I can just hear the collective groan of "Well, Duh!" after reading that title…

It’s not that we didn’t expect a bit more cleaning with a bigger house, it’s just that I don’t think we really understood how much more cleaning it would mean.

Two more bathrooms, four new bedrooms, a staircase, a hallway and a garage amounts to more than doubling the amount of time it takes to get the house clean.

To help ease the burden we have decided to put the kids to work. Caleb’s jobs are sweeping the garage and cleaning the front garden and driveway. Jessica’s job is usually family moral …

Most of my outdoor work here in Townsville is done while wearing thongs. I lost one thong when I sunk into my backyard after some very heavy rain we had last year, but other than that they have worked out pretty well. They might not offer as much support as I would always like, but they are usually supportive enough, although I don’t usually wear them if I need to be working up a ladder.

I guess that the thong doesn’t provide very good sun protection either, as I have a pretty noticeable thong tan right now. Maybe I should be using more sunscreen …

As you can see, the tan on my foot is pretty prominent. Last time I had a tan like this it took a few months for it to fade, but that didn’t happen until winter when I started to wear covered shoes again. Right now it’s just too hot for that most days …

Also, in case you didn’t already know, here in Australia a “Thong” is the same thing as a North American “Flip Flop”…

With most pocket sliding door that I have seen there are scratches on the inside and outside face of the door. These scratches are most often caused by the timber and other hardware that is inside the cavity that the pocket door actually slides into.

Our old upstairs bathroom door had this problem, and had some pretty unsightly scratches on the sliding door. Downstairs we have two pocket sliding doors, neither one of which I really desired to see scratched up as our old upstairs bathroom door was.

I found the solution at Bunnings in the sliding door hardware section for only about $4.50 per door.

As you can see in the photo above (click on it for a larger view) I purchased some sliding door guides to install on the door frame. The guides are just two small pieces of plastic designed to fit onto the bottom of the door frame. I had to trim the door guides a bit to get the perfect fit, but now the door can’t rock into the timber and door hardware that is inside the frame that the pocket door slides into.

I always like it when a cheap and easy solution comes up to fix a problem. I just wish they were all this easy …

The next person to tell me that “It’s easy, you should be able to do that” in regards to my home renovations might end up with a black eye and a bloody nose.

Our house renovations are not going well. We are approaching our second Christmas where we are still not able to live on the ground floor of our house and I don’t know when we will finally be able to move down there.

I have been told a few times now that what I am doing is easy and that I should be able to do the sheeting, or put put up the deck, or pour the slab for the shed, etc. Just because renovations are easy for someone else doesn’t mean it’s easy for everyone. I don’t tell my friends that to build a web-site or fix a computer is easy and that they should be able to do that themselves, so why is that such common advise when it comes to renovations or home improvements?

This post isn’t directed particularly at any of my well-meaning friends, it’s more like a warning to the friends and family of not-so-handy renovators. If it’s easy, then help out your mate and do it for them or with them. Otherwise just shut-up, because what’s easy for some can be pretty bloody hard for others.