La Casa De Amore

The Love Shack (La Casa de Amore)

WELCOME TO MY HOME

CLIK HERE TO SEE INSIDE AND AROUNDTHE LOVE SHACK AFTER IT WAS FIXED UP
(SEE BELOW FOR BEFORE PICTURES)

Story above..........Pictures below

When I first took on Pazzo Palazzo I was struck by two things, One, how bloody big the place was and two, how little yard room was left for a shed... and we all know a man needs a shed.... Now for a couple of years I had this view from the "jetty" at the back of the house.

For the first year there was an older couple living there (lets call them Bill and Mary) and for spare cash he used to spray paint cars under the back verandah. Of course the prevailing breezes, when they came, come from this direction and so whenever Bill had the grinder out we'd cop the dust and when he painted we'd cop the fumes. Also every couple of weeks when they'd built up a sizeable load of empty beer cartons (which have a plastic-like film on them) they'd burn them and we would be coughing and spluttering in between abusing them for being so bloody irresponsible... There is a bore in the yard as well (the water table is surprisingly close to the surface, about 1 metre) and I've since found out that Bill used to tip thinners and leftover paint down the bore to end up in the water table.   Nice huh?
I was quite glad when they left and the house sat empty for quite a while but I was fearful as to who would end up with it and what they would do with the place and how it would impact on us. Eventually it went up for sale and I did make some enquiries but they wanted a ridiculous amount of money. I stewed on this for a few months and was starting to get quite fearful that Bill's mate (who lives next door and much to all my neighbours chagrin also paints cars in the backyard and has a yard resembling a junkyard) was looking to rent the place so he could expand his illegal spray painting operation. At this point the place had been on the market for more than 18 months so I put in an offer of $80,000 (they wanted mid 90's) and it was accepted so in March 2003 I became the (dubiously proud) owner of a "renovators nightmare". My thinking at the time was that I could build a shed in the spacious backyard (the house itself is tiny and is really a 1 1/2 bedroom cottage) and fix up the house cheaply and have a couple living over there, thus the name, The Love Shack...
I borrowed a bit extra from the bank to facilitate the building of a shed and some repairs to the house. Of course I underestimated the extent of what the house would need but slogged away for three months to get it to a point where it would be livable.
One of the first things I had to do was re-level the building and put in a lot of extra stumps. The original builders had put the stumps too far apart and the floor joists were all bowing in the middle making for a bouncy floor inside. I spent almost three weeks under the house on my knees jacking and chocking every where there was a dip and I ended up putting in 12 new stumps requiring a 1000mm deep hole dug with a collapsible shovel whilst in a crouching posture....
Inside the house got a mini makeover with a complete paint job, a mini kitchen renovation, the floors sanded and polished, not to mention removal and repair of rotted window sills and windows, new fans and halogen downlights throughout. Haven't painted outside yet but I did manage to get a substantial fence up (which blocks the view of Bills mates junkyard/spray painting place next door). The fence is pretty bloody tall as the view from the front of the Lave Shack is less than inspiring as well but I'm hoping that when I get some shrubbery growing it'll be a nice little oasis in the middle of industry. I can only show you the before pictures at this stage but have just got a new camera so any day now.
Below I have put photos of the outside, the fencing (which I'm very proud of) and a few of the shed being built.
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CLIK ON THE PICS TO SEE THEM BETTER.

The view from "The Jetty" looking at back of the love shack....(pre-shed)

One of the bloody stumps...

Doesn't look too bad from the front.....

I like the bi-fold doors.

different story at the back...

Plenty of room for a shed...

Fence taking shape...

Big fence isn't it? top of page

doesn't quite block the view but hopefully some greenery will help...

In May 04 I did some major work (well my muscles told me it was major) outside the love shack. I put a garden bed along the inside of the front fence so I can grow some plants up to hide the very tall fence and beautiful (not!) brake business across the road...

I also planted some golden canes on the front footpath to prevent cars driving on it (the illegal spray painter next door seems to think it is an extension of his property and parks cars on it all the time). Over time this has created a couple of deep wheel ruts which are difficult to mow. I extended the reticulation system to water the garden bed and I planted some pop-up sprinklers to water the grass and canes on the front footpath and front lawn of the love shack.
The wheel ruts are not very clear here as I've filled one and the grass has grown a bit but I brought in some topsoil and leveled it off the next day.

I put a sort of temporary fence and gate across the backyard to contain the 2 dogs Loretta (the current tenant) has as the dogs seemed to think Pazzo Palazzo's backyard was the place to do their ablutions and the dog poo was out of control. I seemed to be constantly stepping in it or picking up half a dozen big landmines a day! At around the same time I finally got around to putting underground power to the shed (thus the lack of grass in the pictures). I had to dig around 20 metres of 0.6 metre deep trench from the love shack's meter box to shed and a separate trench to the bore pump house which is another (almost) completed job. (yet to put some doors on the pump house)
The "dog poo proof fence" New Pump house 'sans' doors.

I also finally got round to putting a new instant gas hot water system in place as the interior one (see picture above) was very inefficient, not to mention ugly.
here it is on the outside with power cables (about to be run under the house) draped over it. I also plumbed in the old laundry sink to give me a handy spot for rinsing paint brushes etc. The old plumbing is now 95% replaced and I've done some work in the bathroom with mini-orb etc so it now looks fairly nice in there (no pic at present).