Alan Mackenzie's Blog

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

New front door

The house is two story and the front porch which is quite large in area is resessed in from the front of the house.

It's 1972 and the builders (AV Jennings) decided that a normal internal door would be fine for the front door since it was out of the weather.

Finally we decided its time for a new front door, it's quite wide the width measures xxx.

This is going to be a problem, most of the doors on the the floor are 820mm - bugger.

We went all over the place and quotes ranged up to $1,250 made, installed and painted - to much.

So...I took measurements and we ordered a bare composite door with two glass panes for $395 from Doors Plus.

The lock hardware cost $40 on special and paint was $50. All up about $500 bucks - not bad.

When the guy delivered the door he gave us a set of nice hinges for free - thanks.

Front porch drain

I have always been a bit concerned about flooding. Our two story house on concrete slab is on the low side of the street and sits down quite a bit from street level.

Above: This is looking up the driveway, well below street level.

Above: I bought some Reln storm drain stuff from Bunnings. Comes as a handypak with three 1mt lengths - I bought 2 packs.

Above: I am extending the carport drain to the corner and connecting to the downpipe.

Above: This is looking from the carport end to the corner of the house.

Above: I have knocked out the end of the drain, next is a pit (plastic box) and then connect the first 1mtr section.

The rest just snap into each other and as I went along aligned the sections with bits of brick to keep everything straignt and level.

You don't need to bed the whole thing I chucked in a spade of mortor at the joins and packed in tight.

Next day come back and backfill everything, clean up the site, put the pot plants back and were done.

More pictures to come...

Many years ago we decided to close in the open front balcony and the cement sheet floor was covered with cheap carpet. In Feb 2006 we decided to give the balcony a facelift with some paint and a new parquet floor.

After moving everything out (phew) we can start the job.

First thing is to lay down the foam.

Backyard gazebos

We have been through a few gazebos and they have been used for different purposes like a cat run and chook run extension.

TV antenna

The magpies destroyed our TV antenna!

So we bought a new one from Dick Smith (DSE).

Matchmaster Digimatch VHF⁄UHF Combination TV Antenna suitable for both analogue and digital television reception. It is designed for wideband reception making it ideal for metropolitan and most country areas around Australia. Below is a catalogue picture of the product.