Where the heart_h is

New Beginnings

2012-01-30T06:45:00.000+08:00

Just over 4 1/2 years ago we decided to move away from the city to live in a smaller community. So we packed up and headed several hours south and ended up about 35 kms from the coast in a small rural township. We bought 3/4 of a acre in town and built a new home.
Life being what it is, my new job is a little further travel wise than my old one. 120 kms round trip each day, thankfully through some beautiful country.
Life is busy and very full.
My husband is about to start a new p/t job in the next day or so. The house is full of anticipation/excitement/trepidation as it's his first venture into office work and day time work in 13 1/2 years.So a whole new and exciting world is opening up.
Eldest has just got his driver's learning permit and is about to start his final year of high school and younger son is about to start high school. This will be a big year for us.
Paving will be taking a bit of a back seat as everyone settles into both new and old routines.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T05:24:00.003+08:00

edges

2011-11-30T06:17:00.000+08:00

Paving edges are almost finished now. It looks so very neat.

bushfires

2011-11-27T07:52:00.001+08:00

There have been some bushfires to the south and south east of us here. 6 separate ones in fact. The fire at Margaret River saw the destruction of thirty one houses, four sheds and nine chalets, including the historic Wallcliffe House, while 16 houses and one shop were damaged at Prevelly, Gnarabup and Redgate.

I took the dog for a walk yesterday evening. The smoke isn't too thick here as we are about 90mins drive away from most of the fires. But it is thick enough here to make for an eerie sky. Have heard 2 planes go overhead today though Hope that doesn't mean more fires.

Almost home.

A few snapshots

2011-11-19T07:03:00.015+08:00

Just a little progress around the place.

The front gate went on. We decided to go for a "pool" type gate as they are much lighter than a traditional gate. Attempting to dig a deeper hole for a bulkier and longer support post for a heavier gate would have been a major drama in our rocky ground.

Doggy door frame arrived from the UK finally. It was cheaper to buy the same kit from there than to buy it locally from Perth and have it posted down ( by over $70)

or to buy it even more locally ( by over $100)

We've bought some paving. Around 240m2 in fact. They are 2nd's. Given we could easily use another 100m2 with ease and end up spending closer to 20k for fancy paving we've decided to opt for a less fancy paver and keep costs down. With 2nds it means a little more cracking, some bowing, and a bit more variation in size and colour. But overall well worth the savings as we ended up paying around $5.500 including 2 lots of delivery charges. ( we bought a smaller batch to test the waters then decided to get the lot) The plan is to do a small amount every few days. We're no longer spring chickens and G is pretty much doing it on his own. Doing a brilliant job of it too. The last time paving was done we were around 20 years younger so doing a small amount a few times a week is less strain on the back, the knees and the rest of the body. G semi jokingly said he'll be finished in Feb. I'm holding him to that. Oh to win the lottery and be able to afford to pay some one. :)

At first we decided we quite fancied the underside of the pavers, but as work progressed we realised it wasn't as good a look as we had hoped for. So up they came. Then when the alfresco area was almost completed G worked out why he was having more difficultly than expected in keeping the paving straight. The first pack opened were slightly more square than the rest. Up came the pavers again and they were all relaid in the same direction.

It was amazing just how much dirt had to be dug out to level the ground.

We have little mounds of builders white sand pad sand around everywhere that pavers have been laid. We'll be using it to cover up a bit of rocky ground near the fruit trees once the pavers have been sanded in.

We have baby pink lady apples.

We've left a paver width gap up against the house for all paving areas except where there is a doorway. This will be filled with bluemetal. This is to assist the pest control man. He had told G that they charge almost triple on jobs where they have to drill through paving ( every 1m) to do their sprays as they will not lift pavers. His suggestion was to do the stones. So I guess when our next pestman visit happens we'll see what the bill is.

Ever so nice to sit outside with a cuppa and not be in sand.

After a short break with not so practical paving weather. G started on the front.

Lots of angles. Once all the whole piece paving is set out here G will buy a saw blade and do all the cuts.

Wattle loves roses. He likes to admire them for a second then bites them whole off the plants. He only picks those in bloom that look good never any that have finished and are wilted. His "handiwork" can be seen here on the pavers. Usually he runs off to the lawn with the flower to scatter petals everywhere.

Once the paving is finished I'll build a retaining bed around the rose garden out of the leftover house bricks.

Pets.

Wattle wants to be friends. Mia isn't impressed. No matter how much she hisses and growls at him he whimpers for her and wags his tail and wants to play. (pounce on her)

Updates

2011-09-25T10:05:00.003+08:00

Wattle

He's 17 weeks tomorrow. Has developed a "I'm being naughty" bark when he's doing something he shouldn't. It's a ," Look at me. I've got something/done something/ gotten somewhere forbidden."
Yesterday he dashed into the office while I was sorting out the cat's breakfast because I'd forgotten to put the barricade back up. When I went to "inspect" his current mischief he has a cat pompom toy in his mouth and was very pleased with himself. Can't wait for the doggy door to arrive and be installed. Hopefully the post will come this week as we now have to put his inside bed up in the mornings or he drags it through the house or outside.
He is getting much better at knowing our routines on weekdays. he knows I disappear in the mornings and no longer stands waiting and whining at the door for me to reappear. As soon as he hears the front door go in the afternoon he knows it's me and is standing waiting for me as I open the door into the family room. He's much more compliant about morning nap times and at coming in after his middle of the night toilet break. yippee. No more standing outside trying to find him in the dark and get him to come. He and the cat have not yet reached tolerate stage. He tends to want to bounce at the cat which she of course doesn't like at all. But they more frequently lie on the floor about 1 m apart either side of one of us when we are in the kitchen without a carry on. There is hope.

On the house front.
A small amount of pavers have been ordered and delivered for the alfresco area and the front verandah and path. If these seem to be ok we will be ordering enough to do all the paving areas. The pavers are 2nds and discontinued but I have been informed there are plenty available at the moment so as soon as we know they aren't too much a problem to lay we'll order more. Not sure when w e'll get to lay them but they are a bargain price not to be repeated so it's a case of buy while we can.
There's a lot of time juggling going on at the moment. The weather has finally improved enough to get into the garden and do some work on the massive amount of weeds that have appeared. G spent yesterday whipper snipping the weeds on 1/2 the verge and all the weeds out the front around the driveway area. Remember we are on a corner 3/4 of an acre block so this was no small area.

I'm not keen for his to do the same in the front garden. Too much risk the plants we want to keep will be damaged. I think it will be a matter of weeding while puppy sleeps as they are so bad I need to use a shovel/large weeding fork on some of the larger ones and I can't do this with puppy around.
Pup does enjoy tearing off with any hand weeded weeds, giving them a few bites then returning for a new weed.

We had a bobtail visit the garden yesterday. Luckily G spotted it from the kitchen right near the wire fencing that divides the back from the front before the dog did. I was able to go out and push it through the fencing. I gave it some banana that had been left too long for us to eat. We then let the dog out so he could look at it. What a carry on. I ended up taking the bobtail into a neighbouring block along with the banana treat.

puppy

2011-09-02T18:25:00.001+08:00

Much fencing and prep later. Our laundry finally has some wall shelving for additional storage and a small broom cupboard
And puppy is here.
He still has some growing to do. as he is only 12 weeks old. I'm guessing he'll be about double this size when he finishes growing.

Her's sound asleep under the table at the moment ignoring the dog bed.

A bit blurry but i'm in a rush as usual

2011-08-29T06:59:00.000+08:00

Garden is changing.

2011-08-24T07:22:00.001+08:00

We are still swamped with weeds but there's been a few changes.
Have discovered 4 native kangaroo paws growing in the garden. One has come up in the builders sand pad. No nutrients there at all I would have though. They are still small plants but to get an idea of what they will look like take a look at these ones I purchased and planted last year and earlier this year.

The biggest news for us is that our family has grown. We've introduced pets for the first time in a long time. Although we've had guinea pigs and crazy crabs it's been 10 years since we had a cat or a dog.

