Creative DIY Renovation of a Small Melbourne Apartment, 42sqm/452sqft

Never Too Small

Includes paid promotion. For more information about Music Frame, visit Samsung.com: https://www.samsung.com/audio  Sustainable building officer Shaun Tompkins transformed his 42sqm/452sqft Melbourne apartment into a bright, sustainable home on a tight budget of just $20,000 (AUD). With help from friends, Shaun took on most of the work himself, repurposing materials and adding thoughtful details like reclaimed timber shelves and cork flooring. Clever space-saving solutions include a multi-functional storage unit, an under-counter microwave nook, and a pull-out chopping board made from leftover benchtop. To combat Melbourne's climate extremes, Shaun insulated the walls and ceiling, which, along with natural ventilation strategies, helped eliminate the need for air conditioning. His design blends vintage charm with practicality, making this DIY apartment a cozy, eco-friendly retreat.  00:00-01:52 Introduction  01:52-03:26 Samsung Music Frame  03:26-07:12 Kitchen 07:12-09:38 Dining Area 09:38-12:00 Lounge Area 12:00-15:26 Bedroom  15:26-17:53 Bathroom  17:53-19:02 Conclusion   Watch the original apartment tour here ✨ https://youtu.be/rGAJdoOLijw?si=2cVOeEL1DYQM5UGB   #smallapartment #architecture #Musicbeautifullyframed  #samsung #musicframe #interiordesign @Samsung   How I live small Ep. 3 Project Name: 380 Albert  Owner:  https://www.instagram.com/380__albert/  Produced by New Mac Video Agency Creator: Colin Chee Director: Coline Chee & Nam Tran Cinematographer: Nam Tran Producer: Lindsay Barnard  Editor: Jess Ruasol  Music from artlist.io: Will You Play with Me by Lalinea Tropical Nights by Yestalgia  Late Night - Instrumental Version by Kyle Cox  A Trip by Sig Howler wonderful by dannyminus  Flower Pot by Magiksolo  Come back Home - Instrumental Version by Roy Reemy  Home by Aves  Nobody Got Time for Love - Instrumental Version by Jimit Velvet Sky by Ariel Shalom   Sundays by Aves  Samsung promo: Day Off by Aves & Late Night by Kyle Cox  Share you projects with us- https://www.nevertoosmall.com/submissions Subscribe to our newsletter- https://www.nevertoosmall.com/subscribe  Check out our store- https://www.nts-store.com Website- https://www.nevertoosmall.com Instagram-  https://www.instagram.com/nvtsmall Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/nvtsmall

Transcript

00:02Ciao ragazzi, mi chiamo Sean, benvenuti nel mio appartimento.

00:07Are you Italian?

00:09No, I'm trying.

00:14I'm Sean, I'm a Sustainable Buildings Officer for local council.

00:20Welcome to my apartment, which I renovated myself.

00:24My budget for the renovation was $20,000.

00:27There were a few little things that kind of pushed it over,

00:30but I think if I exclude the couches, it's maybe like $22,000-ish.

00:36It's like Grand Design when they're like always over time over budget.

00:39So I didn't really have a time, but I did go over budget, but only time again.

00:44To make the budget work, I had to take on the majority of the work myself,

00:49which was okay because I have a can-do attitude.

00:53I only really paid for the essential trades like an electrician and a plumber.

00:58I was very fortunate to have friends help me with free labour,

01:03particularly during the demolition.

01:04The rest of the work I just watched YouTubes on how-to,

01:08and then just had a crack at it.

01:14This apartment is about 40 square metres.

01:18These old six-pack brick apartments are really good bones.

01:21It had the typical landlord paint job and grey carpets and grey blinds,

01:27so it was a bit drab.

01:28So I just wanted to bring a bit more light into the space.

01:31I did have a pretty intense Pinterest board going.

01:37I wouldn't say there was any specific influences other than really nice like timber joinery and like tile work.

01:49On the right, we've got the storage which was originally here.

01:55And it was actually the wardrobe.

01:57It had like a rail that only went this way,

01:59so you could probably only hang about eight things in there anyway.

02:02A bit of a pantry with a linen closet.

02:05Painted that and used some old flooring to create shelves.

02:09Yeah, there's a power point in there and I was going to put a microwave in there

02:14and then that kind of got lost in translation,

02:16which is like funny because it's like me doing everything, so.

