My stuff is in, the basic stuff is in place where I can find it; the exterior is going to do the job (keep the weather and wildlife out) and the climate control is going to do it's thing (heating, cooling, water, plumbing).... my bed is clear and the shower and stove and toilet and fridge work. I LIVE here. That's what makes it home. I agree Chooky, my last move was past a nightmare and took us two years to physically recover from. I'm not moving again. One high point about it being ours... is planting a lilac tree if there isn't one there. Last place before this, we bought a little lilac in a pot with one flower stalk; and it was going to snow right after so we put it in the living room for the few days, and it BLOOMED and smelled up the whole living room. It got planted 10 feet away outside and when we left there it was well established and doing purple majesty every spring. We planted lots more trees before we left there. Here we planted trees too. So maybe that's it. It's home when we can plant trees. A legacy for after us. (giving flowers, fruit, shade, shelter...) Putting the roots down, literally.

Hi sc42355 - that is great info, thank you. We bought a Queen Anne in Eaglemont that had plenty of room but the house needed TLC, updating, and repurposing of rooms (so for example there was a very large formal dining, separate sitting, and then another separate large billiards room - but a back-of-the-house not-very-functional kitchen...). What started as a small reno has become pretty significant - our own money pit! - but not an extension. We are replacing the heating, going back to floorboards, redoing all the paint and paper, shifting the kitchen and doing a full new kitchen, new bathroom, two ensuites and powder room, creating a pantry and a linen room, and redoing the upstairs into a master suite. We also have an original French tile roof which isn't yet on the agenda but that tip for tradies there will definitely be useful. We wanted to update the house also - so the style is more transitional than restoration, so we are removing the heavy curtains which should give us better access to the beautiful windows. I will dig out some photos. 1 - In terms of the coordination of building work, we are using Dale from Genjusho Building Design, who has been great, particularly as we have been pretty organic in terms of having a locked down plan on the work required (it evolves...). 2 - The heating that has gone in is hydronic (we had to go all the way down into the floors to sort the floorboards, so were able to take advantage of that process to get the piping in for the heating). 3 - Lighting as you know is the current challenge but early on we identified a pendant manufacturer called WEP who we wanted to get one (possibly two - Lora and Renata styles) from - http://www.weplight.com/ although these are more modern lights they sit well in the space. Lighting continues and with the high ceilings we are also putting in LEDs just about everywhere and relying on pendants more for the aesthetics. Generally BrightGreen have been the uniformly recommended LED to provide the truest light quality. 4 - depending on the age of your property you might eventually find like us that the gas line (ie the one that links out to the mains on the street) needs to be upgraded. Not a big deal but as always extra cost and good to integrate with any significant garden redesign work if you are digging up a fair bit (or jackhammering up concrete as we are) to get the new pipe in. 5 - We didn't have enough of the original baltic floorboards throughout the downstairs to use - they'd been cut through over the years unfortunately - so we ended up getting replacement wide boards for the floor. We ended up going for a hardwood rather than the soft baltic, and are using spotted gum which means we won't need to stain it, just seal it. We found Urban Salvage in Spotswood good for the wood searching, also had Shiver Me Timbers recommended. 6 - The kitchen and cabinetry we are using Peter Gill who has been very good and spans the traditional-transitional spectrum well. http://www.kitchensbypetergill.com.au/ 7 - The paint and paper work has been a challenge for us also - the walls are fragile and a lot (A LOT) of prep work required to get either paint or paper (or both) to come out looking high quality given the age of the building, and the tendency of the walls to keep shifting. We are using JN painting & decorating. We also had to put in a picture rail to avoid banging hooks into these walls - both because patching isn't easy and because the walls wouldn't necessarily hold a hook in the same way modern plaster does. The labour on this takes a while. The rails are from classicarchitraves.com.au. 8 - We are putting back in fireplace mantles to match the era, sourcing these from Agnews. 9 - We had to source a lot of tiles given the refit of bathrooms/kitchen/laundry and these comes from a variety of sources - Lifestile in Camberwell, Tierno Tiles in Prahran, Urban Edge Ceramics in Richmond (where we found a particularly great pale green handmade subway tile), Artedomus in Richmond and Schots in Clifton Hill. We are also getting a garden plan done - this will be a much longer exercise than this reno but the plot is 1500 sqm so we wanted to have an overall plan to guide us. cheers C

Clipsal have a great range of heritage style switches but have stopped selling them so your local sparkie will presumably not be able to access them. There are plenty available online though. https://www.palesinstyle.com.au/heritage.htm This is one place I have purchased through very recently. The bloke was excellent to deal with. They have a good range including bakelite and a new line of black powder coated switches. They also have the timber mounting blocks which you need because of the single skin walls. They have fan switches that don't require a seperate on/off switch, something I couldn't find anywhere else. They also have the mounting blocks with the larger holes for the fan switches. This is another place I have used recently. They are good too. The postage was a little slower though. http://www.restorationonline.com.au/light-switches. I also bought some others from ebay and was quite happy again.

Embrace what you already have! It's far easier and more successful, I really can't stand 'faking' eras! And you've got a great little base there to bring the life back into! Depending on what you like you can have a lot of fun and make it look really stylish. - For something more fun, go a cute 50s paint colour wiht fresh white trims e.g. a celadon green, a duck egg blue or a happy yellow if you're brave! Add some great plantings (look up Palm Springs for some great ideas). - or for more classic and stylish but still in keeping, you could go monochrome fresh white, charcoal or even a beautiful maritime blue, add some natural timber/wicker to stop it feeling too stark and maybe some smart stripe (black or navy & white - or even bold yellow or green?!!) fabric awnings will also help the facade looking too flat, Check out places like The Atlantic at Byron Bay for great inspo. - I personally love this look. - or if you like a look more eclectic again looking to hotels for reference, check out Halcyon House - white, besser/breeze blocks, vintage cane, but layered with lots of texture and pattern mainly around a fresh indigo blue & white palette. What a great project, you can have a lot of fun with that little place, and if you're unsure, ask here!