Starting with a cat last week. Her name is Mia. She is 5 and her owners moved back to the UK and put her in to CARE Perth rescue. After 9 days she is settling in well. But that's not the finish of the pet news.

After a number of years of research and testing we've found a dog that our eldest can cope with without getting ill. We already knew he didn't seem to have a problem with poodles but we weren't too keen on getting a poodle. So after road testing the parent dog, and checking out 5 different pups from 3 litters we are taking on a Mini labradoodle. His name is Wattle. He will be 12 1/2 weeks old when we get him next Friday. Wattle will potentially be a stud boy for one of the 2 labradoodle breeders here in WA who are part of the labradoodle association in Australia. This means they test for genetic diseases in all their breeding animals, do hip tests at 12 months on future breeding animals and have quite rigid rules about selling dogs and what happens if someone can't keep one.

So there is action in the garden as we prepare. More fencing going up. Photos to come later today if I get time or otherwise added tomorrow.

Links below to the association and to Wattles breeder.

http://www.laa.org.au/
http://www.offtheedgelabradoodles.com/

from the front

2011-06-29T16:48:00.000+08:00

April 26th 2010

June 29th 2011

Same view, Just waiting for as thick a fog. This is the closest we've had so far since the new house went up.

Orchard and forest view to the south.

2011-06-18T17:38:00.003+08:00

Certainly better than looking at someones over grown suburban backyard.

We bought yet another gargoyle today. This one's a concrete "limestone look" one and we also purchased an Emperor Mandarin. The gargoyle looks very much at home perched on a corner of the limestone retaining wall at the front of the house.
We've ordered both a dwarf granny smith and a dwarf pink lady ( pinkabelle) apple tree from the small, in town nursery. They'll call us when they are in.

Trying to decide whether to fertilize or cut the lawn perhaps?

Quick update

2011-06-07T06:43:00.002+08:00

We've added a few plants to some bits of the garden but not a lot.
We've been investigating adding a front gate near the garage and at this stage we have started considering pool gate type fencing as it would be the lightest option.
Had a win last weekend as I discovered one of the pool and spa companies in Bunbury stocked zeolite as a filter medium for some of their pool filters( zeobrite) so was able to get 2 15 kg bags.

Wednesday we went and purchased half a tray of seedlings for a hedge. We now have some people who have bought the property 2 from us and want to get a hedge started. The area is so rocky that the only way to do this is to buy small tube stock and let it find it's own way through the rock.
I've also started on some chicken wire to cover over the post and rail fencing so try and keep the rabbits out. It's hard going. My fingers are soft and they get very sore wiring up the 2 fences with wire. I've gt at least 70 more metres to go. I hope they don't come exploring tonight . My back is sore and I need to stop. Hubby spent almost 3 hours of measuring and digging with a crowbar produced holes big enough to plant small tube stick seedlings. 34 Pincushion Hakea's have now been planted. So now we have a hedge planted. One plant every 1.5 m. The last 3rd became steadily more and more rocky as you can see.
We have one left and 4 other plants to go in later in the week.

Time to get into it

2011-05-21T11:31:00.001+08:00

We've been back a few weeks now and the rains have finally come. The garden bed is swamped by weeds, the roses in desperate need of pruning, veggies need pulling out and new soil put in. New veggies need to go in.
I've pulled up the tomato bushes and as of today, pulled up the carrots. Not a success as the ground was too poor and hard. What we've ended up with has multiple roots and having left them in disgust, today when I finally pulled them up so I can start again, many are split. Still had to get a photo though. If I get lots of improver in I might try again with normal sized carrots but not for a while. (I planted baby ones.)
On Mothers day I planted garlic from a friend. At almost 2 weeks in these are looking pretty good.
Garlic after 13 days.

Snow Peas

Capsicum

Baby Carrots. I didn't enrich the soil enough and make sure it was friable. The seeds germinated and everything looked promising until I started to pull them up. They all had multiple roots. So I left the rest to rot in the ground. Today I decided to pull them up anyway. The results were as I expected, pretty awful. You can see what happens to carrots left in the ground too long.

Time to get organised for the day. I'm off to buy new pruners.

Rain

2011-04-30T08:44:00.000+08:00

We've been so looking forward to rain I had forgotten about the down side.
Back three days now. The garden is covered in green. Not good green but weed green. There are weeds everywhere. Far too many to weed by hand. I will be getting the rake and hoe out and working on clearing them. The drive still looks great but I notice there is some of the white sand mixed through it. Not too happy about that as I think it spoils the look.
Plants in pots seemed to have survived our 8 days away thankfully. I suspect the ground is still as rock hard as ever for digging but I'll need to get into it and plant the hedge. At least one of the grevilleas is looking almost complete dead in it's pot. I have some spongolite and zeolite to collect from a store in Bunbury to dig into the holes for each planting so it depends on whether or not the stock has arrived . Calls to make.
Also need to decide what veggies I want to grow over autumn and winter, buy some soil improver and veggie seedlings. ( or seeds)
Loved all the tropical looking plants around our accommodation in Bali. Took a few pictures but not heaps. Will upload later.

AWAY Soon

2011-04-17T21:03:00.001+08:00

Yes we are off again.
For a week this time.
Birthdays for friends. Celebration time.

I have instructions to find a temple to visit. Not sure which to choose.
I would love to go to Pura Luhur Uluwatu and see the kecak fire dance at sunset but I've heard the monkeys at the temple you are forced to pass are pretty nasty. Trained to steal. so now I'm looking for something else.
Perhaps the temple at Lake Batu-Bali Batur Temple

Or somewhere else just as pretty.
There are main amazing places to see.

I've decided to try and recreate my original traveling blogs here--> Have Passport

I'll add some old blog stuff I saved when geocities died when we get home from Bali. But for now. It's all about Bali.

Driveway Stage 1

2011-04-13T16:13:00.001+08:00

Finally a driveway. We decided to go with findings/tailings/roadbase for our driveway. It's cheap, works for a semi rural in town type block and given the size we eventually want as driveway and parking area, is the most practical option.

Stage one is the section that we currently park on and which leads up to the garage. It's been done with a really fine grade that should compact down very hard. It's finer that the coarse builders pad sand.
Stage two will give us an additional parking area and will be done with bigger/chunkier road base- ( like bluemetal)
There might be a stage three. We are considering putting it down as a ground surface behind the house on the laundry side with pavers for pathways only.

Findings being spread.

Up close.

This area where the ute is parked will be stage two.

Newest happenings

2011-02-25T21:53:00.001+08:00

This week our solar panels have finally been installed.
After 4 quotes last October we agreed to go with the "local guy" ( does 70+ km class as local?)last November and the application went in to the power company. Mum applied in December and got approval in early January and we still hadn't heard. At the end of January we found out we too had approval. Mum's panels are due to be installed next week so we were getting quite frustrated waiting to hear when ours would go up but finally on Monday we got a call from "our man". He was to appear on Wednesday or Thursday to install the panels and return with his electrician on Friday to install the invertor.? Inverter? Hmm one of those.

Anyway panels went in Wednesday and today the inverter. Very pleased. On Wednesday while at work I happened to mention to someone else that we had chosen someone local to do ours and it turned out they'd gone with the same person. They were very happy. The person I spoke said, " He really needs someone to do his paperwork." it's shocking. Well today just proved that point more. We haven't paid a thing. Our system is fully installed and saving us power even though as yet we haven't applied to the power board for them to buy back from us. He is going to send us an invoice for payment and then once we get paid for our recs wants us to pay them on to him. hmmm

He is happy to wait???!!?!! Hubby had to almost chase him down our driveway to get that much info from him.

New camera

2011-02-19T08:23:00.000+08:00

I've decided to add a 2nd blog so that I can play with my new camera and leave this blog as only house related items. I might change my mind later and close it down but for now. Here's the link
http://kexkez.blogspot.com/2011/02/blink.html

I wanted to call the blog Blink. But it seems the name is already taken.

The wall complete

2011-02-06T06:10:00.000+08:00

Days 2,3 and 4 of the wall

2011-02-03T00:03:00.002+08:00

I haven;t got time to add any details so here are some photos to show progress.

Friday Day Two

Tuesday Day Three

Wednesday Day Four

The wall is almost complete.

