The horror and the humour of home renovation

Pam and Arthur Tombs started a small reno that quickly got out of hand. It’s a story many Australians will be familiar with …

Over it: Pam and Arthur Tombs in their kitchen. Picture: Cassandra Tombs

It started with a small job. Pam and Arthur Tombs wanted to replace the kitchen windows of their charming old house in the Adelaide Hills – the family home, built in 1911 with local stone and flanked by a tree-lined creek, where they raised their two kids after ­escaping the Melbourne rat race 45 years ago. So they had those rotting timber-framed kitchen windows taken out and replaced with schmick new aluminium ones. That was the small job. But somehow it spawned a very big job: a sprawling, domino-effect renovation campaign that lasted months.

Pam and Arthur (who are 83 and 90 respectively, would you believe it) were so over it by the end. Their daughter Cassandra snapped this shot on her iPhone during a visit when their kitchen was festooned in painters’ drop sheets. “They were just at the point where hope and despair ­collide,” says the former official photographer for the ­Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “They did this accidental American Gothic type pose with their wine ­glasses and I thought, ‘Oh, I have to get a picture of this…’”

So how did the reno get so out of hand? “One thing led to another,” Pam sighs cheerfully. “It started with, ‘Why don’t we do this and that while we’re replacing the windows?’ And it got to the point of, ‘Oh God, when is this going to end?’” Their place in the Basket Range now sports a new back deck and pergola and a revamped laundry, as well as modern downlights, new kitchen benchtops and a fresh paint job. So they’re finished now? “Well, sort of,” Pam says.

The couple married in 1968 and were early tree-changers, decamping to the Basket Range in search of more space and more time to spend with their young kids. Pam worked as a teacher, while Arthur was in the toy business, first as US giant Mattel’s man in Australia, selling Hot Wheels cars and Barbie dolls, then as an independent retailer. In retirement, she loves gardening while he happily does whatever is ­required of him – “Digging holes, weeding, chopping wood,” he chuckles. They have ’roos and birds galore, koalas in the trees, and regular visits from the grandkids. It’s their happy place. Says Pam: “We’re not moving!”