Construction & Contractors Blog
In some cases, houses can become so old and derelict that salvaging them makes little sense. If you are thinking about demolishing your old family home so that you can put a new home on your property or for any other reason, it can be an emotional process. To help with any grief you may have over losing your family home, consider these ideas:
Hire a photographer.
Before having the demolition crew come over, consider hiring a photographer to take photos of the house. Ideally, you want both external and internal photos. Ask if the photographer has experience photographing homes and look at their portfolio to make sure you like their style.
Consider asking for some overviews of the home and its rooms as well as some close-up shots showing details of the home. Walk through the home with the photographer to highlight anything that is special to you, such as old marks measuring growing children on the walls, a bit of old wallpaper that grandma loved or similar items. Then, consider having the photos put into a coffee table book you can display in your new home or a series of little booklets to give everyone in the family.
Remove unique features.
Usually, when you hire a demolition crew, you don't even need to worry about cleaning out the house. As long as there are no hazardous chemicals in it, the demolition experts can just knock it down for you. However, you may want to remove unique features or family heirlooms. Items like fireplace mantels and mosaics should definitely be pulled out and repurposed. Additionally, you may even want to save some of the timber in the old family home and integrate it into the walls, doors or furniture of your new house.
Replace the house with something commemorative.
Once the house has been demolished, you may want to place something special on the land where it once was. If you are building your house on the exact same site as the old one, you could place a small plaque or special bench in the backyard, commemorating the family home. If you are putting your new house on another site or if you already have your new home built elsewhere, you could add something larger. For example, if you have torn down your grandparents home, you may want to plant a tree for every grandchild in that spot. Once the demolition crew is done, they take away all the rubble, so you can easily use the spot as you wish.
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18 July 2016
We needed to get a new granny flat built, as ours was starting to look shabby and had a roof leak we couldn't stem. We knew it would need some upgraded features so that we could start renting it out for extra income. I spent a lot of time researching which features get the best rental returns and how to get the granny flat built as quickly and effortlessly as possible. I read a lot from a lot of online sources and interviewed other home owners who have new granny flats so we could get the best structure built. This blog has tips for people looking to build new granny flats for their home.