A whole house redone inside its own walls

The contract describes the job in one line: a full renovation, including new windows. The building permit calls it an internal renovation and records the new floor area as nil. Nothing was added to the house. Instead almost every room in it changed — the kitchen, laundry and powder room downstairs, the main bedroom, its robe and its ensuite upstairs, the main bathroom, the stair, the windows, the floors and every painted surface.

Upstairs, three rooms became two

The main bedroom had two walk-in robes and an ensuite. The walls between them came out, along with a column and one of the windows, and the space was rebuilt as a single walk-in robe and a larger ensuite running across the back of the house, with a bath, a shower and a double vanity.

Find out what a wall is holding before it goes

The engineer’s drawings put it on us to confirm, during demolition, whether the upstairs walls coming out were carrying the roof — and if they were, to prop it and build new walls to take the load. Downstairs, where a wall came out beside the laundry, a laminated beam went in on a post of three studs. The frame was inspected and approved on 30 April, before anything was lined. Before the plaster went on, every pipe and cable run was photographed and the photos put in the job diary with one instruction: look at these before you screw into anything.

The kitchen, laundry and powder room

The old kitchen was an angled run of cupboards in the corner. It came out completely, down to the floor, and was replaced with a straight run and an island, with new lighting over both. Behind it, the laundry and powder room were reworked in the space beside the garage.

The stair stayed

Rather than rip out the existing stair, it was re-treaded. The old nosings were cut off, new treads and risers in Glacial Oak were fitted over the top, the balusters were reused and shortened to suit, and a new post went in at the second riser. Working over a stair you already have is a compromise, and the stair builder said so in writing before starting. What it keeps is the stair itself and its curve.

Three wet areas

The ensuite, the main bathroom and the laundry were all waterproofed and certified in May. Fit-off followed in June, and the plumbing and electrical were both signed off in the first week of July — three toilets, two showers, three basins, a bath, the kitchen and the laundry.

March to July

Strip-out was under way by the third week of March. The frame was approved at the end of April, the wet areas waterproofed in May, and the final inspection was approved on 8 July 2026.