Can we normalise slow renovations? Our honest home update

Can we normalize slow renovations? We all love a good before and after, but ours feels more like before, during, still going, please don't ask, and we finally made it. One room at least. Depressing. It actually is really depressing. So when we moved here, it was 2021. We were very fresh faced and very excited. I love it. It's pretty cool. Yeah. There's a lot going on. There was nothing in this home at all and we didn't even have anything for it but we were about to start a new project in Launceston, this was Jono's parents house so a beach house renovation and also extension so what we did was we moved all of the furniture that used to be in that home and we essentially just brought it all here so we had somewhere that we could live and then we lived as it was and we just traveled back and forth between here and Launceston to then finish that renovation that was a huge project like a huge job bigger than we've ever done before we were renovating both the existing weatherboard house but then also adding a whole new extension oh there's so much to do i'm freaking out it looked incredible we now get to really enjoy it as well but it also like it cooked us by the time we got back here we were like exhausted so did take a break from renovating but we have done a few things we did a few cosmetic changes we also started a few new projects which also then meant other problems came which is the nature of having an old house we also became parents for the first time not once but twice so that slowed things down as well so what have we done and what have we just stopped talking about let's start with the kitchen come into the kitchen it is filthy oh my god there's a lot of food and it's quite filthy first job clean everything so the kitchen is like the only room in the house that we've finished it was a huge job massive demo huge construction to be honest with you structural changes were epic Jono, you re-stumped the entire house in order to put new floorboards down was that a fun job? well that's not exactly what happened. what happened? we restumped the house, yeah and then we decided to rip the floorboards up, yeah yeah so we did it backwards, well that's kind of how we've done everything actually, we have done them a little bit backwards, but anyway we've got a nice kitchen and epic floorboards, yeah and to be honest with you when Jono was restumping the house he's like he found these rotten stumps that were like floating in the breeze so they weren't even holding up our entire house and we had no foundation so that was kind of scary, well they were somehow holding up a house, they were just toothpicks so that was fun but we fixed that, look at my pretty pantry that's not so pretty anymore, why is that because we had to delete the bottom two shelves for toddlers because they go shopping all the time and now just rip off the shopping bags so these are actually great for toys because they do they they go shopping which is kind of cute but yeah we have lost a lot of storage space um so everything's just crammed in there but once they're old enough and they don't find that as exciting to rip apart then i'll get my nice pantry back but the kitchen's great love it but if we come through here we've got a big old hole here which why is there a hole here Jonno? there's no hole, i can't see a hole, well there's no hole but this is where it is this is where there's the hole there is a hole in the roof and why is there a hole in the roof because that's where our flue is going to go for our imaginary fireplace that does not exist yet it was meant to be here but we didn't do it um why didn't we do it again because we've got two small kids who would just like to stick their fingers in a hot fire yeah which would be really fun but also we will do that we will do that and i like a good spot for the dog yeah dusty likes it but what we did do is we had this made custom because obviously all the kitchen cabinetry was custom as well so we put a tv in here but honestly you can kind of see the exact moment where we gave up sure can you show that it's where we stopped gave up stopped what's the difference um i remember actually painting here and i was painting a little bit more and a little bit more a little bit more just so i could work out what my framing was when we were shooting the kitchen so we could see a perfect finished wall without seeing a perfect finished wall the magic of youtube but yeah so to be honest with you we just decided what's the point because we fixed this living room you might have seen our quick little living room makeover i was very heavily pregnant the more i paint the bigger my belly gets i was nesting and i'm like we have to have a nice cute little living room so it is cute but i don't like it i was just thinking we should start a new series called how to make a really ugly window less ugly but i don't know if we're winning on this one because look at these ugly doors and windows look at this feature oh what are what are we what did you fill this with again jono we're just spray foam spray foam it's a feature of our house every time it blew southerly we'd have a southerly breeze inside so it's a mess there's no trim but the plan is to put a huge beautiful double glazed sliding door eventually and actually open this up so we're like what is the point i'm literally gonna cut the wall here and rebuild it and delete all of this i can't believe i'm gonna say this on camera but jono was right and we fought for a long time about this law let me ask you a question do you still hate this room i want to chop it down i do not like it at all the ceiling's too low it gets too hot up here it's pointless it makes our living room really small pointless makes our living room really small it's made out of decking it's like there's holes in some of it floorboards go different directions the nails stick out of it it means we can't have a very tall door out onto our future deck so guess what getting vetoed one day tell me what you really think and