00:02Ciao ragazzi, mi chiamo Sean, benvenuti nel mio appartimento.
00:07Are you Italian?
00:09No, I'm trying.
00:14I'm Sean, I'm a Sustainable Buildings Officer for local council.
00:20Welcome to my apartment, which I renovated myself.
00:24My budget for the renovation was $20,000.
00:27There were a few little things that kind of pushed it over,
00:30but I think if I exclude the couches, it's maybe like $22,000-ish.
00:36It's like Grand Design when they're like always over time over budget.
00:39So I didn't really have a time, but I did go over budget, but only time again.
00:44To make the budget work, I had to take on the majority of the work myself,
00:49which was okay because I have a can-do attitude.
00:53I only really paid for the essential trades like an electrician and a plumber.
00:58I was very fortunate to have friends help me with free labour,
01:03particularly during the demolition.
01:04The rest of the work I just watched YouTubes on how-to,
01:08and then just had a crack at it.
01:14This apartment is about 40 square metres.
01:18These old six-pack brick apartments are really good bones.
01:21It had the typical landlord paint job and grey carpets and grey blinds,
01:27so it was a bit drab.
01:28So I just wanted to bring a bit more light into the space.
01:31I did have a pretty intense Pinterest board going.
01:37I wouldn't say there was any specific influences other than really nice like timber joinery and like tile work.
01:49On the right, we've got the storage which was originally here.
01:55And it was actually the wardrobe.
01:57It had like a rail that only went this way,
01:59so you could probably only hang about eight things in there anyway.
02:02A bit of a pantry with a linen closet.
02:05Painted that and used some old flooring to create shelves.
02:09Yeah, there's a power point in there and I was going to put a microwave in there
02:14and then that kind of got lost in translation,
02:16which is like funny because it's like me doing everything, so.
02:19These doors and in the kitchen were the old handles on the original kitchen,
02:24so we've tried to reuse anything we could.
02:27I used to live in a studio apartment with a bar fridge.
02:30That little internal freezer thing inside used to drive me crazy.
02:34Yeah, I made the decision early to get a normal size like fridge and freezer,
02:38which we got on marketplace.
02:40I've strategically placed these to hide little like dings that it has in it.
02:47From start to finish, the whole renovation probably took six months.
02:52I was working four days a week and so for three days of the week,
02:56I would come to the apartment and probably put in a six or eight hour day,
03:00depending on how many beers I drank with some friends.
03:04The bench top is from Urban Salvage.
03:07So they do recycled and reclaimed timber.
03:10I think one of the scariest moments of doing the apartment was drilling the holes
03:16and cutting with the jig the shape out for the induction and for the sink,
03:21just knowing that it was a thousand dollar piece of timber.
03:24You know, measure twice, cut once.
03:27The chopping board is an off cut of the bench and it's just been like sanded and oiled.
03:32I made maybe five of them and gave them to all my friends that helped with the apartment
03:39and thought that was sufficient compensation for countless hours of their labor.
03:44I don't know if they agree or not.
03:45But we've built the kitchen around the hot water unit in the corner.
03:51I just need to cut the silicone and remove the top and then you can access that.
03:57And the timbers kind of bowed a bit.
03:59So it's made it look a little bit worse.
04:01I probably would have spent a little bit more time in like making that even more accessible to get into.
04:06But you live in, you learn the first time you install the kitchen, I guess.
04:10It probably wasn't until I renovated this apartment that I realised that maybe I'm not a perfectionist
04:16and maybe it was a budget thing, maybe it was a time thing.
04:19I was conscious I was at my friend's house rent free and had to get out of there.
04:23But I feel like I was at 95% and send it as opposed to spending more time on that.
04:32Doing the kitchen through IKEA was pretty easy.
04:35The genius part about it is the IKEA invoice will show you the fronts that you didn't order as well
04:42and the sizes of them.
04:43I took all those like sizes that I needed and went to Plyco and used their custom cut service
04:50and was able to just get premium birch plywood all cut to size how I needed it
04:55and then gave it a light sand and then used resine colour wood stain, pistachio green kind of finish
05:01and a clear sealer on the top.
05:04I've installed an extra bench top that slides out
05:08and then you can just do one side.
05:14I've got larger things recycling the glass general and Fogo in there.
05:22Anywhere there was extra plywood I tried to just reuse that into everything
05:27so the shelf wasn't really on the cards either to begin with.
05:30I just had off cuts.
05:33I opted for a round tulip table.
05:36I had to go to marketplace and get a second hand IKEA one.
05:40The chairs were marketplace find as well.
05:43I don't know if I have any specific advice about buying furniture second hand.
05:48It's more about the shapes that you want.
05:50I think that's the most important like the chairs were reupholstered.
05:53About as easy as making a pillow case really.
05:56You can spruce like things up as well if you need.
06:00Going for old durable materials that you can bring back to life or kind of make your own.
06:06Nice shelf here.
06:07Another marketplace purchase.
