Rockin' it

March 25th, finally finished depositing the rocks in the garden bed out front of the house.

Not much to look at but there's 15 bags of rocks in this little piece of work, 300kg's in all, luckily they were on special and exactly the right colour.

The new-look front of the house...

A little closer....

Some more native plants down along the fence...

Rock garden close-up...

Around the side and back, passionfruit vines, (in red, black and gold) a chilli bush and plant with yellow and orange flowers (dunno what the name is) that looks really nice :)

Kiss my grass!

December 9th, grass laid front and back, just got to put a bit more soil and sand between the turf sections.

Then it's back to regular mowing, after the next few weeks of multiple waterings.

Well, at least no more dirt getting blown around :)

And the neighbour in back has FINALLY agreed to pay the share for the fence! Major achievement!!

Really dirrrrty!!!

Saturday, December 3, just finished weeding all that lovely native growth front and back.

Much spreading (oh my aching back) of the 10 cubic metres of topsoil and now all ready for rotary hoe man to come and mix with the clay underneath.

Soon as that happens, grass is getting laid - woohoo, no more exposed dirt!! Then I can finish the fencing - YaaaayyyyYY!!!

After that, it;s down to working out what plants, trees, shrubs, flowers to get and where to put them :) :)

Front yard after soil spreading...

Back yard after soil spreading...

A word of caution to everybody building in a new estate, if you're having fencing issues with a neighbour, just google and check it they're selling - that could be the reason why they stall!

Sealed, shuttered and blinded.

August 7th, we've been in a few days and finally have everything out of the apartment and in the new house, who'd have thought so much could fit into the apartment and spread out all thru the house with more furniture to come yet.

Moving right along, another driveway pic, this time with the sealer applied but still waiting for them to come back and complete the cutting.

Stove, rangehood and other kitchen goodies installed at last.

Finally, the shutters for the master bedroom, interior and exterior view.

The fancy, schmancy, new-fangled stye rollers for the man-cave, the family, meals, rumpus and laundry and the romans in the theatre and remaining bedrooms. Finally all done except for the venetians in the en-suite and bath which are yet to arrive.

Those rollers are quite nifty, just a very slight adjustment of the chain and they go from 50/50 to fully shut or they can be rolled up totally out of the way. Much prefer these to verticals.

Stay tuned for the final items in the saga when the driveway is finally completed and the fences go up - at least the multiple road trips are over with for a while.

It ain't easy being green :)

July 23rd, at last our drive has been poured, just the widening of the crossover and the cement out back of the car palace to be completed.

The evolution of the drive, things are looking good with the initial prep before formwork arrives

the suspense is just too much to bear as the truck is backed in...

So can I call myself a greenie now? Maybe I should have ordered a less "vibrant" colour?

Ahhh, come on now, it'll be ok once you get used to it, very grass-like really :)



Ahhh, almost forgot that it wasn't really finished yet....



It'samazing what a nice wash with the exposing solution and a power sprayer shower will do....

Just the couple of coats of clear sealer to be applied now - more pics to come :)

We've been KEYED!!

July 13th, (very appropriate as the house number is also 13)

Wouldja believe it? We just handed over thousands and thousands of dollars and all we got was a heap of lousy keys,some paper and three garage remote controls! :)

Oh yeah, also got a bunch of documents (mainly certificates for plumbing, electrical etc) and a nice little Coles Myer gift card from Carlisle - nice touch Carlisle, not expected but definitely appreciated.

So now we've got about 30 or 40 keys in total ranging from entry to security door to window to garage door - the Xmas tree will look very fancy.

The whole thing was pretty much anti-climactic, as we signed off on 3 items to be corrected (very minor) passed the bucks over and then received the hand-over package before shuffling off.

Must admit though, the build has been generally very relaxed, good choice to go with Carlisle and hope everybody else coming up to this point with them has the same overall happy experience. For this, many thanks have to go to our great site supervisor, Jarrod.

Further updates will appear as things progress and we move in, with luck the driveway will start on Saturday and be finished at the latest the following weekend, by which time our blinds etc shoud be almost ready. Pictures will be updated with each of these ;)

Wrapping it up!

July 9th, it's pretty much all done, still have the kitchen appliances to be installed but other than that we're up to handing over the final cheque and getting the keys in exchange this coming week.

They've come thru and had another big clean, so looking quite good but some scratches here and there will have the painters coming back for minor touch-ups, plus they'll need to arrange the replacement of a couple of scratched windows - all in all, minor stuff.

Some repeat pics (overload coming up) but generally all in a much cleaner state than previous posts, including starry sky ceiling in the theatre room - doesn't come across as well in the photos as in person, oh well.

So starting with the main bedroom and ensuite

Moving right along the front hallway to the lounge(my study that is) and the theatre room with the starry ceiling..

Now to the family room, meals area and kitchen - lotsa kitchen shots :)

Hallway to the laundry, one back bedroom, bathroom and laundry..

Back of the house...

The front with a tiny bit of walnut wood trim above the porch and the huge front yard - at least all the footpath has been cleaned up :)