's easy to get swept away imagining something when the reality is likely to be very different. And know that it's not just a matter of things being different due to your tastes or location, but it's to the rules of YOUR property - and they might be different to your immediate neighbour's. It's the way you live your life. It's your actual home's ability to handle the changes you wish to make. It's your budget. And weather patterns. It's your personal needs and those of every person who lives there. The list of things that can affect your home's design is endless, so by all means look to others for inspiration, but be sure to design the best space for you and your family, taking into consideration all the musts/have-tos and can'ts along the way. After a few harsh realities from Steve (who rolled his eyes every time I showed him an all-white Swedish space and explained "something like this!"), I wondered how close to the mark we would get in terms of creating a home perfect for us. While we've not finished or been able to use our space completely, so far, I can't see much I'd change if I had free reign. Which makes me think the long, long design path was the right road to take. If you're looking at taking yourself on a similar renovation journey, here are a few things we learnt along the way.

Resist the urge to get renovating immediately 

Any magazine article on renovating will tell you to live in your space before you do anything major to it. There is a good reason for this - because it helps you make better decisions. If you can do a full year, do it - because honestly, your home is so different throughout the seasons and you want to ensure you know it back to front. The light falls differently in winter to summer - we discovered the afternoon sun bounces off the verandah of the house across the street from us and rebounds into our bedroom in summer and lights up the south side of the home in winter. We know the afternoon sun is unbearable in summer at the back of our house (which faces West) but that the sea breeze cools things down most days too. We know how the yard floods and where the shade falls for prime planting. We've worked out where we have mould problems, where we like to dump our wallets and keys, how we don't walk down the driveway but across the middle of the lawn to the front door, which way the weather usually comes from and where the rain affects us most. Putting up with all the annoyances that come with an unrenovated house is worthwhile because you work out what annoys you, what you like, how you live, what you need to make living better - knowing all these things is essential for good design. 

Create a wishlist

For us, we needed more space - we had a tiny three-bedroom, one-bathroom home. It had a living room, kitchen/dining and that was it. All up, it was 80sqm. We weren't after a huge house, but with four kids, we definitely needed more space! We renovated the bathroom and kitchen spaces with an extension in mind - we decided we could just extend from the back out so worked out a way to do just that so whenever the time came, the existing house shouldn't require much work. And then we planned and planned. We worked out what we wanted exactly: some kind of loft space, raked ceilings, two living spaces and a fireplace. We wanted at least four bedrooms, but five would be better so everyone could have their own room if they wished (I am now DYING for them to all be in their own rooms because I'm over the bed-swapping, whinging, kicking and meltdowns over who gets to stay up later and who doesn't...). I wanted lots of storage because the house had none. So we incorporated a dedicated storeroom into the plans. It turned out that Steve changed careers while waiting for council approval and so the storeroom has been renamed his workshop for all his tools. It will be the world's tiniest workshop but still! Luckily I still had large storage areas planned for the roof - having a high-pitched roof means the unusable areas can be walled off and used to store alllll sorts of things!

Get drawing

I've been a lover of floorpans forever! I'd draw my dream homes all the time complete with indoor pools, ballrooms, sweeping staircases and libraries. Being able to draw up a more realistic one for my family that we would actually build was so exciting! Several variations were drawn up - the first was turning one of the bedrooms into a staircase and adding a whole second storey to take advantage of the water views. Then I thought maybe not the whole hog and just a really high-pitched roof so we can have an attic bedroom. Another version had a master bedroom at the back next to second living space. Another kept our master where it was but stole the bedroom next to it for an ensuite and wardrobe and added two smaller rooms to the back. Yet another plan extended to the side of the house over the driveway. But I kept coming back to the attic idea - why couldn't we just make one big room out the back with a staircase up to a loft bedroom in a new roof? Sounded pretty easy to me, so I called in the draftsman...