The stps , some mortar and placement of a couple of half blocks is all that is left. Then they will move the sand for us and it's done Should be finished when I get home from work on Thursday..

Ground works and wall started

2011-01-29T08:56:00.001+08:00

They struck a bit of rock and couldn't quite get down as far as they'd hoped in a few places.

This means several of the bottom row of blocks had to be trimmed slightly where the rock was too hard to scrap/cut through.

It is looking good so far. They've be back on Monday to continue. We have a Tropical cyclone warning that is current at the moment so the weather has been really warm and humid. It was on about 38-39C yesterday when the guys stopped at 1.30.

We have to go outside and do a bit of a clean up later this morning. Pack away their tools and the star pickets etc. Don't want tools flying around the yard in the destructive winds expected later. But right now the rain has stopped and the birds are chirping. There is even a bit of sunshine and some small patches of blue sky. Earlier pretty much all the sky was blue black and grey. No one knows whether the cyclone will peter out before it hits the coast but even if it does high winds are expected. We are only 35 kms from the coast here and until this morning in a direct line for where it was expected to cross the coast tomorrow morning. The weather advisory is that it will now be slightly north of us. ( about 100kms) .

The wall- before

2011-01-20T07:15:00.004+08:00

Today I'm hoping our last retaining wall will be started. This will be for the back and side of the house that is not on view from the street. Once it is finished then we've asked "A" to organise some tailings for our drive way. The blocks arrived yesterday. At least some did. We've been told we will have 71 full sized and 9 half blocks for the wall but only 64 full blocks arrived yesterday. Hopefully "A" our retaining wall man will bring the rest with him.

So here's what it looks like at the moment.

Looking from the front of the house down
the side of the garage to the back The reverse view

Clothes line looking towards the back of the garage

Future step area

Left and right sides of future steps down from the laundry area to the clothes line.

On the Right hand side of the steps is this tree. At the moment it is being buried in sand. Once the retaining wall goes up we can uncover it before it rots. We have the same problem at the back of the house where the retaining wall will turn the corner.

You can see it in this shot where the retaining wall will go. Looking towards the alfresco at the back of the house.

Garden, Bits and Pieces.

2011-01-08T07:40:00.007+08:00

The lawn has now been down 13 weeks and is looking pretty good still. It's not as green as it was when first laid but given the punishing heat we had just over a week ago and the very hot winds that blew for days and days on end I think it is looking pretty good.

I just gave it a molasses watering this morning before G put the sprinkler on. Today being one of our 2 watering days.
Lawn is a bit bumpy. I'm guessing that we'll eventually add a little organic matter to the top of it and try and even it out. We didn't use a compactor just lots of raking to level it out before the lawn was laid.
Our organic soil improver was quite lumpy and had errm additional organic things in it ( pig poo) that meant it wasn't super smooth. I'm hoping it will not hinder the lawns long term development too much.

I've added pea straw to much of the front garden beds. This is a bit thin in places. I could do with a couple more bales. It all takes time and $. Lots of learning going on with the veggies.

Most of the pea straw went down about 2-3 weeks or so after they were planted. But I neglected to add any around my veggies. Big mistake as now my lebanese cucumbers have fried in the heat. Straw is there now ready for my next lot of seedlings. This time I won't make the same mistake. There's a little bit of overflow of the soil improver dirt/compost where the veggies are but behind that where the carrots are and the natives begin its tough going. Sloping level and slightly water resistant. I'll be improving the soil before the new seedlings go in.

Some of the Chilli seeds did germinate. Given the state of the ground I'm surprised I got any to grow at all. They are really struggling.

The abelias are in the rose garden area. This has extra stuff dug in. Not exactly where they are but nearby for the roses. The abelias are a second batch. The first got planted in Dec last year and fried. I kept a few alive but really shouldn't have bothered. They aren't strong and have slowed the development of the mini hedge down. I grabbed some cuttings from else where and grew some new stock myself for a few others and they are tiny but strong and healthy. The larger plants I bought in April.They have been pruned by 1/3 their height twice and are at least 4/ 5 times bigger in size ( thicker and double the height than when we originally got them. They need a prune again now.

I am waiting for large silver birch stock to appear in a few months for 2 more spots. But given the way the tube stock has grown I'm wondering if we should have just bought smaller stock. It probably would have caught up.
Most of the tube stock has been down about 3 months. We haven't given them as much water as I would like and most have tripled in size. They were pretty much in bare dirt the first month or so and the soil is pretty terrible. I didn't add anything to it and it's like silt. Silt and stones.

The "white" clippings you can see around this plant are some EZ cuttings. no runners from them. Hubby has been adding them to the garden.

This is a Grevillea "Ned Kelly." I searched for one of these for about 18 months when w e first moved down here. We had one at our last house and the nectar feeding birds and bees loved it. No one had any stock. Just after we moved into the new house I finally came across one. It wasn't very healthy and was extremely leggy. We have a lot of strong winds here and in the pot it was very top heavy. I cut the top half off and kept it in a pot for another 10 or so months before I was able to plant it. It wasn't a happy plant at all. It was planted right on the boundary of all the rich composted, improved soil that we brought it. It went into shock, the leaves went orange and yellow and I thought it would die. I gave it a number of waters with a solution of... (? can't remember now) to balance the soil ph a bit and now 6 months later it seems to be very happy. Lots of side growth.

I'm quite pleased as yesterday I found more in BIG W. Of all places! ( discount department store for those overseas readers) The store had discounted 4 different varieties of Grevilleas down to less than 1/3 of their normal price which would still have been less than I paid for my last one. and this was one of them. I've bought 3 more to be part of our side ( main road) fence hedge. They were $4.92 each.They are looking a bit dry but are nice shaped plants.

I wouldn't recommend one of these tap fittings. 2 way adapter. from Big W. Thought I'd use a remaining bit of a big W voucher on one of these. Darn thing leaks no matter hard much I tighten it. Hopefully there is a good quality non leak version available at some more, garden orientated store.

Nothing was stirring not even a mouse.

2010-12-25T07:50:00.004+08:00

Of course now the youngest is up and his alarm clock is beeping for the second time. Eldest isn't awake at all yet.

Santa has been.

Above:

The most popular present of the morning.

Eldest has wanted one of these for a few years. We've all had a bit of play with it now though.

Very hard to resist.

Youngest took this last shot with his phone.

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone.

Stay safe.

Christmas isn't far away

2010-12-12T10:43:00.001+08:00

Change

2010-12-05T06:14:00.042+08:00

Woke up quite early this morning. Well ok, far too early. It wasn't even light and it gets light by 5am here.

Decided once it was light to make a cup of tea and go and sit out the back to enjoy it. There was a distant little bit of morning mist but a gleam of sunlight just over in the distance looked promising. Tea made I got myself settled outside. It's been a while since I took some photo's from this perspective so here they are.

A shot down the street to show the new houses, the decimation the developer has created when he cleared the blocks across from us and the little bit of mist over the bush, etc.

The Developer has cleared the blocks of all trees that are in the way of building. He's obviously decided by doing this himself it might help them sell.

...............................................................................

CHANGE

I took some pics and went inside to find a camera cable.. It took me almost 10 mins to find a camera cable and when I returned it was to a creeping mist world.

After a short time I couldn't see beyond the fruit tree netting in the fruit farm behind the house.

Then as I typed this the sun started to shine through and it went bright.

First there was a rainbow.

Then the mist cleared and there was bright blue sky.

By the time I finished typing it had been less than an
hour from start to finsih.

The sun was gone again, hidden behind darkening clouds and a general feeling of gloom. So cold I had to run inside and grab a jumper.

Roses

2010-11-09T18:09:00.002+08:00

Well the roses seem very happy. Last year some garden conditioner was added to the builders sand pad
(wasn't great quality I must admit) and then closer to where each was to be planted some organic soil conditioner was added, dug around etc. ( nice stuff) Then sugar cane mulch was added around each rose. This year they've had a little more sugar cane, but not much, lots of seasol, and molasses added. Then watered and watered and.... finally in September pruned. Then about 2/3 weeks ago they were given one small dose of blood n bone . :) I'll be giving them some seamungus soon. I can't re-mulch them as I've planted ground cover in between all the roses and it is just starting to recover from it's rather rough and savage removal from another garden and quick thrust into my soil. Native wood violets. I'm looking forward to watching them grow. Hopefully it won't be too hot for them.