i thought that i wanted it i don't want it i want it out jonah was right i was wrong so look at that even your head is like almost at it and my mate woody his like head basically grazes the bottom of it we can't have tall friends but yeah so the plan is to get rid of that we're going to keep this beam though are we not because isn't that a i don't know we have to work that out with some engineering friends yeah and eventually we are going to then knock this out i'm going to show you the bathroom later um because we redid that but we want to make this a bit bigger again look at this beautiful beautiful i actually kept that piece of trim and i was going to put it back but never got around to it and also how good's the lock i made huh how good's the lock i made oh yeah the toddler lock toddler lock because the toddlers also broke all of that door handles don't do that that hurt my ears sorry they have broken everything let's unlock that it's kind of prison-y a bit but anyway this is reality guys i told you it was going to be a waltz and all home tour so the dining room we literally did kind of nothing here apart from clean it up and put a table in The plan for this space is I want to put a corner banquette, which I think is going to open it up quite beautifully, then get a table to suit, a few chairs around, and having that done will then be a nice point to look onto the fire. I want it to feel really cozy and beautiful, but I can't do any of that until we redo the walls and we redo the windows. And the reason why we have to redo all the walls and the windows is because there's no insulation in the walls and the windows are like one millimeter from like falling out would you say jonah that's a fair assessment some of them have fallen out some of them have and like in the middle of winter if you're sitting here you just get like freezing cold chill like it's just not efficient and because we've got solar because we're trying to like make this home as efficient as possible the windows have to be replaced but we started we've done the ones in the kitchen kitchen and the laundry yeah i forgot to mention that we did do the kitchen and laundry we haven't got to the laundry yet um i said my is this connected jono can i play my vinyl no yeah because also kids they get it welcome to the laundry now let this be a lesson to anyone thinking about moving into their home before they finish renovating if you are 90% done with your renovation and you decide to move into your home with 10% left to go and you think you'll finish it when you live there. Don't make the 10% the laundry because you will never finish it because you use it every day. You will not finish it. Let this be a lesson to you because this room is completely usable. So we use it every day and now actually getting into finish it has just, it will never happen. I don't think it will ever happen. It will happen. It will. to tile the splash back. That hasn't been done. We need to paint the trims. That was up to me. That hasn't been done. Actually, is that it? Splash back. Oh, and grouting the floor tiles. The tiles look really good. They look so good. But you wouldn't even notice. Most people wouldn't even notice that there's no grout in the tiles yet. No. I love these tiles. These might be my favorite part of our house. I want more of them. Also, the underfloor heating works, which is pretty good. I've got my socks on right now, and they're so warm and toasty. It's delicious do you want to see our amazing new bathroom i mean it's a good bathroom okay so this used to be if anyone's watched that video when we first moved in here it was very creepy it was very dank it was just like an old storage room the access from outside wasn't it yeah there was a door there there was a door just here outside um there was no door here no there was not no door this was when you were restumping weird i actually started this first demoed it then restumped the house then redid the floors then came back and then built the bathroom and laundry so you decided to restump after what after i demoed the laundry and realized how bad the floor was because we restumped in here and then we like oh we might as well do the rest of the house yeah so this laundry actually took a year to get to this point and then it's been two years with no more progress yeah waterproof there's no fittings what are you talking about uh well what's plumbed plumbed it's plumbed there's no fittings because i never tiled it and then we never got it fitted off so let's get out of here because this is a crap room it's really depressing it actually is really depressing it was going to be a good shower because we've only got a shower over there so before we get to the rest of the home tour i do need to give a shout out to the best thing we've done so far and that is get a robot vacuum yes dji are sponsoring this video and they sent us their new Roomba 2 to try out and i gotta admit i always thought robot vacuums were for um lazy people i was like if your floor is dirty just clean it but then we got a dog and then we had a kid and another kid and yeah life got hectic and now i totally get it so it's not about being lazy it's just about getting a bit of time back from all of the other things that we have to do in this house go let me show you this is the dji Roomba 2 yep the drone company have made a robot vacuum so immediately you know it's going to be smarter than your average vacuum and look it just launched and so we've only had it for a couple of weeks but honestly it has changed my life it makes me so happy much like a drone it can handle whatever terrain you throw at it so it uses AI to work out what it's looking at and how best to clean it which is really great for us because we don't really have this big easy open plan space to clean you know our layout is a little bit intricate and we've got different floor levels and at the moment some very unfinished floorboards but the Romo 2 has these little robotic legs that help get it over different floor levels up to eight and a half centimeters and