Rituals: renovating

Photo: James Horan

When the first drips started, I suspected a tiny leak coming from the upstairs shower. The suspected leak became a flood rushing through a light fixture to the kitchen downstairs.

The suspicion I had run away from was by then a major catastrophe, especially in a 130-year-old Paddington terrace house. There would be no choice but to rip up half the bathroom, re-do the waterproofing and relay the tiles. My expertise from watching The Block told me as much.

The problem is: tradies don't like smaller crappy jobs in terrace houses. They like big jobs in brand new estates. Where it's easy to park. And get rid of rubbish. And, quite simply, aren't so hard.

We've had roofers turn up to assess a job on our ancient ceramic tiles and they haven't even gotten out of their vans. Others never answered our follow up calls. We've been waiting four years for some quotes. 

Back to the leak through the light. At the beginning of last year's lockdown, we finally managed to engage a gang of tradies who were suddenly at a loose end to get the job done. That led to ideas of a fairly extensive renovation to our downstairs area, while they were at it.

It was at the time when the whole world thought there'd never be work again — so they jumped at it.

So happy were we with the early progress of the several thousand dollar middle-floor bathroom repair that we uttered the dreaded words: "Hey guys, while you're at it ..."

Now 12 months later, the bathroom is great, the new kitchen downstairs is done, there are new floorboards and even a new downstairs bathroom under the stairs where the dingy storage cupboard used to hold mouldy footies and a disused esky. There's even a self-contained laundry. Oh, the luxury of a self-contained 1m x 1.5m laundry in a terrace.

Yes, the big job is done. But it's not finished. From the 95% done stage, we never saw the tradies again. Because the world didn't end, everyone wanted renovations done and tradies were hotter property than Olivia Newton-John in the late '70s.

The back courtyard was left full of building rubbish — plaster, bricks, planks of wood, cement, paint, tarps, filth. It took me a day and a skip bin to get rid of it.

The skirting boards aren't on in the kitchen, the architraves aren't back on, the new doors and windows have Texta written on them and keys stuck on them.

Even the new skylight had the sticker left on it — how could I get up there and get it off? The walls and door frames still need painting. The stonework is broken. The roof has issues. The jobs left are the crappy ones. And tradies don't like crappy jobs.

Once they said the old “we'll be back soon to tidy all this up", they were done. Gone like the wind to the new job. Not a desperate lockdown one. A big one. With easy parking.

Anyone know a roofer?