Lawn is looking rather lush as well. Wet day for the 2nd day in a row. Lots of seed heads appearing in the lawn now.

DH has pretty much decided to go for a push mower again but to buy a brand new one as we had a very old 2nd, 3rd, 5th? hand one before. He mumbled something about self sharpening blades. I'll leave it for him to work it out.

Lawn

2010-10-24T07:58:00.003+08:00

well I'm back from Perth and it's time to update this thread with pictures of our beautiful lawn.

From this:

Close up of the glorious stuff. phew.. ( holds nose)

Add one of these and loads of raking and leveling

and some of this 20 kg of Zeolite and 20 kg of spongolite

To get this

Now add seasol, molasses. seamungus and water and hopefully we'll have a thriving lawn. woohoo

On the vacant block next door

2010-10-15T18:04:00.000+08:00

Some visitors and gardening in rocky soils

2010-09-26T15:41:00.007+08:00

Late yesterday morning the bird sounds we'd been hearing became louder and we discovered we had some visitors. A "splendid Blue Wren" in full mating plummage came for a visit to the alfresco area looking for insects and bringing 2 others with it. We think they were females. It seemed quite unafraid of us watching from our slide of the glass. It investigated the spotlight on a chair, pecking at it. We now assume it was fascinated by it's own reflection but at the time we thought perhaps there were insects and webs on it. Eventually it found a small caterpillar. It shook it about a bit and then swallowed it in one quick movement.

Yesterday we got stuck into weeding most of the main garden bed. It had been over run with a variety of horrid weeds. We got most removed from the bed and some extra soil was shifted to another garden area and planted two leucadendron's down near the boundary fence between the last silver birch and the manchurian pear tree. One is,"Safari Sunset" a lovely red flowered plant and the other an unlabeled yellow

Today was to be a planting day. I got up early and collected 20+ plants, mostly tube stock in preparation for planting from in front of the house.

Now supposedly you are meant to rake your garden areas when preparing them to remove all rocks. If we did that we've have nothing left. So I raked and dragged the rockier sections out of the way and left it at that. I left some rocks to be used as markers for later seed planting.
By mid morning the plants were all in. A mix of native shrubs and ground covers.

Then it was off to the next town to market day to see what I could find there and to the nursery in the same town. I returned with 3 packets of seeds for baby spinach, baby carrots and chilli's as well as punnets of cherry tomato seedlings (8), garlic chives,sweet basil, baby spinach and 5 other small native plants.
After a cup of tea it was off into the garden to plant. I also gathered 17 society garlic plants from my plant collection near the garage. My plan was to plant the garlic around the outside of the vegetable area hopefully reducing the "food" aroma that will waft towards the bush where the rabbits live.
The society garlics closest to the retaining wall need to be shifted. 3 of them are too far out of line.

Everything planted, I watered and headed in for a cold drink and a late lunch. It's done. The ground is dusty in parts, rich with added soil conditioner in other parts. These sections will be for non natives and veggies. I have to investigate some thing to help out our "ned kelly" grevillea as it's being overwhelmed by the enriched soil it's been planted in.

Spring

2010-09-21T07:54:00.002+08:00

The trees are all starting to show signs of the warmer weather. The Manchurian Pear has been in blossom for a while and now it has a good show of leaves as well. The Tallow wood tree is budding, the silver birches have leaves , although they still have some growth to go. The flowering plum has some tiny little leaves just appearing.

Manchurian Pear

Flowering Plum

Tallow Wood Tree

Silver Birches

There are so many things to plant. I did just three on the weekend.
Magnolia x soulangeana. I suspect it will be a pink although I'd have loved to have gotten one of the deep red/wine flowered ones.

Port Wine Magnolia- michelia figo

Coprosma Evening Glow

Almost end of term3.

2010-09-16T20:23:00.004+08:00

It's been a busy term at work but nothing much is happening on the house front.
I would still prefer to have reticulation for our garden and lawn at the front of the house but given that we have horrendously poor water pressure the only way to do it is to install a water tank and a pump and G isn't keen to spend the $ on that.

So for a while we were at a stalemate. Eventually I gave up the dream and agreed to us using the money on the final retaining wall. We tried to contact our retaining wall man. No luck. We'd left several messages and then noticed that he'd stopped advertising in the local paper. We think he was away on holidays. ( recently we've noticed his ads have reappeared so hopefully that means his back but in the meantime...) We've found out a good friend who lives about 100 mins away can do the job though so we might end up getting him to do it. Anyway by the time we found out about our friend we were almost due to go on 2 weeks holidays so we delayed organising the work. Now it's starting to warm up I think I'd rather get some lawn before the much hotter weather starts than do the wall. So we are back at square 1.

In the garden there is still some earth to shift before I can get seriously started on the main front garden bed.
The 3 silver birches are starting to get leaves. We still need 2 more. The manchurian pear is in blossom and also getting some leaves. The maple and flowering plum have little leaf buds and 4 of our larger mulberry cuttings not only have leaves but also mulberries! I'm hoping for some nice weather this weekend as last weekend we had an extra 4 teenagers pretty much most of the weekend and I was on parent duty not garden duty. Evenings are still cool as are early mornings so we are still enjoying having a fire at night although I don't think that will happen for much longer.

Finally, 3 months down the track we again have a functioning ute that isn't a complete safety hazard. We've been able to get a replacement fuel tank so there's no more fuel leaking everywhere and the front drive area doesnt stink of petrol. YIppee.

Our holiday.

8 days in Bali. :) We relaxed, wandered Sanur, went to an elephant park and rode the elephants and generally had a lovely time. So much so we've already booked again for next year.

This is where we stayed

.http://www.gardeniaguesthousebali.com/Gardenia/about_us.html

It was a fabulous little place not a hotel complex. 7 rooms around a small pool leading to a coffee shop near the road. This was where we had breakfast and a number of other meals and the most delicious cappuccino's. We've booked to stay here again.

This is the elephant Park in Taro ( near Ubud) that we visited.
http://www.baliadventuretours.com/BAT-Elephant_Park.htm

Lovely grounds and very clean, the elephants look well cared for and getting to hand feed the baby elephants was very exciting.

Lights, paint, action time

2010-07-26T19:05:00.005+08:00

2 weeks holidays and 1 week back at work and now beginning the 2nd week back.

It's been a while since I posted so here's what's been happening.
Rabbit fencing has been placed along the front of the house and I'm working down the long side run now. I still have wiring to do along the base of it.

G painted over the holiday break. Sealed and painted 2 coats- Front hallway,minor bedroom passageway, both bathrooms and loo are complete. The rest of the main living area and games has also had it's 2nd coat.

Part of the Kitchen, the laundry and also the kids playroom still to go. Our office which I still am not sure about as the paint came out significantly different when tinted than it should have. Spare bedroom has been sealed and just needs the 2 colour coats done.

We also added lights to the spare bedroom and a small ball light to the loo. I'll need to get more of these for the pantry and something for our robe recess.

Today. 26th of July the builders electrician came and installed our light fittings.

We now have light fittings everywhere inside the house except those mentioned above.

He also fixed the damaged light bayonet in the laundry and G was then able to install the laundry light fitting.
We still are not sure how this got damaged but suspect it was some horseplay when our eldest had some friends over for a sleepover last year. G also paid him to install our garage lights. So now these are done as well.

This is the light in our lounge room. It's of a similar style to the light fitting we've ended up with in the main living areas except it's larger, has round clips to hold the base on instead of longer ones and has a mirrored rim instead of Stainless steel.

The lights for the main living area were to have had a white frosted glass surround to match our white downlight surrounds but we couldn't find anything in the style we wanted anymore to match. The ones we had originally liked were discontinued. No one had anything the same. We have a smaller version in the hallways.

