Renovating our Rental Cottage

We have a little house that we rent out.  I like to call it the rental cottage - it just rolls off the tongue a little sweeter than investment property.  It's not a pretty country cottage.  It's a basic and boring brick and tile rectangle house in the middle/outer suburbs of Brisbane.

We have rented it our for the past 7 years, and to be honest we have neglected it.  When we returned from our time in London, I decided to be pro-active and inspect the property - well I was shocked to see how much it had declined.  It is located in a lovely quiet residential street on a quarter-acre block, close to shops and transport, and the house has good bones.  When it became vacant last month, we decided to give it some love and a face lift.

Part One - The Living Areas

Here are some pictures of the living areas of the house before.

My son looking suitably bored - poor kid, it was his birthday the day I dragged the kids down to photograph the house.  Note the very tragic striped curtains with frilly valance, however the parquetry floors are great and have worn so well.

The exposed brick arch just screams 1970-80's, but there is not much I can do about it.  The paint on the walls is lemon yellow above the dado rail and a peachy pink colour below - as Kath & Kim would say ...nice, unusual, different? (I apologise that non-Australians may not get the humour)

Roman blinds that you hit your head on as you walk out the sliding door.

For 5 days straight, my painter Frank & I spent our days at the house.  Whist he painted nearly every inch of the house, I set to work on many tasks.

The Living Areas - After

Frank painted all the walls in Dulux Antique White.  He painted the skirting boards and some of the trims in Antique White and others were left as stained timber so they would be a feature.

I replaced the curtains with some textured coffee/mushroom coloured curtains on a chrome pole from Curtain Wonderland.

I polished the parquetry floors with wood floor polish and now they shine.

The roman blinds were replaced with a roller blind.

We left the timber accents in the hallway.

Frank painted the front door black for me.  I've always liked pictures of black doors.

Coming Next - Part 2: The Bathrooms