173 - Lessons from a Renovation 👷♂️🛠️
Hey there, !
This is more of a ‘personal lessons that Vince is going to take away from this renovation’ but if it’s good for you, then by all means take on the lessons :D
Caveats to start: We hired a builder to do the kitchen, the bathrooms, the flooring and the lighting in most of the spaces in the house (except the bedrooms). This meant less contractor scheduling / project management and more picking stuff out and designing things for the house (which still took a lot of time!). I also had a ton of help from Mum for the renovation - thanks Mum!
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It takes more time than you think: Early estimations that we got from quotes were that it would take about 3-4 months; in the end it took about 6. This wasn’t just the renovation, mind you - it also included all the extra stuff of moving in, painting, setting up the house, and getting in various last-minute contractors to install things. The initial quoting process also took a LONG time (2-3 months?) - we talked to maybe 7 - 9 builders about what was required, and it paid off - we saved like 30-40% from the median quote just by talking to more and more people. Time is money, though, so it depends on what you value more…
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It takes more planning than you think: I mean, first renovation and everything, but the maelstrom of detail to work out how big a cabinet needs to be in a kitchen and the colour of the tiles and the appliances you want to get in, the type of flooring colour, the handles, the bins, the spacing - it’s quite overwhelming. And honestly, a lot of that planning didn’t end up working anyway - we had to change things a bit on the fly because of just practical ‘it doesn’t fit’ reasons. I think it would be helpful next time to know that these are the kind of decisions that could be made - but I mean, how many times are you gonna be renovating a place??
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Things take a disproportionate amount of time - both ways: Things I thought took a really long time (e.g. flooring, or cabinet installation, or painting walls) took next to no time at all, whereas things that I thought would be a cinch (e.g. installing doorknobs, or putting in tiles or painting trims) were actually devilishly difficult due to detail. I also thought that picking things would be easy - like appliances, or tiles - but this took a LOT of brain processing to try and work out what would look best. All of these have just updated my general task estimation - so it’s good learning!
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Sometimes it’s good to just pay someone to do it: like painting, for example. We painted the bedrooms, and it’s not that we did it badly, but the actual people we hired to do the other parts of the house were much better, much more expert, and could do it way faster. I think this is a case of ‘it comes with experience’ - not just the painter’s experience, but the experience to know what you can pay for, and what you can just deal with yourself.
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Asian dudes are cheaper and they also know about other cheap asian dudes: Honestly, we had to get some contractors for plumbing, electricity, and HVAC, and the builder we got had a bunch of mates that he knew that were also pretty cheap too! We checked for other quotes and it was always consistently cheaper - all in cash, mostly good people. Had a hiccup or two, but no worries - still cheap :)
Still, it was a great learning experience - I loved doing it and I’m very happy with the results. Any questions, let me know!
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Taskmaster AU - it’s new, and pretty good so far! Not sure how I’m feeling about the vibe between Taskmaster and Tom Cashman (the new Alex Horne) but the guests are hilarious and just have some great unhinged fun doing tasks. It’s on 10play if you need to catch up, and the episodes are pretty short. Looking forward to the rest of the season :D
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Pilgrim Bar - went here for a Gin High Tea for a friend’s 30th; lovely food, and the gin cocktails were quite nice! It was a stinkin’ hot day though which didn’t help, but very nice vibes. Recommended!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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AI Generated Seinfeld - a show about nothing, forever! ChatGPT-3 is creating the script, some sort of machine learning algorithm is doing the camera work, and the voices are just some sort of generic computer voice. But it’s pretty funny to watch!
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I don’t want to be an Internet Person - an interesting piece that ultimately felt like ‘hey I’m really old now and not really “with it”’ - but it’s honestly fun to read that there are subcultures out there I have absolutely no idea about. The limitless nature of the internet means there are just infinite niches to explore. I feel like I’m a dude who just wants to poke his head into these places, see what’s up, and then politely excuse myself to go to the next weird place.
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Button it. - a collection of big control panels from Soviet era power stations that look exactly like what Homer Simpson sits in front of everyday. A lesson in UX, perhaps?