We still need to make a decision on what to put as our front door lightshade. I would have preferred a wall light but at the time of building we were going to have a ceiling sensor light so we went with a standard ceiling bayonet. We've now gone off the idea so have to figure out what to do instead.

More trees

2010-07-03T06:41:00.005+08:00

A quick update.

House across from us has now had handover. Hubby reports someone was there during the week measuring for wood flooring. Sound lovely. They've left a light on though. It's been on since Wednesday. Nothing we can do about it as we haven't seen anyone to tell.

Purchased a japanese maple and a flowering plum yesterday.Flowering Plum ( Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' see pic) Both barerooted plants. Came home and planted them straight away and gave them some seasol to help them recover from the shock. They need a bigger drink and more seasol this weekend. Proper details on the maple when the sun comes up and I remove the tag.
I was hoping we would have the ute fixed by now but they've had no luck finding a replacement fuel tank for it. Yes the fuel tank has sprung a leak. :( So no ute driving atm . Very frustrating as I wanted to get the remaining 3 silver birches this coming week.

Acer Palmatum "Osakazuki" Japanese Maple

We haven't been able to get in contact with our retaining wall man ( we assume he's away, most likely in Bali) to book him to do our final retaining wall and lay down some tailings for a driveway. We've decided to spend the reticulation money on the wall after all the water pressure disappointment. I still want a water tank and pump but G can't see the value.

OMG how good is a wood fire. I decided this morning to get the fire going. 7.44 and it's just starting to warm the room. So nice. So basic. I guess going back hundreds of years in human history fire plays such a key role. There's something so nice about having one in the house despite having to get/chop/collect wood, clean it up, cope with the ash dust etc etc. I wonder if I'll still be feeling that way in 5 years time.

bought a silver birch while at the local nursery returned later to collect. one fast panicky trip to collect it in the moving fuel bomb

Red Sky Sunrise

2010-06-22T17:52:00.000+08:00

Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors warning.

Latest happenings

2010-06-21T18:05:00.000+08:00

Finally....--> The fencer arrived on Friday and with his crew installed our post and rail fencing. Some of the wire is quite crooked but as it's following the natural ground line there's not a lot that can be done. Hopefully once there are some plants inside the fence area it won't look so terrible.

Down the side of the house.
Manchurian Pear in the foreground.

Still need to do some sand shifting and turning over of the rich soil before the lawn can go in.

This is the gap next to the driveway. We'll be putting in some double gates so that if we need to bring anything large into the front or side yard we don't have to do it from around the back of the block. You can see the new house that is almost finished across the street.

Our temporary back gate.

The fencers left us some fence wire

so we thought of a use for it.

On Saturday Mum and I went to check out the plants at the local hardware store. I returned with a port wine magnolia to plant and two 50m rolls of chicken wire to fasten to the inside of our wire fence to stop the rabbits getting through it. ( my "next weekend" task)

Then later in the day DS1 and I went to the plant nursery in town and purchased a small liquidambar styraciflua tree which Mum and I then planted out the back. Yippee.

A year on and I missed it.

2010-06-07T13:18:00.003+08:00

I was just thinking about when we got the keys last year and realised it was early June. After some fast blog checking I discovered it was 1 year ago last Friday. Of course we didn't move in straight away. The anniversary of that is not for a few more weeks. Still thousands of dollars worth of work to be done to the house and grounds. ( mostly grounds). But there are somethings we've spent the $ on that haven't as yet been done. We really had better get our act together during the holidays next month.
July holiday list:
Painting if it's not too cold.
Make and hang 2nd curtain in main bedroom.
Purchase and plant x3 silver birches
Attempt to rabbit proof the front fence ( assuming it gets installed in the next few weeks)
Make sure lights are finalised and builder's electrician is booked to install them( if they aren't in by then)
Complete ground works for lawn and get it installed
Plant some garden plants that have been languishing in pots for 2 years..
Organise a few more tree holes so a further 8 trees can be planted.
Organise an electrician to install the garage lights we've bought and also an external power point near the power box.

2010-06-05T05:58:00.006+08:00

It's a long weekend here and while I hope to get a little bit of gardening done most of the weekend will be filled with report writing as it's "that" time of the year for teachers. I was talking to a Canadian teacher I know and it's reporting time for them right now as well.

Updates:
The Developer appeared on Wednesday and planted some"substantial trees" as per the council request. NOT! He's planted two rows of a shrub that grows eventually to 2-3 m. Right now they are on average 40cm tall. Hmmm All that waiting and delaying fencing for this.

What was most amusing is he just appeared and started fiddling around. Not knock on the door. No hello I'm here. It would have been pretty obvious someone was home too. Hubby just happened to look out the door and see him on our property preparing to dig some holes.
Photos today when I am actually around in daylight hours as I leave before it's bright enough to take photos and have gotten home too late to take photos this week.

Kunzea baxteri: is a member of the Myrtaceae family and is known as the Crimson Kunzea.

Kunzea baxteri is a small to medium shrub with spreading, sometimes erect branches. The leaves are linear, densely crowded, mid-green and about 15 by 3 wide.

The spectacular, bottlebrush shaped flower heads are 10 centimetres long by 8 centimetres wide, deep red, scattered to profuse and very conspicuous. Blooms usually appear between March and September with sporadic flowering at other times. The Crimson Kunzea is one of the showiest species of the genus.

Tip pruning will improve foliage density and flowering.

Kunzea baxteri is a native of Western Australia and was first cultivated in England in 1838.

Plants growing in colder areas are best grown in sheltered shrubberies as they may be damaged by frost.

hmm We have frost! Somehow these don't sound like the significantly substantial tree he was meant to plant. He used a post and dug tiny little holes. Plus he is supposed to water them. He had been meaning to install some sort of reticulation and had discussions with us in December about doing this. Well he hasn't and it hasn't rained since he planted them so Dh was down the back yesterday giving them all a water. We were expecting a bobcat or other digger type because the trees were meant to be huge ones. I'm guessing he wanted to save lots of $ as he would have found loads of rock and it would have been hard and expensive work. Drats! as we had a cunning plan to replace some of these trees with things of our own choice later down the track knowing that the holes had been dug and the rocks removed. These will be hard to remove. They will find there way through the rock and make it difficult to replace with established trees of our own choosing later. DAMN! Still at least we are rid of him. But given the size of these trees he's now planted we didn't need to delay fencing at all. So I'm really not happy.

Lighting:
Another disappointment as it seems the lights we wanted to buy are discontinued. It seems a similar light is made by a couple of other lighting companies so hopefully we'll be able to find something. But we did find a spotlight track we really liked and possibly a large light for the lounge room although the price from the lighting shop for the 3 light version is a bit higher than the same light in the 5 Light version from an online store....hmmm

Ute:
fuel gauge fixed
Temp gauge fixed ( we think) We'll test it out this weekend, But we may need a thermostat as well yet.The workshop have warned us that if the thermostat is missing it might be an indicator that the car has an issue with overheating in summer. blah! We'll see.

Fuel tank has a leak along the seam and the workshop are hunting us down a replacement one. ( 2nd hand)
So as long as we can keep the fuel tank below half full we shouldn't lose too much fuel in the meantime. Of course we filled the tank to the brim just before we discovered the leak. It seems the best way to know we had fuel given that the gauge wasn't working.
At the moment the bill is sitting at around $100 for replacement bits and repairs including new wipers. A replacement 2nd hand tank is another 100 or so and all up labour around 150 so for the work done hopefully it will cost us around $350. phew. I was worried it might have been much higher. That of course depends on whether they can find a 2nd hand tank in good condition.A bit of a relief as getting the ute was "my project" as Hubby keeps pointing out when I worry about things going wrong with it.

