Unit Renovation: First stage

I'm onto my third property which I bought a month ago. The first one I had is a land property in Pasig City, the second one is a house in Quezon City, and the third is a unit in North Parramatta, NSW. Yes, in Australia! :) I'm definitely going global! Yay!

This one is a 76sqm top floor unit, fairly old but lots of potential. It's in a CBD location, so good rental return and fast selling. This year, 3 of my neighbors sold their unit and the most they've been in a market is one month max. We bought it from an auction and because no one came up, we were the only bidders on the night. Surprisingly, the owner didn't pass in and we got it for a very good price. I think it's a good buy and I'm very happy with it.

While the papers are being settled, we're already thinking of what to fix in the unit. The place definitely needs a face lift because it's been a tenanted unit and not much improvement has happened in it. We initially thought of renovating the toilet and then the kitchen, but those renovations are costly and we don't have that resource yet. We listed everything we want to do which are --

• Modernize / renovate the bathroom
• Improve the kitchen
• Replace carpet with floorboards
• New Paint
• Install flyscreen
• Repaint the windows

So, we thought of doing the lowest hanging fruit first, something that we can afford and achieve now. We decided to do the flyscreen, the windows and paint the walls.

We first installed the flyscreen in the bathroom. It was a DIY job, and we're happy with the results. I didn't realize it was easy to make a flyscreen! Thank you Google! :) This inspired us to do the next items.

Repaint Window

The next thing we did was to repaint the bathroom window. We have brown aluminum windows. There are paint strokes on some of them (from the previous paint job) and it doesn't look clean. It was our first paint project ever, so we didn't have a clue on the kind of paints, what brush to use, colors, etc. It was a failure because we chose the wrong colour (the most boring gray colour), the wrong brush, wrong everything! We still went on and finish painting the window, and then research from the internet the best way to paint an aluminum window. We learned that spray paint produces cleaner results because there will be no brush marks. This time we chose the red burgundy color which is not too boring and not too bright.

It was basically and trial and error process, but it was worth it. Now, our bathroom windows looks new!

Repaint the walls

The whole unit has yellowish white walls all throughout. We find it quite boring and painting them will definitely improve the look and feel of the place.

We decided to start with the smallest area, the 2nd bedroom, first so if we make mistakes, there won't be much damage. We thought of painting the walls white because white makes a space bigger, and then having a feature wall.

We used Dulux paints because they are the best. And then, decided to go for the green color specifically the DOMAIN for the feature wall and ANTIQUE WHITE for the white. It's the safest choice because it's the number 1 choice by Australians according the Dulux's website. The results were fabulous! The green color made the room more welcoming and the white color made the room bigger.

Now, onto the masters bedroom. We were in a rush in painting this room because Don will be flying back home in a couple of days. I think there were 2 or 3 days left before his flight. It's been challenging choosing the right color for the masters bedroom. I considered purple, pink, blue, red, yellow, well almost every color actually. We can buy sample jars, but they will add to the cost and I won't use them if it fails the sampling. So, I tried to narrow down my choices, and went on with the red particularly the RED BOX. It was a crucial point, because there was just 1 day until Don leaves for Manila. Red Box was a mistake, it's too RED! The room looked like a videoke room with that color! So, I had to rush to Bunnings at 7pm to choose another color. I chose a pinkish color, the CHORALE SINGER, which is actually our original choice. How stubborn! If I just picked this colour in the first place, we won't be rushing on the last night.

Masters Bedroom - the wrong red paint



Don coating the red paint with a primer

Apparently, since there's a red paint already, we had to coat with primer first to make sure the red paint won't come out. The drying time was a concern because it takes 3 hours to touch dry a primer coating. Don wasn't able to sleep at all, but it was all worth it. The pink colour was the perfect one for the masters bedroom!

Masters Bedroom

The next stage is the flooring. Since there are strata laws for units, we have to ask for approval to install floorboards. If we get a go signal, we might install it by Feb of next year. Looking forward to it!