Call in the experts

The thing with major renovations is this: there are SO MANY DIFFERENT ANNOYING RULES AND ASPECTS TO THE PROCESS. And you don't really know about any of them until you're at that stage. First up for us was the biggest bummer of all: we had to do a full development application for council. Many renovations and extensions won't require this - you can go through a private certifier and they can have your plans approved within a few weeks. But if you live in a flood or bushfire zone, you most likely won't be that lucky. We live in a flood zone and so straight up we had bonus conditions - the biggest being we had to raise the floor height by 60cm. This meant the nice walk-straight-out-of-your-living-room-onto-your-deck-onto-the-grass moments and easy view of the kids playing in the yard from anywhere in one side of your home wasn't going to happen. It would be about a metre or so off the actual ground. Having to step up the extension means a split level to the ground floor, which means extra materials in height (more bricks for footings/longer pieces of wood) extra precautions in stabilising the building and a more difficult build as it's higher off the ground (we had to lay a subfloor so the builders didn't just rely on standing on bearers and joists - this was an extra couple of thousand dollars immediately). The huge pitched ceiling I wanted with a bedroom in it? Couldn't quite do as I wanted - did you know habitable rooms (living/bedroom) require your ceiling height to be at a certain height (for memory it is 1.8m but I could be wrong there) for 2/3 of the volume of the room? We wanted the angled ceiling to just hit the floor, so in the end, knee walls had to be built to decrease the size of the room so our master bedroom won't quite be as we imagined it at first, but the library can be. There are also height restrictions (we just snuck in for how high our house can be), light-to-dark ratios through use of windows and doors, shading requirements (we need little awnings on our east-facing bedroom to shade them) and so. many. other. annoying. things. The draftsman/architect/builder who designs knows these tricky little things and will outline your options. In the end, our draftsman discovered if we submitted the second story as an "attic bedroom" rather than a second storey, we had a little more freedom with our plans. One thing I suggest is to give your draftsman/builder/architect a ball park figure of what you want to spend - underestimate it, though. Because if you give them no budget to work to, they will design just design to all your whims and you might end up with a house you actually can't afford to build! And never feel you have to do EVERYTHING all at once. It is a good idea to design your home and submit everything in one application with a view to doing it in stages as budget/time/circumstances allow. We never planned to complete our extension in one hit. We wanted to do it in two to three stages with our master bedroom and ensuite being the last thing. If you have plans to put in a pool or garage or separate studio down the track, consider doing it all as one DA and get the approval now. It will save you in extra drafting and application fees later on.

Draftsman vs architect vs builder vs carpenter Depending on the scale of your works you might not need a draftsman or architect. Many builders are able to draw up and submit plans on your behalf and if it's less complicated works to a place that doesn't change the footprint of your home, a carpenter might be all you need. We knew we needed plans drawn up but as we had a good idea of what we wanted, we knew a draftsman was all we needed. If you're stuck for ideas about what you want, I'd still start with a builder who can at least point you in the right direction of an architect if they believe one is required. 

Make all your changes at this stage

Every time I got a draft plan from the draftsman I printed it out and got out my trusty red pen for changes - because there were always changes. I lived and breathed these plans - even dreamt about them sometimes! But that is the good thing about drafting plans - they are drafts and can be changed. And you should change them at the planning stage because it will cost you a lot more time, effort, money, patience and possibly relationships if you change them once the build begins! For me, I'd use the printouts to just see what it might look like if I moved the wall a little more this way. Or if I moved the door layout or added an extra room. Always sit on the current draft for a while and get a feel for what it might be like. Measure things out - I would use string and mark up the walls/doors/windows on the grass so I could physically see the floorplan in the right scale. Get a feel for the space in terms of size and look for things like views from windows and doors, door swings and potential furniture placement. There is often a little wiggle room for small changes once construction begins such as window size and placement, but nothing too drastic, so get it right now. We took our time with our plans - probably waaaay too long but there were a fair few delays on both sides of the process and in the end, we're glad there was a wait because we love our plans. We were also lucky in that our draftsman had a fixed price so it didn't matter how many changes we made, our $3000-odd fee for the measuring/drafting/submitting didn't budge. Spoiler alert: the engineering fees were a surprise $5000 we weren't expecting! 