Finally a win
Yet another block down the road has been cleared for building and they had scraped back all the top soil. I couldn't help but admire the lovely rich colour and it seemed such a shame that they were going to truck it away so mentioned to Hubby that I wondered if we could get them to dump some of it at our place. usually Hubby wouldn't be willing to go and talk to the guys but by the time I got to work yesterday not only had he been and had a chat to them but he'd talked them into giving us 6 big scoops of lovely soil delivered by dozer. They actually asked if we wanted any more. If I'd been there I would have said yes please. Anyway we now have enough soil to complete the front garden ready for planting. woohoo. I just need to even it out and spread it to a few areas. AT NO COST!. I had mentioned to Hubby that he could offer to pay them but no money was required. I guess they were able to save on dumping costs as Hubby said they spread was left out on the block. :)

Lighting and other business

2010-05-29T07:47:00.004+08:00

Heading into town today to select our ten lights for the builder to supply and fit. Of course we also have Soccer for the youngest ( UK football for those of you in the Northern hemisphere) and a bit of clothing shopping to do. Eldest now can wear Hubby's best trousers, shoes and shirts as we discovered this week when trying to workout what clothing to get him for his week of "work experience" for school. He looked fabulously smart in trousers, belt, long sleeved business shirt and... wait for it Tie! Which he insisted on trying on. So we need to find him some "business" shirts of his own and perhaps his own pair of good dress type trousers.

.................................. and on to the lights

To my untrained eye the ceilings look worse than they did before the repairs were done. The builder has agree we are entitled to some compensation for our ceilings which can not be repaired to a high standard. They obviously do not want to remove the ceilings in several rooms ( more than half the house) and replace them so they have agree to cover the cost of 10 light fittings and the install of said ten lights.

I hope can talk hubby into the lights I want. The oyster light is one we were both able to agree on last year. But thoughts change.

So it will be:
oyster light white with white surround glass large for kitchen ( x2) dining, family and activity room. Smaller version for entry and passageway. Oyster light large with silver surround for office and a set of 3/4 spotlights on a bar in silver and white for 2nd light in office.
3 light Hermosa-vaucluse pendant for lounge or similar item. all supplied and fitting at builders cost ( yippeee)
We will look at buying a light fitting for the spare bedroom at the same time. Perhaps another of the same or something else and one of the smaller version with white glass surround for the laundry.

The Hermosa light is not from the lighting shop in town that the builder wants us to use so if Hubby likes it we might end up with a light for the spare bedroom paid for by the builder and the lounge light bought by us.

Previous news
................................................................................................................................................
Yes, I know I've been very slack on posting lately. Things aren't likely to improve without some major event happening. We still haven't heard from the fencing man to say when he is starting and I discovered he has a 2nd business/job as part of a large farm. I haven't noticed him advertising his fencing business recently either so perhaps that has taken over more. I'm going to have to call him and Developer be damned!. If the Developer needs to take down a part of the fence top put in the trees he owes us that will be his problem. I'm sick of waiting to plant things.

On the ute: The ute has developed a fuel problem, Namely it's leaking petrol! I guess you get that with old cars. It's in at the mechanics and hopefully will be repaired and functional ( meaning not losing petrol) sometime next week. Here's hopping it doesn't cost us a fortune.

Mum has now moved and I spent Friday of last week and a couple of hours early Saturday unpacking. We plan to go and visit her this weekend for a cuppa. Yippee. It will be nice for her to only be 55 mins away instead of 3 plus hours. I am worried about her getting shopping done. But hopefully she can get a lift into town with someone else from the retirement village where she has moved. The village itself is gorgeous.

I did what!!!

2010-05-16T09:58:00.003+08:00

Updates for the week:
Well the Water Corporation sent someone out to test our water pressure and it seems it is exactly as the retic man said last week. So at this stage we will not be having reticulation put in for our lawn. Unless we end up getting a big water tank and a pump ( about $3k all up to do so)

Main Maintenance boss came for a visit on Friday and they are going to have one more try at our ceilings and then after that we'll have to get into some sort of negotiation/compensation deal. Not saying anything more for the moment except that right now to my untrained eye the ceilings look worse than they did before the repairs were started.

Spent pretty much all of the daylight hours yesterday in Balingup ona w work friends block picking olives. :) They have some awesome views, a wonderful new house( including pot drawers everywhere in the kitchen and one of those double farm house sinks I love and which it turns out DH hates sigh) 3 mains ponds and a smaller pond/ sedge pond? and gorgeous, beautiful trees. And... 180+ olive trees. I think there were about 17 of us picking and we spent from just before 10am until 5pm picking olives for crushing. phew. We had a short tea break at around lunchtime for scones and drinks and then stopped for a fast lunch at 3. Oh my goodness my arms and shoulders know about it a little today. But olive picking is very simple and the trees looks lovely. It all just takes time. :)

Today it looks like we'll be heading into Bunbury to buy some shoes for one of the boys and if they are open, to look at ceiling lights again. No quiet life here today.

Found my original post with the light fittings in it.

the one below I like too but as we ended up with white downlights I'm guessing the first fits better in the kitchen. I'd love to have the chrome ones near the ceiling fans with the chrome bits on them but since it's all one large room that would look rather silly.

Disappointment

2010-05-11T07:17:00.003+08:00

Trying to distract myself this morning.

Had some terrible news about our water pressure yesterday from the guy who came to do the reticulation quote. It seems as it is a.t.m. we can't have pop up sprinklers in our lawn area as the water pressure is less than half what it needs to be to be able to operate them. 4Lpm at 150kpa it should be more than double that at least. Not sure what we can do without paying out huge $$$ for a storage tank and pump system or subsurface drip system. I still like the idea of watering the garden beds with a retic setup. Possibly a drip hose, I have to wait until I get a proper email from the retic man to get the details. Very disappointed.

No news on the ceiling solution yet. Still like the first light below or something like it more than any other sort of light. Either with the chrome or a white surround. As much as I would love to have more decorative lights at least for the main living room this light is more practical. There are already downlights (3), ceilings fans ( 2) and airconditioning vents (4). The last thing the area needs is fussy, standout lights as well.

I might consider something different and perhaps a little directional for the office and perhaps something prettier for the lounge however.
http://www.buyster.com.au/Sunny-Lighting-SO4280-30-22-SUN1024.html

http://www.buyster.com.au/Oriel-Lighting-OL43207SC-ORI1015.html not as keen on this one.

It's Mother's Day

2010-05-09T07:11:00.003+08:00

From the garden. Scarlet Queen Elizabeth roses.

My request for Mother's Day was to get some trees for some of the spots we have had dug.

We now realise we will want another 5 holes dug for some of the trees we want to plant. Unfortunately most of the trees from our list that we can get at the moment are for the holes not yet dug,
We had a bit of a dig where the extra hole spots are wanted and an auger will definitely be needed. It's far too rocky to dig by hand unfortunately.

At this stage the plans are for 5 silver birches, a maple of some kind, a flowering plum (nigra) -hole still to be dug, deciduous magnolia- hole still to be dug, smoke bush ? - hole still to be dug and 2 other deciduous leaf colour changing trees. And for the back, a hole for the mulberry tree and one for a Liquidambar styraciflua. I keep coming back to the Liquidambar. I have looked at dwarf forms and other varieties but it's the giant original that I love. Luckily we have the room for one. There are several in the grounds at work and I just adore the leaf shape, colour of the leaves, the nuts and the tree shape. I do wish they didn't grow as large but thank goodness we have the room. I've given up on a weeping willow. It's something I've always want to have in my garden since I was a small child. The liquidambar is my new dream tree. :)

So yesterday I made a quick dash down to the local nursery to see what they had in stock.
Spotted 2 lovely trees that had been on my short list of ones I'd been considering and 2 lovely silver birch trees. Looked promising. Found out there there was an avenue of one of the trees planted on a property on the edge of town that was worth checking out as well.
I couldn't buy them then and there as DH had to see the 2 new possible tree choices first.
Had a few things to do including taking R to soccer. ( they won 15 to 1) and then later in the day Hubby and I took the ute for a drive to check out the avenue of trees. They looked gorgeous and Dh was hooked.
So off the the nursery we went.

We've brought home 1 Tallow wood tree ( this was the avenue tree) , 1 Manchurian pear and 2 rather large Silver Birches. We will need another 3 Silver birches but we'll wait until they get in some more large stock as the other 2 they had were much smaller or else buy them from The Small Tree Farm in Balingup as bare rooted stock in July. No maples in stock at the moment.

Of course once we got them home we had to try them out in the holes, tree bags an all. Photo below.

