Category: Renovations

Hello beautiful people! Welcome back to another broadcast, right here from the Resistance base, by none other than yours truly, Mr Chowski! It’s time for another update on our constant battle against the wicked Conclave of Mechanists, and I don’t mean wicked meaning cool, I mean wicked meaning completely and totally evil. Those guys are bad news. Just look out onto the street and see how bad things are here in sunny Robotopia! 

Things have been going pretty well here, except for the fact that—what’s this? We’re experiencing some interference. It seems that another broadcaster is attempting to hack onto this station!

Sorry about that, folks, we’re back on the airwaves. But my goodness, what an announcement that was! It seems that the missing Maphira has discovered that the Mechanists are heading right for our base as we speak. She apparently organised for some bathroom designers based near Melbourne to create a secret hideaway, with the known secret exit actually being a trap! Isn’t that something?

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. Couldn’t this be a trap? What if the secret bunker created through bathroom renovations by a Melbourne business actually leads us to our doom? I hear you, folks, but let me tell you something right now. I know Maphira well, and she completely revolutionised this resistance in just a few days. We can trust her. Even if the Mechanists were forcing her to say something, she would never break. 

So, here’s Mr Chowski’s official advice: everybody at the Resistance base, head straight for the deluxe bathroom that has recently been remodelled and turn all the taps on hot, hot, hot! It’s the only way we’re going to survive this oncoming attack and live to fight another day. You heard me, let’s get moving! Even I’m heading there as soon as this broadcast ends. I’ll be continuing to send messages out right from the bunker, so keep an ear out!

We just moved into our new share house! After the terrible experience we had with our last landlord, we’re really happy to be in a new house. This new house is great. It has three bathrooms (one ensuite, one upstairs and one downstairs) which is just fantastic! That’s three bathrooms between four people, which is better than we ever imagined. It is quite annoying that we now have so many bathrooms to clean, seeing as I told the girls point blank that I wouldn’t be responsible for cleaning every bathroom. They weren’t very happy about it but I reminded them that it was a much better alternative than having to deal with our old landlord for another year.

This house is also just significantly nicer in general. They’ve clearly had recent kitchen renovations. In Melbourne, having a fancy kitchen is a real selling point and they’ve hit the mark in this case. Our kitchen is so fancy that the fridge is like hidden in the cupboard so it looks like the whole kitchen is just cabinetry. How cool is that?

I really love our new house. It’s modern, big and well maintained. It looks a lot better than our old one and I’m actually really proud to call it my home. I used to find that our old house didn’t really feel like home and it wasn’t somewhere that I felt comfortable bringing my friends and family together. But with our incredible kitchen design, I’m now very happy to have people over for a cup of tea and bite to eat. It’s funny how the environment you’re in can really change your perception of things.

I’m looking forward to decorating our house and making it a home. I’m allowed to hang up as many picture frames here as I want, which is really exciting. I’ll let you all know what our new house is like in a couple of weeks.

Every day that I’m showering in my share house bathroom I wish that I could be showering in my parents’ shower. I’ve told you guys about how incredible it is and I attached pictures of it in my last blog post, so you guys should fully understand why I want to be showering in it instead of in my share house shower.

Why did we think that one bathroom for four girls was going to be enough? For this to be even semi-functional we need serious bathroom renovations. Melbourne homes just shouldn’t come with less than two bathrooms at this point. It’s not functional, especially because the census said that the majority of households consist of multiple people, rather than one person. Where there are multiple people in a house there need to be multiple bathrooms – it’s as simple as that. 

So why am I complaining about the share house bathroom, then? Because it’s disgusting. No one cleans it except for me and the girls take multiple showers per day. That leads to a LOT of soap scum! And apparently, I’m the only person that can see it. I’m not sure how that works.  

I wish I had the money to just commission bespoke bathroom designers to come in and completely redesign our bathroom. I wish I then also had the money to do an extension on the house and add in a brand new bathroom. But alas, I certainly don’t have that type of money and this house is a rental. I couldn’t make changes to it even if I wanted to. At this point, I’m not even allowed to add a hook on the wall of my bedroom to hang up a photo of my family. How sad is that? 

I guess I just need to accept the hand that I’ve been dealt and deal with the fact that I will never have a good bathroom. Unless…

Do you know what it’s like to live in a house with fifteen people? It’s hard, let me just say that. Between my immediate family (me, my three sisters, two brothers and parents), and seven other random family members and friends we have decided to house, there is rarely any space left for me to relax. Even moving about through hallways and the kitchen can pose a challenge when everybody is home at the same time. And although dinners are always fun, they’re also a hassle. Everybody chips in to buy food, since that’s what makes it a little more fair, but ultimately it’s difficult to cook for fifteen people every day.

I’ve spoken to my parents about a number of different bathroom design ideas that we could potentially implement to give us more space. Our bathroom at the moment is cluttered with dozens of different products that have been haphazardly strewn across the counter, in the sink, and on the floor and bench space in the shower. It’s not fun at all. I’m quite frankly sick of maneuvering about with so many things that don’t even belong to me taking up all the space. Even something as simple as an extra cupboard would do wonders. The main hitch in my bathroom design proposal is that for many bathroom renovations, Melbourne designers have to adhere to certain requirements. Often, these requirements have to do with safety, but sometimes they also dictate the cost. My family isn’t very wealthy, so we won’t be able to afford anything new and flashy. However, I am excited to see what sorts of ideas we can come up with using only our limited budget. I know for a fact that there are many things we can do. We just have to be creative and not waste our budget on things that aren’t completely necessary or don’t maximise space in the best way possible.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time with my dollhouse. It was this cute little pink thing I had received for Christmas one year, made from a combination of plastic and wood. As a child, I would sit in front of it for hours at a time, rearranging tiny pieces of furniture and moving my dolls around within it. I guess it came as no surprise to anybody that when I got the chance to renovate my own real, adult house, I became slightly obsessive. I looked through the best kitchen renovations and design companies Melbourne had to offer, and ended up choosing one whose portfolio aligned with my own vision.

Since I know I’m not planning on selling my house any time soon, I’ve decided to really lean into my aesthetic when working with the designers on my new kitchen. People have called me unique in the past, and I’m sure they often mean it as an insult, but I’m proud of the things I like. Rainbows? Vintage art? Eccentric plush couches? It all makes a room appear so much more interesting. None of this ‘minimalist’ stuff. I want my home to have its own personality. I wouldn’t want it to become sentient or anything. All I want is for someone to look at it and say, “Hey, that reminds me of you.”

Once my kitchen renovation is complete, I’ll need to get started on the laundry renovations. Melbourne houses like mine have two laundries — one upstairs, and the other in the basement — so there’s a lot to think about. However, that’s not for a little while. Until then, I’ll be working with the designers to establish all the little details for my new kitchen. We’ll have to plan things like cabinet and countertop materials, where to put the new stainless steel sink and appliances, and all the new pantry space I’ll need to hold ingredients for my baking.