02:19These doors and in the kitchen were the old handles on the original kitchen,

02:24so we've tried to reuse anything we could.

02:27I used to live in a studio apartment with a bar fridge.

02:30That little internal freezer thing inside used to drive me crazy.

02:34Yeah, I made the decision early to get a normal size like fridge and freezer,

02:38which we got on marketplace.

02:40I've strategically placed these to hide little like dings that it has in it.

02:47From start to finish, the whole renovation probably took six months.

02:52I was working four days a week and so for three days of the week,

02:56I would come to the apartment and probably put in a six or eight hour day,

03:00depending on how many beers I drank with some friends.

03:04The bench top is from Urban Salvage.

03:07So they do recycled and reclaimed timber.

03:10I think one of the scariest moments of doing the apartment was drilling the holes

03:16and cutting with the jig the shape out for the induction and for the sink,

03:21just knowing that it was a thousand dollar piece of timber.

03:24You know, measure twice, cut once.

03:27The chopping board is an off cut of the bench and it's just been like sanded and oiled.

03:32I made maybe five of them and gave them to all my friends that helped with the apartment

03:39and thought that was sufficient compensation for countless hours of their labor.

03:44I don't know if they agree or not.

03:45But we've built the kitchen around the hot water unit in the corner.

03:51I just need to cut the silicone and remove the top and then you can access that.

03:57And the timbers kind of bowed a bit.

03:59So it's made it look a little bit worse.

04:01I probably would have spent a little bit more time in like making that even more accessible to get into.

04:06But you live in, you learn the first time you install the kitchen, I guess.

04:10It probably wasn't until I renovated this apartment that I realised that maybe I'm not a perfectionist

04:16and maybe it was a budget thing, maybe it was a time thing.

04:19I was conscious I was at my friend's house rent free and had to get out of there.

04:23But I feel like I was at 95% and send it as opposed to spending more time on that.

04:32Doing the kitchen through IKEA was pretty easy.

04:35The genius part about it is the IKEA invoice will show you the fronts that you didn't order as well

04:42and the sizes of them.

04:43I took all those like sizes that I needed and went to Plyco and used their custom cut service

04:50and was able to just get premium birch plywood all cut to size how I needed it

04:55and then gave it a light sand and then used resine colour wood stain, pistachio green kind of finish

05:01and a clear sealer on the top.

05:04I've installed an extra bench top that slides out

05:08and then you can just do one side.

05:14I've got larger things recycling the glass general and Fogo in there.

05:22Anywhere there was extra plywood I tried to just reuse that into everything

05:27so the shelf wasn't really on the cards either to begin with.

05:30I just had off cuts.

05:33I opted for a round tulip table.

05:36I had to go to marketplace and get a second hand IKEA one.

05:40The chairs were marketplace find as well.

05:43I don't know if I have any specific advice about buying furniture second hand.

05:48It's more about the shapes that you want.

05:50I think that's the most important like the chairs were reupholstered.

05:53About as easy as making a pillow case really.

05:56You can spruce like things up as well if you need.

06:00Going for old durable materials that you can bring back to life or kind of make your own.

06:06Nice shelf here.

06:07Another marketplace purchase.

06:10I think it's a old IKEA Niklas or it's a like really good replica.

06:15Kind of works as a display shelf for the pottery and the vases that I've got and a few plants

06:20and the cameras.

06:22I don't know where the Hello Kitty thing came from.

06:24I bought this for $50 a marketplace as well and it is Hello Kitty branded.

06:28I feel people are less threatened when I'm taking a photo of them with the Hello Kitty you know camera.

06:35The most interesting thing on this shelf is this little dongle here which is a temperature and humidity tracker.

06:43It sends the data to my phone so I've got all the live down to like minute intervals of the

06:49temperature and the humidity in here.

06:51Since I moved in the average temperature has been 20 degrees on the dot with no air conditioner and no

06:58like heater.

06:59And the lowest it got down to was 12.5 degrees.

07:03I'm not sure where the motivation originally came for cork flooring but it's a really good acoustic insulator.

07:09Really good thermal properties as well and it's a natural regenerative kind of sustainable material.

07:16I think the flooring costs about two and a half thousand dollars maybe two thousand dollars.

07:22It was a chunk of the budget as well but then the saving is in installing it myself.

07:27The product is called ready cork and they're just tiles that clip together so it's a floating floor.

