First Renovation Project

Hi Jacqui,

Laminated flooring is cheaper and very sturdy. It’s basically laminated wood on the top of chip board. I mop mine all the time and they are fine. Have had them in my flat for 7 years and they have lasted. However must say I’d only use them for rental properties and would always lay wood flooring for my own home.

If your property is in an expensive area and you’re looking for the upper end of the market then go for quality wood flooring. If you’re at the other end, then go for laminate wood flooring.

Having read your post though, I’d definitely be trying to get the original board resanded and polished. Nothing is more beautiful and lasting than original polished floor boards.

Hope this helps.

Leonie

I can help answer your question!  I think the timber has a lot to do with it. I've been a tenant in two properties with floorboards in recent years.

1. Spent 3.5 years in a house with pine floorboards that were discovered in a reno prior us moving in.  The biggest danger to floorboards is moving furniture (in, out, while washing floors etc) and these did not seem to have enough lacquer on them, perhaps just one coat, and developed scratches easily (especially if your removalists just shove stuff off the sacktruck, and when moving in or bringing in new furniture, nothing has a felt protector on the bottom).  Also fatal to pine floorboards is wheeled computer chairs (need a mat or they roll tracks into the soft pine, and pick up dirt that rolls the sheen out of the lacquer). So after 3 years despite our best efforts as good tenants who put stick-on felt protectors on the bottom of every piece of furniture, I'd say the floors needed to be – and were – redone after we left.

2. Spent 2 years in a house with some jarrah, some pine, also discovered and polished back in a reno prior us moving in. After 2 years the jarrah looked like the day we moved in, although we were careful to use a carpet square under the computer chairs.  The pine, again despite best efforts with felt protectors, was showing marks. Particularly it bore the imprint of heavier furniture eg dents from the legs of the TV unit with a very heavy plasma on it, and the rollers from the bed ensemble, despite being in those little metal protectors with felt bases, had rolled little crater dents into the floor under each roller over time.  The worst of these had started to splinter the surface lacquer. Also had some very hot summers and cold winters and the pine started to curve up on the long sides of the planks and splinter, drawing blood from bare feet from time to time.

I'd suggest a lot of tenants may not be as diligent about the felt protectors on the bases of furniture. (Quite a time consuming job to stick on every leg on a dining setting!) so depending on the timber in it, maybe be prepared to redo the floor every few years as needed!

Hi Jacqui,

I agree with Frankey's comments – I have rented a property with polished floors and had to put carpet or felt under my dining table and chairs as they were scratching the varnish. On the other hand, the floor had not recently been varnished and I believe this was redone after we left.

One of my sons is a floor coverer who lays a lot of vinyl and clip-in wood flooring. He has advised me to avoid the cheaper wood flooring as it chips too easily. Apparently the thicker the boards, the better. However nothing really beats actual wood floorboards for durability.

My son has vinyl flooring in the bathroom (looks like wood) and paid for a floor sander to some in and do his hallway & kitchen. It looks great – older houses in Tassie tend to have oak floorboards which are beautiful sanded and very hard wearing. The trick is, as others have said, to put enough varnish on the top. It can be a pain to do extra coats of varnish as you have to coat the floor, usuaslly leave it for at least 24 hours and resand between coats, but it is well worth the wait if you look at durability.

I have often had to remove glue from floorboards – it is a terrible job and we usually use the sharp end of a spade to scrape the glue off. Not sure I would use kero due to the flamability factor. My daughter has someone who sands the floors of her rental properties and he just sands over the glue. Having said that, there was so much glue on the kitchen floor in the second last house that I renovated that we ended up covering the whole floor up with vinyl tiles – it looked great.

There are always options – and you can get a lot of alternate looks from silimar priced yet different products.

Have fun – sounds like you have bought a bargain!

Lorraine

I always paint first and do floors last – reason being that any paint spills down… and on to your beautiful new floor
Leaving the old floor covering there while painting (especially ceilings) makes an excellent drop sheet – you will have to lift up floor coverings around the edges of your skirting boards though before painting them, as your new floor covering will often be a different height/depth to the existing one, and there is often a paint line or ridge on the boards from the previous carpet/vinyl/tiles that you will want to sand off prior to painting.

All the best – it's a lot of hard work but the rewards are worth it!

Just copy and past the page from Domain.

I haven't posted photos on here so can't help there. Sorry.

Keen to look at it. Any hiccups? 
Did you take the wall out?

You’ve done a great job, a bit of inspiration for us all. The before and after photos of the kitchen blew me away, I scrolled through them a few times.

Would be really interested in seeing the figures if you are willing to share.

Hi Jacqui,

Well done! numbers and the reno result both look very impressive!
Where did you find this house? from domain or realestate.com.au? and would it be possible to have a complete list of the jobs that you did and their cost? I am trying to work out budget for my first reno and think a list of your cost would be a good reference guide for me.

Thanks! and congratulations again!

viv

Going back to the original post, are these good numbers, anyone?  Correct my numbers, but there does not seem to be much profit margin:
purchase $210k
puchase costs (approx 5%)= $10.5k
renovations $25k
estimated sale price=$270k
sale costs (approx 5%)=$13.5k

net profit=$11k.
you then get slugged for CGT on $270-($210+$25)= $35k capital gains, so whatever CGT applies to that.

To me there is almost no margin, so why do it? 

(PS This is not a comment on what Jacqui is doing, more a question on how people calculate the numbers, as I have very similar numbers on a place I want to get and renovate and the above calculations stump me because there seems to be almost no fruit for your labour, as it were, unless you renovate and hold, which would mean no sale costs and no CGT.)