it's also got this extendable mop arm that gets right around edges and corners and around your furniture so you don't actually have to move everything out of the way before it cleans which i love because i have my armchair sitting just off the rug so i like the fact that i don't always have to move those large furniture pieces it also has anti-hair tangle technology which look don't ask me how that works but i can confirm that it's important in this house because between Jono myself and the dog there's just hair everywhere it also works in low light so it gets into places that i just generally pretend don't exist and it uses DJI's obstacle sensing technology to navigate around tiny things on the floor including toy trucks and then when it's done it just goes back to its stock and it washes and dries its own mop and gets ready for the next clean so i don't even have to clean the thing that cleans the house so the only thing i have to do is make sure it's got water and then i just need to empty the dirty water when it's done and it tells me to it quite literally tells me when i need to do something which i love it's also deeply satisfying to take out the filthy water and just see how much filth it has picked up off your floor so i do love that and also with the mopping it doesn't leave a lot of water everywhere in fact it uses very little water it's very efficient so i like the fact that it doesn't leave us with all these wet floors to have to deal with so a very big thank you to our sponsor DJI thank you so much much for the Roombas 2. I love the fact that I have outsourced cleaning It has literally changed my life. Into our teeny tiny bathroom This was a very satisfying renovation. This does not tick the Lucy wants to jump in at bathtub challenge This does not meet that. One of the biggest renovations we did here, smallest room, biggest change I say we, Jono did it. I was actually first trimester, pregnant, feeling very sick and sorry for myself. So Jono, well done. You did a great job. Do you like it? I think this is where I realized that the floor was cooked as well Because I rebuilt this tiny section of floor and I don't think I actually, no, I didn't re-stump it because we've cracked the wall. Yes So yeah, we're going to get rid of this room, I think. Yeah. Because look. That happened when we were re-stumping Yeah. And a couple of tiles have actually cracked but you can't see them and you probably haven't even noticed i have noticed i just haven't said anything but yes this eventually will go but that's a long way down the track when we eventually extend the living room but i love it i love the floor tiles i love the green i love the off-white tiles i love the timber i love everything about it except probably the size of it but it works it's good it ticks boxes um i'm not going to take you into the toilet because there's not really anything to see because it hasn't changed but that's the toilet um it's literally the exact same as when we got it. Again, had big- Except for the color swatches I can see on the wall And we've- Testing paint colors We've got a gallery wall courtesy of our son and that's about it. And an extra potty cause we're toilet training, woohoo! Having fun with that, aren't we, Jono? Plenty of fun. This was our room. We did this so many times. We renovated it for ourselves first and we had a queen bed in here and then we turned it into a nursery. And the main change now is that it's not a nursery anymore with a bassinet, it's got two big cots in it for our two bigger boys. So this is cute, but there's a lot wrong with this room that you probably can't see, but windows literally about to fall out. Feature windows, you'd call them. Feature window, John. Same as the one in the kitchen. When I started messing with the walls, it actually fell out of the wall. Yeah, yeah. And when we re-stumped the house, you can probably say, where is it, where is it? Oh, yeah, yeah, here, hang on. One of the casualties of re-stumping is things move, but we knew that was gonna happen. Yeah. It's cute, it works, but it's, again, nothing's insulated, so the heater is always having to be on in order to make it a good temp for the boys. But I love it, it just, yeah, it needs a big rethink, but. Job for another day. Yeah, I'm not gonna take you into our room because I needed somewhere to throw our stuff while we filmed this video. So cue B roll. Our room still looks like that on a good day. I can't take you inside there cause it's quite literally filled with stuff. What's it filled with Jono? Supplies. Oh God. Timber. Look at this. All my extra things that I need to repair things. Spare floorboards. I've used those floorboards a few times. What do you mean? Well. What's the topper on your TV unit made out of? Tassie Oak recycled floorboards from the original house. Correct. He's not wrong guys. but eventually that will make a really nice rumpus room, we hope, for the boys and a space for them to kind of just make a mess and hang out. That's the plan. And we can close the door and not go in there. Yeah, and we didn't show you, but we actually put a driveway in, which is really cool. So we've got a lot of gravel down. We did the epic garage. Again, we, what's the we, Jono? Jono did all of this. Oh my goodness. We opened it up to show you because your next project's in there, isn't it, Jono? Yep, I've got a bit of storage in there at the moment. all over it sure dude oh gross you need to get the high pressure on it and i crashed the tractor into the corner and the shed do you think it's big enough jono no because it's full it's full he's already he's like i need a big shed so i've got enough space but my goodness it is full but we're gonna build somewhere to put all the stuff that's the purpose of the big shed it was like the biggest project we've done at this property easily because it took it actually didn't take that long and i didn't do the work to get it up which was great but the guys had a deadline because it was literally a project between life projects yes between kid number one and