The best tool in the biz

We SHOULD have bought this stud finder on our first day of renovating, turns out we didn't actually buy it until we had put a number of unnecessary holes in both the walls and ceiling of our house. It is definitely a must for renovators, especially if you are putting your own down lights in. 

Stanley Stud Finder

It basically helps you find the wood studs behind your drywall, so that you know where you can and can't secure things and put holes. For example it would have came in handy when making holes for the down lights, as you can't put holes through studs, this would have made our life a lot easier and we wouldn't have had so much patching to do!

You place the tool against the wall and it will give you a visual and/or audio notification such as a beep when a stud is located. Which makes it super easy to find a stud and then nail or screw to it if necessary. We used it find the studs in the wall so we knew where to nail skirting boards too.

We bought this the Stanley Stud Sensor, Model #STHT77404 - only $29.95 from Bunnings Warehouse.

Helpful Resources

1. Collins Complete DIY Manual

This book was our Bible for all things renovating.
It was easy to read and had in-depth knowledge on nearly every subject from design, repairs to electricity and plumbing.







2. Bunnings

Our go to place for tools, products and advice was Bunnings. They had a good selection of DIY brochures that helped us plan what we needed to do. The staff are generally pretty helpful about products but be wary about taking all advice.
They do have some good how-to videos on their website though,






3. YouTube

Youtube is full of videos for renovation novices.
Their how-to videos were really helpful for us. Some of the ones we looked at were: How to pave, How to install tap ware, How to lay floorboards.

How to Paint

I know it sounds basic, but had absolutely no idea where to begin with painting or how to paint a room when we first started. We went into Bunnings for a free workshop which gave us painting tips and it was very helpful, highly recommend it! We ended up being the only 2 people in the class so we basically got a tailored course on painting specific to our own house.

What you will need:

• Electric Sander ( I recommend the Ryobi brand)
• Sugar Syrup
• Foam Mop
• Mop Bucket
• Small angled edging brush (for cutting in)
• Rollers - good quality otherwise small brush hairs will be left on the wall
• Roller trays
• Mixing stick

Paint:

Depending on which area of the house you are going to paint will depend what type is needed. We did the whole house and needed the following different types of paints.

• Good quality Primer (For all walls and Ceiling)
• Flat Ceiling Paint (Ceiling)
• Top Coat (All walls)
• Semi-Gloss Paint (Architraves and Doorframes)
• Kitchen & Bathroom Paint (Mould resistant paint for any wet areas)

Steps to follow:

1. Sanding! The most ridiculously boring and tedious job you will have to do is preparing the walls before painting. Our walls had dents and bumps everywhere so took a significant amount of time to sand before painting was even thought about. I recommend getting the Ryobi Electric Sander, around $80, but it is so worth it! You will generally need to wait until the dust settles before moving onto Step 2, as it can get really messy if you try and start moving on with dust in the air. Make sure you sand both the walls and architraves.
2. Wash the walls with Sugar Syrup, this will help clean the walls of dust and grime before painting. A foam mop will be suitable for this job. Wait for this to dry before moving to Step 3.
3. Cutting in - You will then need to 'cut in' the ceiling, using the primer and the angle brush. Cutting in involves going around the outside edges of the ceiling with the smaller brush as the roller won't reach right up against the walls. 
4. Using a good quality paint roller, paint the ceiling with primer first, after cutting in start from the light in the room and move outwards.
5. Once the primer is dry, repeat steps 3 and 4 with ceiling paint
6. Repeat steps 3 & 4 with primer on the walls & prime the architraves also
7. Once the wall primer is dry cut in and roller with your wall colour paint. 
8. Apply second coat of wall paint to walls
9. Using semi-gloss or full-gloss paint the architraves with a small angle brush.