Turn negatives into positives

There are going to be restrictions but it's what you do with them... We had to raise our floor level which brought a few headaches for the builders and extra costs for us, but we started to see the advantages of having this split level. For one, it broke up the extra-long space and created two distinct living areas. It allows us to see the water views from the back room and has created a large under-house space where we will able to store our water tanks, excess building materials, kids bikes and surfboards etc. The fact we have to apply builder's bracing (which is essentially thin plywood sheets made from hardwood at $35 a sheet) to all of our existing interior walls killed me (and here I was thinking we wouldn't have to touch the existing house too much!) but it meant we were able to insulate them as well, meaning the bedrooms on either side of the bathroom are now a little more soundproof. It also got rid of the wallpaper that had been painted over and often bubbled up during wet periods and means our Gyprock walls will be nice and straight and new. The engineer's obsession with bracing, particularly expensive materials and extra strengthening requirements means our house is the strongest, well-built thing in town. It's not going anywhere! 

Be realistic with your choices

Sometimes I would look at our plans and wish for larger expanses of glass by way of bifold doors from the family room onto the back deck. And then I remembered the heat in the middle of summer. And the bugs. And the sand and crap that would fall in the rails of the bifolds. And that I love French doors more... We went against the norm because it doesn't work for us. Realistically we knew we needed a decent size door opening but also windows on either side of them that could be open all night long if we wanted for safe, mozzie-free breezes and airflow. We knew as much as a big deck sounds great in theory, it would encroach too much into the backyard, which was more important. And we're not big entertainers anyway. We know pretty pendant lights are going to have to take a backseat to ceiling fans. And timber windows or louvres everywhere were just going to eat too much into the budget. Getting the right mix of practicality and aesthetics is hard and if you really want to live in a place, aesthetics will most of the time lose out to practicalities in a battle of the wits. Like my whitewashed floors. I love them to bits but we're going with a mid-range natural colour for floorboards because we're a rough and tumble family and that's the best colour to mask wear and tear and the inevitable dirt that comes with living with children. (Though Steve is still A-OK with my painting our eventual master bedroom floor pure white. It will have to be a no-shoe zone!) Think honestly about how you live, what your budget is and what is important to you and plan your home around them. 

Expect delays and to pay a lot upfront 

Dear God did we have delays... The whole process has had delays! And they will happen at one stage or another. For us it was just getting the plans right, then not pushing the draftsman to get them back to us as quickly as we should have. Then it was council approving our plans (after a couple of months) but not noticing we had asked for a one-metre extension to the existing house (four square metres in total) at the existing floor height to give the dining room a little more space before the floor level rose. So it was back to council for another six or so weeks as they had to start all over again. Then it was a matter of organising a certifier who couldn't give you a construction certificate to start works until you had waded through their list of things: engineer's report, home builder's course etc. In the end we forked out close to around the $15,000 mark before we even bought any materials or began labour. Here are some approximate figures for you because I honestly can't recall exact amounts and I am too lazy to sift through my disorganised paperwork to find them (sorry!)

Draftsman: $3300

Engineer: $5000

Council fees: $2000

Certifier: $3000

Surveyor: $200

Home owner/builder course and white card: $250

Long-service builder's levy: $500

In short, an architect told me when I wrote the Real Living Renovations magazine to never sign up and start building if all you have is the dollars the builder quoted you. Because it will ALWAYS cost you more, somewhere along the line. And it's usually before the builder even begins! 

I hope this was somewhat helpful. Because frankly I haven't typed this much in a while and my fingers hurt (Kidding. I still write a fair bit; just not here!). If you're about to renovate, you can track down a copy of the reno magazine here or at your newsagent if they still have them in stock. Otherwise I did find a lot of what I wrote has been uploaded to the Homes to Love website. It's not everything, but it's a fair bit. I've linked to a few of the sections below.

Guide to hiring an expert

Choosing the right team

Researching and shopping

Surviving the construction stage

8 steps to a well-designed home 

Kitchen design

Bathroom renovation

The owner/builder: what you need to know

The power of paint

Spotting the warning signs

Where your money goes

Renovating sourcebook

And for more of my Reno Files posts...

{The reno files} A real-life renovation guide: introduction

Our house plans: spending big to live small(ish)

A very exciting renovation update

A real, hopefully helpful and honest guide to renovating your bathroom