kid number two yeah we said you have to finish it by easter because then we're going to melbourne to go to a hospital and they literally finished it actually no they didn't you went to melbourne and then i came up five days later and then they'd finished yeah so yes we finished the shed which was a massive project it's given us a lot of space but it's also full so that's also my next project is to finish organizing it yeah that's a fun project for you to do i've got nothing to do with that but on that i used to come out heavily pregnant and i'd rub my belly whilst the guys were working on it just like a subtle reminder of what was at stake uh but we did get there in the end it's huge we've obviously got the water tank am i allowed to show your other little side project John or is that like TBC? It's part of the other project. Okay, don't mention that then. I'm working on some outside things. I've been doing some plumbing things for future gardens and future bath projects. What are your future bath projects? You just ruined ours. Oh, too bad. We've also got solar installed. Solar. ok how good the solar looks The guys knocked it out of the park, getting that all set up. So that's going to set us up for when we actually finish the house, which will be great. so everyone was asking why do you use so much power hopefully after seeing that home tour they can see like how people just don't understand it in the comments but we run three wall heaters and three split systems basically 24 7 we're In Victoria, we're down on the southwest coast, we get a lot of cold wet weather so it's just heating hot water and heating rooms, people, but once we no they don't, our power bills have actually halved since we got that installed which is an excellent result, yeah, this will eventually be a beautiful lush garden guys, just imagine it okay beautiful retaining wall garden through here and oh Dusty's so excited and he doesn't know why my very own clawfoot bath, I'm very excited by this, Jono said he had to go pick something up from Melbourne, he took the trailer with him, oh that's good, you're gonna have to help me lift it now all right babe, yeah yeah good, you won't be able to use it tonight but you'll be able to use it all right, I was so excited, like anyone that's watched any of our home tours probably knows how much I love a good bath and an outdoor bath I have been dreaming about, I actually really want a bath recessed into a deck, um like the Bruny Island Hideaway, I loved how they recessed their bath into their deck, but as you can see we have no deck so you know that was a long way off, so I'm really stoked, I'm really stoked about this, but obviously it doesn't work yet, does it Jono? No, don't spend too long here, that's another project that I have to finish, oh but yes you can see the outside there's a ton of work that needs doing, we've got to clad, we've got to fix the roof, there's so much to be done also on the list before summer is knock it down, once we can actually get rid of that we can revamp all of this, connect up the shed to the house, I'm seeing a beautiful pathway coming from here leading up to that laundry door, we'll have a wrap around deck, all of this will be beautiful natives, beautiful like banksias, I've even got a couple of seedlings, I really want to get them in in the ground soon, hopefully soon. It's gonna be really pretty, isn't it? Plenty of weeds. And plenty of weeds. But guys, we've got the view. The view's still the same. The view's good. So, can we normalize slow renovations? Please. Because I don't think we are the only ones living somewhere between before and after. You know, renovation TV shows and even YouTube room makeovers package everything up in such a tidy, neat little 20 minute vlog that we see so much of that we can really lose sight of what it actually is like to renovate but the reality is it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money and unless you have all the time and all the resources in the world which we don't you know renovations take a long time and I know that we're not alone in that fact I wanted to make this video because I wanted to actually celebrate the small wins that we have achieved in this home renovation even though I look around the house now and to be honest with you, parts of it look worse than when we actually first moved in here. I am confident that it is going to be beautiful one day. I'm just not in my beautiful era right now, but I'm confident it's going to happen. But it's just important to celebrate the small wins, all of the things we have done because we have done a lot. And even though we're far away from being finished, I just wanted to take a little moment to celebrate that. And I didn't style the house for this home tour because I wanted it to be quite an honest reflection of what it is like to be in a house like this while renovating and it's not something that we see online every day is it because no one really shows it because there's nothing really to see and it all looks a bit ugly but sometimes i think it's important to see the ugly and the real because we can get a bit carried away with all of the inspiration and the beauty that we forget what it's actually like so if you are watching this and you were also looking around your home going yeah i've got to do that that and this video has made you feel just a tiny tiny bit better about yourself i would be so happy and in fact please let me know if you're doing your own slow renovation let me know in the comments how many years you've been doing it how many years you think you have left to go and whereabouts in the world you are because i would really love to hear your stories let's normalize slow renovations guys i think we'll get there in fact i'm pretty confident i'm going to be giving you a beautiful home tour hopefully in the not so distant future and all of this will just be perfection hopefully my babies aren't like full-grown men at that point although if they are they'll be able to help me with the renovation i digress anyway peace out guys