06:10I think it's a old IKEA Niklas or it's a like really good replica.
06:15Kind of works as a display shelf for the pottery and the vases that I've got and a few plants
06:20and the cameras.
06:22I don't know where the Hello Kitty thing came from.
06:24I bought this for $50 a marketplace as well and it is Hello Kitty branded.
06:28I feel people are less threatened when I'm taking a photo of them with the Hello Kitty you know camera.
06:35The most interesting thing on this shelf is this little dongle here which is a temperature and humidity tracker.
06:43It sends the data to my phone so I've got all the live down to like minute intervals of the
06:49temperature and the humidity in here.
06:51Since I moved in the average temperature has been 20 degrees on the dot with no air conditioner and no
06:58like heater.
06:59And the lowest it got down to was 12.5 degrees.
07:03I'm not sure where the motivation originally came for cork flooring but it's a really good acoustic insulator.
07:09Really good thermal properties as well and it's a natural regenerative kind of sustainable material.
07:16I think the flooring costs about two and a half thousand dollars maybe two thousand dollars.
07:22It was a chunk of the budget as well but then the saving is in installing it myself.
07:27The product is called ready cork and they're just tiles that clip together so it's a floating floor.
07:33With the help of my friends we're able to remove the carpet and get back to the concrete slab.
07:38I started in the opposite corner of the apartment so I ended in the most high traffic or the the
07:45problem area say the kitchen.
07:46If there is any damage and I need to replace any of the flooring in the kitchen it's pretty simple
07:52to start peeling back the flooring from that corner and then rebuild in with the excess that I have.
08:00Decided not to have a TV or a cabinet on that side and instead have gone for the lush bachelor
08:08pad ceiling mounted projector with the PlayStation.
08:15The motivation of me doing the majority of the renovation work was probably to save money so I could spend
08:23money on treats like a three-piece Mondo sofa.
08:27Which was probably one of the only things in here that wasn't purchased on Marketplace.
08:33Because we're on the top level of the apartment and the roof is above us it was a hot box
08:37when I moved in there's actually just an air gap there was no insulation in the ceiling so one of
08:42the major things in the renovation was to skin the plaster off the ceiling.
08:46Put pink bats in the ceiling R3.5.
08:50The internal walls of the like west which is here and the north in here and in the bedroom as
08:56well we use what is called Cooltherm K17 board.
09:00It's got a layer of rigid insulation and then a plasterboard finish and so this gives the walls an extra
09:06R1.15.
09:08So all the windows on the north and the west have had the window frame extended out.
09:15Before we did any of the renovation a mate of mine came over and we used a thermal gun and
09:20you could see the heat just coming through the brick walls.
09:23So that drove the decision to do the K17 board on the inside of the wall.
09:28And essentially that was just glued and stuck onto the existing like render brick wall and then screw at certain
09:36points to kind of like fix it there.
09:38And then just like you would a regular plaster you finish it.
09:42The insulation in the ceiling and the wall probably cost me about $5,000 and then another $2,000 to
09:50pay someone to re-plaster the ceiling.
09:52That was almost a third of my budget was just on the insulation but it was really important to me
09:57and has made a world of difference.
09:58We had the heat wave here a few months ago where we had three days that were 38 degrees.
10:05I believe the internal temperature of the apartment started to creep up to 32-ish degrees.
10:11So obviously then I'd go to the pool and the pub but for 98% of the year, 99%
10:16of the year, it's been a really comfortable space to be in.
10:21I added this door or changed the door to fluted glass which was like almost everything in this apartment another
10:28marketplace find.
10:29I had this like fear as I was drilling it out that I was gonna hit the glass and it
10:34was gonna like shatter into a million pieces and with it all my dreams.
10:39And then the door has, I've just got a hook up here that can kind of hold the door open.
10:45For the majority it stays open but if I have a really good breeze in here, I'll like latch it
10:51open.
10:51The electrical boards actually against this wall so we brought a conduit down and there's a power point for the
10:57computer and the laptop and like charging my phone and stuff like that.
11:01The old door that was here was just a hollow cord door but it wasn't glass and I chopped that
11:07in half and turned it into the desk here.
11:10And it's just kind of bolted underneath to the wall and some cheap little IKEA legs here to hold it
11:15up.
11:16I've got an LED strip light underneath there.
11:19If I'm working until the evening it's really easy to like turn on and it just like throws a warm
11:23light behind the computer.
11:26You can see I've decorated the space with my Italian homework.
11:30Learning Italian I think is a part of my long term retirement strategy.
11:36Mi piace la spiaggia.
11:38I like the beach and I like Italian food.
11:42And I went there once on a work trip and it was really like fun and I've got a few
11:47really good friends over there.
11:49My friend Marcus who does Blue House Studios in Sydney as an architect and a designer.
11:55He was able to help me design these and then the file that he produced went straight to Plyco and
12:02they were able to cut the curves.
12:04And it just arrived flat packed and just needed a light sand.
