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.