Tallow wood tree is closest to the camera and the Manchurian Pear is behind it. The two silver birches are also in the picture but they can't really be seen from this angle.

Today we'll plant them. The house looks so different with some trees out the front. Very pleased with our purchases.

Bark of the Silver Birch.

Manchurian Pear Tree

Tallow Wood Tree ( Above and below)

trundling along

2010-05-05T22:15:00.007+08:00

Still waiting to hear the outcome on the ceilings. It's with " the boss" atm. One person at work said we should insist on new ceilings but...

Imagine the mess.

I don't want
        -textured ceilings ( same person pointed out that especially in the country and with a wood fire to be       installed the dust would be horrendous)

         -tinted ceiling instead of white. I dislike the "chalk dust" colour of our door frames being a not "white" white. I dislike it against the beautiful wall colour as it is. It looks dirty even though it's not. No way do I want to lose the white contrast of the ceilings against the walls by having the ceiling paint tinted.

          -more downlights.

I do want oyster lights of our choosing. The trouble is it would be 8 lights and there are 4 others that I would want to match so they would need to be purchased at the same time even if not fitted.

************************************************************

Our retaining wall man came today and attempted to dig 8 tree holes and to spread the organic soil for the lawn. Soil area looks great although I need to get some more soil

. BUT he had a slight problem with a couple of the tree holes. oops. Seems we will not be able to go for the super large sized trees as he wasn't able to dig down far enough to get the holes started for us. ROCK!2 of the tree holes in our "avenue " of 5 trees are now out of line as it was the only way he could dig down to at least 600mm. we were hoping he could get down a bit further)

2 of the holes out in the front garden area are also a bit more shallow that we would have hoped for so it means smaller specimens than originally planned. We'll just have to wait for their roots to grow and find their own way between the rocky sections of ground.

Not looking forward to the fencing man appearing as he might have some fun digging the post holes which means additional $ for us.

Our man today charged us $180 for 3 hours work. about 1 1/2-2 hours of it was spreading the dirt. The retic quote we had quoted us $800 to do the same job. You see why I was so disappointed with their quote. I figure if they over charge that much for that part of the job what amount were they planning on over charging us for the retic section. Plus their quote didn't include the plumber or the sparkie they'd originally said they'd organise. So that would be on top again. If it had included that we would have been happy for them to do the work even with a 2nd day of bobcat work at $800 ( well maybe)
Their lawn laying price wasn't too different to what we'd been quoted from the lawn place anyway but they knew we knew the price on that.

***********************************************************
another retic quoted booked for Monday.

What next?

2010-05-01T10:23:00.000+08:00

1. Only 1 Retic /landscape quote came back and it was Over priced. need new quotes.

2. bought a ute. woohoo

3. New downpipes work beautifully.

4. Painter was here again today attempting to repair the ceiling work.

He told Dh it's the worst ceiling he's ever had to deal with. They've even put a few more pieces of timber in our ceiling! At the end of the day he's hoping that the final coat he's done in the office will be ok. Fingers crossed when it dries as atm it still isn't brilliant.

There is now talk of either tinting the ceiling paint so it's not a standard white colour or of using textured paint which I'm not keen on at all.
( over my dead body could have been the phrase that went through my head)The painter is also going to talk to his boss about suggesting they offer us downlights
in place of the standard batten lights as these would mean the flaws would not show up. Sorry I'm not interested!
2 lights are in the office, one in the lounge ( our pretend home theatre) 2 in the main living area ( hmm nope, don't want downlights there as we have feature downlights in our kitchen in the same area) and one in the kids playroom. downlights are not appropriate for any of those areas except maybe if they swapped the 1 light in the lounge for 4 downlights. ( like that is going to happen. Plus more patching? I think not)

Once we have the $ to put in proper oyster lights the shadowing that really shows up the flaws
in the ceiling might not be there. We'll have to wait. I doubt they will pay us to put oyster lights in.

Our painter went across the road to check out the build by the same company which is currently at paint stage. He wanted to see what the ceilings were like over there. DH went with him to "check it out" and said he came back muttering that although they were better than ours they still were not great.
The problem it seems ( this is being relayed 2nd hand so how much is exactly what was said...) lies with the original ceiling fixers and then the painters who didn't stop when they must have/should have realised that the ceiling wasn't good enough to do a good paint job.

He can only come Fridays to work on the house. grrrr

In the cool morning.

2010-04-26T08:43:00.003+08:00

Still waiting.

This is the view from our front windows.

Of course one day the block across from us will be sold and the view will be lost forever. I wish I could find a money tree so I could buy the block across from us and keep the view forever. Maybe we'll win the lottery.

Trying to be patient but it's not working out too well.

I wish our quotes would come back. I wish I had gotten more quotes for the landscaping and lawn now.

Fencer should start soon. Fireplace should go in within the next 2 weeks.

Waiting. waiting, waiting.

More froggie Pics

2010-04-20T18:08:00.001+08:00

Well it seems like the frogs may well be juvenile moaning frogs. This week the sound has started to change and become more like the sound bytes I've heard of the moaning frogs.

Frog!

2010-04-18T07:11:00.004+08:00

Realised I hadn't watered for a few days because of the rain but that some of the new plants I bought last weekend were used to being watered every day so thought I would give everything a bit of a drink. Anyway while pottering around I decided to spread out some of the sugarcane mulch which had been constantly blown around by the wind. There was a big bunch of it near one of my roses. I got a bit of a surprise as the "earth" moved. Frog! ugly looking thing. I wonder if it's the same sort as the one that has been making the noise? it was about 3-4 m from where the noise always comes from. After this I went back to where I'd been hearing the "kitten" sound because with the watering it had started up again. I'm guessing close to midnight there's a bit of damp and so it starts. By watering I'd made things damp and it was set to call again. Anyway I had a bit of a fossick around in the sugar cane mulch where the sound was coming from. It is quite thick there and as I moved some there was a distinct squeal like I'd touched or pushed something. It made me jump and squeal as well. :) After I recovered I had a good look and a dig but there was no sign of anything. It has to be a frog. But it might not be the same as the other one. I never heard the other frog make a sound. All last night "kitten" frog kept up it's call.

I have to say I'm very pleased to think that the builders sand is beginning to look nice and healthy and am very thrilled to think that it has a vote from at least 1 frog.

More quotes and a midnight visitor

2010-04-17T09:51:00.001+08:00

We've had 2 more quotes for reticulation or as the 2nd person said. Not retic but irrigation!

   Both were far more professional than our first quote last week thank goodness. Now we wait to see what the quotes come in at. We both liked the last quote people but we'll wait and see. The final guy was actually a Waterwise landscaper and has an Irrigation offsider/partner. So between them they can spread our dirt, lay the irrigation and install the lawn for us.

We've had quite a bit of rain recently and on Thursday night we had a noisy visitor at around midnight. Still unsure of what it was. HUbby at first though it was a bird but on investigation the sound is coming from beneath the dirt so it looks like it's either a "sandgroper" or a frog. I've been on to all the frog watch sites trying to identify the sound but I've had no luck.   it sound a bit like a meowing kitten.

DS1 and I had a great giggling time hunting in the dirt and meowing back to it on Thursday night.   Then I recorded the sound on my iphone and played that back to it.

Last night ( Friday) it returned again about 11.40pm. Since DS1 had 4 mates over for a sleepover we all trooped outside to try and hear it. Of course it went quiet but eventually it started up again as we were about to give up.
http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/42127/frog

and it continues

2010-04-09T20:11:00.005+08:00

After the high of the soil delivery in the morning and arrival of the lovely woodfire the rest of the day took a bit more of an odd twist..
I'd had to cancel my hairdresser appointment because we had an impending reticulation expert coming to "do a quote" mid afternoon.