07:33With the help of my friends we're able to remove the carpet and get back to the concrete slab.

07:38I started in the opposite corner of the apartment so I ended in the most high traffic or the the

07:45problem area say the kitchen.

07:46If there is any damage and I need to replace any of the flooring in the kitchen it's pretty simple

07:52to start peeling back the flooring from that corner and then rebuild in with the excess that I have.

08:00Decided not to have a TV or a cabinet on that side and instead have gone for the lush bachelor

08:08pad ceiling mounted projector with the PlayStation.

08:15The motivation of me doing the majority of the renovation work was probably to save money so I could spend

08:23money on treats like a three-piece Mondo sofa.

08:27Which was probably one of the only things in here that wasn't purchased on Marketplace.

08:33Because we're on the top level of the apartment and the roof is above us it was a hot box

08:37when I moved in there's actually just an air gap there was no insulation in the ceiling so one of

08:42the major things in the renovation was to skin the plaster off the ceiling.

08:46Put pink bats in the ceiling R3.5.

08:50The internal walls of the like west which is here and the north in here and in the bedroom as

08:56well we use what is called Cooltherm K17 board.

09:00It's got a layer of rigid insulation and then a plasterboard finish and so this gives the walls an extra

09:06R1.15.

09:08So all the windows on the north and the west have had the window frame extended out.

09:15Before we did any of the renovation a mate of mine came over and we used a thermal gun and

09:20you could see the heat just coming through the brick walls.

09:23So that drove the decision to do the K17 board on the inside of the wall.

09:28And essentially that was just glued and stuck onto the existing like render brick wall and then screw at certain

09:36points to kind of like fix it there.

09:38And then just like you would a regular plaster you finish it.

09:42The insulation in the ceiling and the wall probably cost me about $5,000 and then another $2,000 to

09:50pay someone to re-plaster the ceiling.

09:52That was almost a third of my budget was just on the insulation but it was really important to me

09:57and has made a world of difference.

09:58We had the heat wave here a few months ago where we had three days that were 38 degrees.

10:05I believe the internal temperature of the apartment started to creep up to 32-ish degrees.

10:11So obviously then I'd go to the pool and the pub but for 98% of the year, 99%

10:16of the year, it's been a really comfortable space to be in.

10:21I added this door or changed the door to fluted glass which was like almost everything in this apartment another

10:28marketplace find.

10:29I had this like fear as I was drilling it out that I was gonna hit the glass and it

10:34was gonna like shatter into a million pieces and with it all my dreams.

10:39And then the door has, I've just got a hook up here that can kind of hold the door open.

10:45For the majority it stays open but if I have a really good breeze in here, I'll like latch it

10:51open.

10:51The electrical boards actually against this wall so we brought a conduit down and there's a power point for the

10:57computer and the laptop and like charging my phone and stuff like that.

11:01The old door that was here was just a hollow cord door but it wasn't glass and I chopped that

11:07in half and turned it into the desk here.

11:10And it's just kind of bolted underneath to the wall and some cheap little IKEA legs here to hold it

11:15up.

11:16I've got an LED strip light underneath there.

11:19If I'm working until the evening it's really easy to like turn on and it just like throws a warm

11:23light behind the computer.

11:26You can see I've decorated the space with my Italian homework.

11:30Learning Italian I think is a part of my long term retirement strategy.

11:36Mi piace la spiaggia.

11:38I like the beach and I like Italian food.

11:42And I went there once on a work trip and it was really like fun and I've got a few

11:47really good friends over there.

11:49My friend Marcus who does Blue House Studios in Sydney as an architect and a designer.

11:55He was able to help me design these and then the file that he produced went straight to Plyco and

12:02they were able to cut the curves.

12:04And it just arrived flat packed and just needed a light sand.

12:08This is the brief that the architect got.

12:11That and a text message that said, can you design this shelf?

12:18Owning a bunch of tools isn't practical if you're only going to use them once, you know, every couple of

12:23years.

12:24So I was fortunate enough in this area.

12:26We've got a tool library.

12:27I've paid an annual subscription there.

12:3080, 85 dollars at the time.

12:33And was able to like borrow all the tools that I needed to renovate this apartment.

12:38So I only own a drill.

12:42The wardrobes themselves are like simple IKEA packs.

12:46They were two separate purchases on Marketplace.

12:50I ordered just like I did with the kitchen.

