Competition winners!

Thank you for your entries, we had some fascinating entries in our funniest renovation story competition and we will explore those topic in future articles on this site. The winning entries that gave the judges the biggest laughs are below. We hope these stories don't put you off renovating!

Winning entries

Winner $250 Gift Certificate - Lisa, Nowra NSW

We moved into a house 4 years ago which had been owned by a couple with dubious tastes. The green suede effects were fine, except it was on every wall, not just a feature wall. In the kitchen it's was 1/2 height, with a wallpaper border araldited onto the join with the regular apricot wall colour! My husband would go home early every night that summer and get the sander out to sand off the suede effect. I'd come home every night to something resembling the Incredible Hulk! Worse still, the kids rooms were blue suede effects! That week, I'd come home to Papa Smurf! There's still a slight smidge of the suede effect under the neutral vanilla cream wall colour now.

Winner $50 fuel card - Elaine, TUMUT NSW

30 years back, I was more invincible than I am now. The last touch to lengthy renovations was making the garage useful. In workman's overalls, very pregnant, I was on a small set of steps affixing strong purpose-made hooks for spades and garden tools. The steps wobbled throwing me sideways against the wall. One overall strap caught on a hook. The steps went down suspending me by the clothing. 65 minutes of the best wedgie later, my neighbour heard me calling and freed me. He told the whole town.

Winner $50 fuel card - Alison, Arundel QLD

We were overdue with our second child and hubby wanted to knock down a wall to relocate our front door. I told him to go ahead because even if I went into labour, there'd be plenty of time as our first took 17 hours. He started first thing in the morning and to give me something to do, each time he knocked a brick out, I'd pick it up and move it aside to help keep his work area clear. At noon, whilst picking up a brick, I felt a twinge but ignored it. A few bricks later it was more than a twinge so I mentioned it to hubby. He decided to phone the doctor just in case who told him to get me to hospital immediately as he would be delivering our baby in about three hours. After labouring for 17 hours with the first I wasn't convinced and told hubby it was OK to keep working but our son was not going to wait. He was born 3 hours later with the fastest made makeshift "door" covering a gaping hole that lead straight into our house and a brick dust covered hubby.

Winner $50 fuel card - Kym, Ballina NSW

After a mammoth renovation - kitchen, bathroom, sunroom, study, we were ready for a much needed final cleanup. Hubby hooked up the Rainbow to the tap and started in on it. Deciding to keep out of the way I ducked out to the garden but noticed something odd through the window.. the pressure had backed up to our hot water system, in the ceiling, and it was POURING through every available gap INTO the house! It took almost a week to dry things out, then we had to repaint the ceilings and re-carpet!