Boundary Fence Update, Driveway (Project 8) and Bonus Project ( 8.5 :)

Bonus Project – Concrete path around the house, two sets of steps and pads for the laundry, outdoor dining and the back of the house.

Outdoor dining area

2m Deep Pier

Blue, one of the concreters.

Fence panels

We’re on the map!

Surfmist slats

Most of the work was completed just in time for Christmas. We even managed to get a few solar powered lights in.

It’s finally starting to feel like a home. The front fence and driveway made a huge difference.

We even managed to get some green on the site. These are Australe Boomers and our daughter named them after the HG star-crossed lovers.

Front boundary fence and retaining walls

‘Project 7’ is at long last under way and we are really excited to see how it turns out!

A bit of shaping to create a flat courtyard and a flower bed.

Driveway preparation. We need to do this because our boundary fence will be installed before the driveway and we want to avoid height issues in the section of fence that comes down to the house from the road.

Post holes.

Western boundary.

Front and down the one side of the garage.

Other side of the garage.

‘Aluminiumhenge’?

Landscaping II

Pool and Turf – Projects 4 and 5

Tiling

Top soil for Sir Walter Buffalo turf

Makeshift pool pump cover

Landscaping I

It’s been a crazy time since we took handover of the house. Building the house now seems like the easy part!

We seriously underestimated the amount of landscaping that would be required. Our block is 800sqm and we have to find something to do with the remaining ~550sqm. An absolute legion of earthwork crews have totally decimated the hard work that previous owners have put into the land over the past 60 or so years.

We set off to prioritise the many projects that would be required and ended up with the following list (to start with):

1. Construct backyard fence, with 1m high retaining wall to reduce slope in backyard
2. Construct concrete steps to access backyard and finish retaining wall
3. Construct retaining wall fence and a gate for pool and general safety
   (Reason: retaining walls up to 2m in height, pool regulations)
4. Swimming Pool
   (Reason: only access to backyard via neighbours driveway will not be available for much longer)
5. Turf the backyard
6. Piers for 60sqm deck
   (Reason: machinery access will be problematic once we have a driveway)
7. Front boundary fence and retaining walls
   (Reason: security and should be done before driveway)
8. Driveway
   (Reason: we’re on a slope that’s slippery at the best of times and with the rainy season fast approaching access into our house will become an issue)
9. Fence side boundary

Project 1

<whinge>We’ve had dealings with two landscapers and both were very difficult to work with and produced substandard work for a small fortune. First landscaping lesson learnt, don’t use landscapers. They tend to try their hands at everything and aren’t really master of anything in particular. Disclaimer: There’s a chance that we were really unfortunate with the landscapers we ended up with. Regardless, in future I’ll DIY or get specialists in to do bits and pieces.</whinge>

Decommissioning of chain wire fence in backyard.

New timber paling fence going up.

Trench for the pool wiring.

Back retaining wall with increased height drainage pits and extra soil being put into the site.

Project 2

Form work for concrete steps.

Matching coloured concrete for steps with the pool tiles and driveway.

Project 3

Side fence on top of retaining wall.

Steps, and pool fence going up. DW pretending to be doing the work! JKS

Keys!

Handover was done on 18 July 2013.

Lights, Alarm, Carpets, etc

The alarm was installed on Friday 28 June 2013.

Most of our lights were installed on Saturday 29 June 2013. We’re going relatively green with mostly LED and ECO friendly choices.

LED fan in Katie’s bedroom, looking towards the kids zone. The fan is probably a little too low, but that can be adjusted later.

LED downlight. The beam angle on these downlights are not fantastic – we’re hoping they will work out as they were a last minute replacement (from our rapidly disappearing contingency budget!) for the builders range downlights.

Builders range downlight.

Kids zone

Family

Family and dining

Media

Kitchen pendants (2/3 installed when the photo was taken)

Photo taken through the stacker door (as we don’t have access to the house when the tradies are not around :().

We think our kitchen will be pretty close to the kitchen that we roughly based ours on i.e. this one.

We ordered our carpets! Tick – another big item is off the looooong list. After a lengthy research period (25 minutes), we decided on the Cosy Comfort SmartStrand Silk range, narrowed down to two colours Riverstone (darker sample in the photo below) and Crystal Stream.
(PS. They’re not blue at all – funny how colours can show up completely different on computer monitors.)

We went with Crystal Stream (on the right in the above photo), with a Cloud 9 underlay. Installation is booked for 22 July 2013.

Water tank.

Solar water

Solar power was also connected in the last week.

Retaining wall drainage is now linked to the site drainage. These pipes will be covered with soil.