12:52The custom cut from Plyco, stained them in the same pistachio green.

12:57You can see there's a bit of a shadow line that's all on the top and we've tried to maintain

13:02that.

13:02So it kind of looks like it's not floating, but not completely pinned against the roof.

13:07This is probably where the majority of my clothes are and I don't have a nice slide out accessory for

13:14the shoes.

13:14They just get kicked under there.

13:16I was watching the other episode you guys did.

13:18I was a bit envious after I saw that episode actually, that I should redo this and make it look

13:23nicer.

13:24Ignore my bike, which is another work in progress.

13:27We've got the ceiling fan here.

13:29So like all the other lights in the apartment, it was those old oyster lights.

13:32I feel like they're there just to capture like dead bugs.

13:35We got rid of that and have put a ceiling fan in and it's got a light, which I try

13:41not to use.

13:43I'm more of a lamp man.

13:48So I've probably been living here for 12 months and I've just realized there's still like paint on the under

13:52on the underside of the door handle.

13:54So this is real.

13:55This is no Hollywood.

13:56This is how we live.

13:58We've got the bathroom in here.

14:02I've got some clothes hanging behind the door here.

14:04I think I panicked.

14:05It was a bit of a temporary thing that's turned into like medium term, but really handy like for a

14:11small apartment.

14:12This was all white tiles originally with like a half cast iron bar.

14:17Probably the heaviest thing I've ever picked up my whole life.

14:19We needed a car jack to lift it out of the concrete fittings that it had been like stuck into

14:26the wall.

14:27My dad has done some like waterproofing and tiling in his later years.

14:31He's like 70 now.

14:32I bought a plane ticket for him and dragged him down to do some unpaid labor for me.

14:37If you watch this, cheers dad.

14:39This was a like marketplace find has a bit of space to, you know, hold things as I'm kind of

14:45using them.

14:47This is again, like made kind of with off cuts underneath.

14:50It's actually hiding the plumbing.

14:52I can slide under and still access the pipe work.

14:56The glass is a double sided tape in there.

14:58So it's not, it's not overly permanent.

15:00The only thing about having something exposed like this is the other day I dropped something.

15:05I dropped one of these and it fell down and it landed on, on my tap.

15:10So I'm a bit bummed out.

15:11I've got a little dent now.

15:12Oh, my stick on toilet brush.

15:14Yeah.

15:14So it was a gift from an, I want to say ex or a friend or an ex, but she

15:19came over.

15:19I had a toilet brush, which obviously wasn't cutting it probably functionally and aesthetically.

15:25So bless her.

15:26She bought me this little like stick on toilet brush, which is just kind of, you know, double sided tape

15:31to the wall.

15:32The bathroom probably took four to six weeks because I was at a friend's house rent free.

15:38I kind of wanted to get out of the space as quick as I could.

15:40So I moved in here without the like bathroom being completely done.

15:44And so the toilet was always working, but I was like showering at the office or at the gym for

15:49a couple of weeks,

15:49which is a good motivator to get your bathroom done is to be relying on it and not have one.

15:56So it makes you work a bit faster.

15:59So we'll go down now to where I've got my washing machine.

16:02I mean, a completely shared space would probably be even better.

16:07There are shared laundries in between each of the levels.

16:12The remaining improvements that I would love to make to the apartment would be double glazing and external shading,

16:21but that's obviously a significant cost.

16:23I think internally it's landed where I want it to be.

16:27We're almost as energy efficient as a brand new apartment.

16:31I have a bunch of friends that have since told me to quit my job and do this as a

16:36full time job.

16:36I don't know. I don't know who'd pay me to give them advice on how to renovate their apartment,

16:42but it was pretty fun.

16:43I think I was a bit traumatized immediately after the process.

16:48It's probably been about nine, twelve months since I completed the bulk of the renovations.

16:53And so I'm almost ready to get involved in another project, maybe for a friend.

17:00And definitely have dreams of like maybe building or renovating my own house in the future

17:05and can take all the learnings and the mistakes that I made from here and turn them around.

17:17I got to do.

17:19I got to see one of the two of my things, but you can take a little bit of time

17:21for me.

17:21And then you can pick two people, some people and friends and friends.

17:22You can use a great job, and there's a great job, and that's something we can do.

17:23If you're an old man, just get this into an old man, you can use this to be a good

17:23job.

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