12:08This is the brief that the architect got.
12:11That and a text message that said, can you design this shelf?
12:18Owning a bunch of tools isn't practical if you're only going to use them once, you know, every couple of
12:23years.
12:24So I was fortunate enough in this area.
12:26We've got a tool library.
12:27I've paid an annual subscription there.
12:3080, 85 dollars at the time.
12:33And was able to like borrow all the tools that I needed to renovate this apartment.
12:38So I only own a drill.
12:42The wardrobes themselves are like simple IKEA packs.
12:46They were two separate purchases on Marketplace.
12:50I ordered just like I did with the kitchen.
12:52The custom cut from Plyco, stained them in the same pistachio green.
12:57You can see there's a bit of a shadow line that's all on the top and we've tried to maintain
13:02that.
13:02So it kind of looks like it's not floating, but not completely pinned against the roof.
13:07This is probably where the majority of my clothes are and I don't have a nice slide out accessory for
13:14the shoes.
13:14They just get kicked under there.
13:16I was watching the other episode you guys did.
13:18I was a bit envious after I saw that episode actually, that I should redo this and make it look
13:23nicer.
13:24Ignore my bike, which is another work in progress.
13:27We've got the ceiling fan here.
13:29So like all the other lights in the apartment, it was those old oyster lights.
13:32I feel like they're there just to capture like dead bugs.
13:35We got rid of that and have put a ceiling fan in and it's got a light, which I try
13:41not to use.
13:43I'm more of a lamp man.
13:48So I've probably been living here for 12 months and I've just realized there's still like paint on the under
13:52on the underside of the door handle.
13:54So this is real.
13:55This is no Hollywood.
13:56This is how we live.
13:58We've got the bathroom in here.
14:02I've got some clothes hanging behind the door here.
14:04I think I panicked.
14:05It was a bit of a temporary thing that's turned into like medium term, but really handy like for a
14:11small apartment.
14:12This was all white tiles originally with like a half cast iron bar.
14:17Probably the heaviest thing I've ever picked up my whole life.
14:19We needed a car jack to lift it out of the concrete fittings that it had been like stuck into
14:26the wall.
14:27My dad has done some like waterproofing and tiling in his later years.
14:31He's like 70 now.
14:32I bought a plane ticket for him and dragged him down to do some unpaid labor for me.
14:37If you watch this, cheers dad.
14:39This was a like marketplace find has a bit of space to, you know, hold things as I'm kind of
14:45using them.
14:47This is again, like made kind of with off cuts underneath.
14:50It's actually hiding the plumbing.
14:52I can slide under and still access the pipe work.
14:56The glass is a double sided tape in there.
14:58So it's not, it's not overly permanent.
15:00The only thing about having something exposed like this is the other day I dropped something.
15:05I dropped one of these and it fell down and it landed on, on my tap.
15:10So I'm a bit bummed out.
15:11I've got a little dent now.
15:12Oh, my stick on toilet brush.
15:14Yeah.
15:14So it was a gift from an, I want to say ex or a friend or an ex, but she
15:19came over.
15:19I had a toilet brush, which obviously wasn't cutting it probably functionally and aesthetically.
15:25So bless her.
15:26She bought me this little like stick on toilet brush, which is just kind of, you know, double sided tape
15:31to the wall.
15:32The bathroom probably took four to six weeks because I was at a friend's house rent free.
15:38I kind of wanted to get out of the space as quick as I could.
15:40So I moved in here without the like bathroom being completely done.
15:44And so the toilet was always working, but I was like showering at the office or at the gym for
15:49a couple of weeks,
15:49which is a good motivator to get your bathroom done is to be relying on it and not have one.
15:56So it makes you work a bit faster.
15:59So we'll go down now to where I've got my washing machine.
16:02I mean, a completely shared space would probably be even better.
16:07There are shared laundries in between each of the levels.
16:12The remaining improvements that I would love to make to the apartment would be double glazing and external shading,
16:21but that's obviously a significant cost.
16:23I think internally it's landed where I want it to be.
16:27We're almost as energy efficient as a brand new apartment.
16:31I have a bunch of friends that have since told me to quit my job and do this as a
16:36full time job.
16:36I don't know. I don't know who'd pay me to give them advice on how to renovate their apartment,
16:42but it was pretty fun.
16:43I think I was a bit traumatized immediately after the process.
16:48It's probably been about nine, twelve months since I completed the bulk of the renovations.
16:53And so I'm almost ready to get involved in another project, maybe for a friend.
17:00And definitely have dreams of like maybe building or renovating my own house in the future
17:05and can take all the learnings and the mistakes that I made from here and turn them around.
17:17I got to do.
17:19I got to see one of the two of my things, but you can take a little bit of time
17:21for me.
17:21And then you can pick two people, some people and friends and friends.
17:22You can use a great job, and there's a great job, and that's something we can do.
17:23If you're an old man, just get this into an old man, you can use this to be a good
17:23job.
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