Yesterday finished off a little crazy,. Our first quote for reticulation was finally in the works by 7.30 last night. yes 7.30. In the dark!. The retic people were supposed to be here around 4pm but didn't show. At 5 I rang the company to ask what was happening. At 5.15 we got a call to say they'd been delayed and would be at our house within 45 minutes. hmm Fine, but sunset is 6pm. By the time they arrived it was nearly 6.30 and definitely getting dark. In the car was contractor, his offsider ( his wife) and their 2 year old daughter who was obviously over tired, hungry, plain grumpy and fed up. Great! After a short chat he said he needed to do a water pressure test but then said he'd forgotten a wrench and a bucket and asked if he could he borrow them from us. errm remaining light was almost gone. Then he asked his wife to organise the timing of the bucket fill on her phone since he'd forgotten his timer. Hmmm
Meanwhile the toddler was getting more and more grumpy. Crying, falling over in the dark, running off with the bucket etc etc.

Anyway eventually water pressure was tested. Pretty haphazardly. Both Hubby and myself commented afterwards that there was no way it was done accurately and that their fill time was out by at least 5 seconds. Then he pulled out a metre stick and began to measure the site. All would have made sense if it hadn't been getting to the stage where you could barely see anything at all. After discussion we said we'd add an extra metre to the lawn area and take a metre off the garden as it made the lawn area quote easier as for over 100m2 he could do a cheaper rate.

Our rectic man, let's call him "Bobcat Ben" (not his name) demanded to know what lawn we wanted. Now we weren't contracting them for lawn, just the reticulation but we were willing to see what they said. Anyway when we told Bobcat Ben we wanted EZ ( Empire Z) he said , "Oh are you sure? I can get Palmetto cheaper." ( this is without knowing the price) "It's much better." "No," I said. "We want EZ. We've seen Palmetto and we aren't interested." Then he told us he could get EZ as well and of far better quality than the quality we could get from the turf farm. He asked the price and we told him. He didn't seem happy that we were getting it at such a good price but eventually after much muttering he claimed he could get it at a price that would save us over $200. By this time his partner had retreated to the car to entertain the toddler while Bobcat Ben continued to tell us how go a price he would get us. I asked a few questions primed by the wonderful Fu from H1 to which he knew some answers but not all. He did seem to say some of the right things and at this stage I was almost still willing to consider him. Despite the 2 + hours late, the unprofessional and haphazard way he seemed to be treating the job etc. Almost I said. But then he wanted to know who was doing our fence. He insisted he could also do that for us. We supply the goods and he'd do it. hmm Now given he'd be taking his dodgy water pressure estimate back to the actual retic shop for the man there to draw it up and that he was just the man "doing the job." I was at the point where I really didn't think much of what was being offered. Anyway eventually at about 7.30 they left. Our kids were starving since we'd had to delay dinner until they left. Both hubby and myself decided no matter what bargain price we get quoted by them we won't be taking it. Too much risk of cost cutting and a job not done well.

So our lovely soil sits piled up waiting for a machine. We were all set to organise our retaining wall man/ friendly bobcat driver to shift it but we've had a recent rethink. 2 of the 3 retic guys have said they also have bobcat access for the retic and can spread it themselves. So we'll be waiting until our quotes finish for reticulation before organising the bobcat work. One of our retic quotes is from a landscaper who is a qualified horticulturist and who installs lawn etc as well. It will be interesting to see what he thinks. I had a quick email from a guy during the week who said that for the retic it would be roughly between 1800 and 2500, and that for a paid quote he would come out. At least that means we have a ballpark figure.
Friday. a quiet morning catching up on some phone calls, still seriously searching via the net for an old, used, manual ute . So a few phonecalls about that too.

Booked our fencing man. or at least told him he has the job. Should be in the next few weeks. he'll ring a week or so before hand to let us know an exact date. :) It's starting to happen. A few more people on the forum. forum.homeone.com.au are putting lawns down at the moment and I am itching for our garden to be underway but even though it's been painful watching everyone else start I want it to be done properly and this time I wanted us to have reticulation in. It all comes down to $ in the end. So we've been waiting and then waiting some more. It's been 9 months since we moved in so it would be wonderful to have it all happening finally. It's also a perfect time to be planting so that's very exciting.

This afternoon the gyprock guys finally returned to sand down the plaster work that was done on the ceiling about 6+ weeks ago. No we wait again for the painters to come in and seal then repaint. blah.. hubby has been ringing the builders every week for months ( his weekly call he even ticks it off now when he's done it) to get the last bits of maintenance done on the house. This is from the 3 month check up. At this rate we'll have been in 12 months before it's finished.

We are waiting for the plumber to return. He told us he'd be back last Monday. He'll be a fortnight late if he returns next Monday.

Just a quick shot to show some of the dust. I should have taken a picture of it gathered up from just one room. The pile was huge. It's so fine. Luckily we covered up most things that could be effected but it was still a dusty cleanup afterwards.

While we were huddled outside at one stage I spotted this odd fungus in the back yard area. At first I couldn't tell what it was. I couldn't resist pushing it over with a rock. I've taken a shot with my mug next to it for size. nasty looking orange colour underneath. I didn't think I should drink the remaining coffee after placing it that close to it.

It's here!

2010-04-08T12:30:00.006+08:00

Well just after noon today our beautiful organic gardeners mix arrived. 10m3 of it.

It looks so small a pile I think/know we need more but I'll settle for this atm. Little bit of smell but it's a nice pooey garden pong.

We are also having a woodfire delivered today. Purchased from K & T ( Pebble from H1)
It's the basic Norseman Lumberjack. We'll be using it to warm the main living area and to cut some costs in heating with the reverse cycle aircon.

of course it will be some time before we get it installed. We need a hearth, probably some extra flue shielding and someone to install it but it's a start. :)

Our one will need a bit of a scrub up as it's been sitting in the shed where Pebble and family were living until their house was built. It will be sitting in our garage until we can organise someone to install it.

Heater has arrived with some pristine flue and lots of bits and pieces. Thank you T and K and T had even given it a good cleanup. :)

updates- sort of

2010-03-25T06:47:00.005+08:00

It's been so long since I've been able to post with anything new to update but finally I have some small updates. Roof plumber called in yesterday to look at installing additional downpipes. yippee and solving a minor but potentially rust creating issue. hopefully work will be done in the next week or so. Developer finally organised someone to take away the trees he "removed' for us as part of the deal of us buying the block just over 2 years ago...

waiting for:
Still waiting for Trees for along what was an easement at the back of the property of course.
Plasterer to return to complete his ceiling fix that he started over 4 weeks ago and promised to return 3 wks ago, so the painters can return. ( he turned up on Wed, no notice and expected Dh to let him in right on taking kids to school time and with a house that needed to be plaster dust proofed instantly!)

and our lovely ceiling fan that blew up 3 weeks after install may well be mended/replaced within the next few days or early next week. My brain has turned to goo and I can't remember which Dh said it was when I got home from work yesterday. B... lightings electrician rang and wanted to know how long it would take him to get here. dh said he didn't seem happy when he said about 90 mins. They had better not expect us to pay for him after making us wait over a month. He'd better turn up with the correct fan with wenge blades or there will be hell to play and You will be able to hear me in Queensland.
We have the rest of the house's lighting to buy yet. We won't be shopping at B.

Also we finally got someone out to give us our first fencing quote for the 110+ m of fencing we still need. Fencing man has said it's closer to 117m. Now we wait for the quote to come back. He's booked 4 wks ahead. But it's a start.

Looking forward to the weekend. Eldest son and I are heading up to the city to go to the West Coast Blues 'n Roots Festival. He's very excited too. His first concert/festival. We are going to see Gogol Bordello. ( interesting band)

Plus a few other performers, I hope. Now he just needs to get well as he's been sick and off school most of this week with some viral bug.

A quiet life- yes please

2010-03-20T07:07:00.007+08:00

nothing much happening here although I would like to think we are going to do a few things around the house this weekend.

Since my last post we'd had another trip to Perth to celebrate birthdays. My mum's and my F.I.L's.
So this week we've all been quietly getting over the quick visit. Next weekend I'm off to Perth again with the eldest. We are going to the West Coast Blues Festival in Fremantle. Our eldest has professed a liking for a particular band who are touring Australia and well, a bit, "out there". Given son number 1 rarely shows much excitement over anything I suggested we go and see them. Probably the only time a teenage boy will ever want to go to a concert willingly with his mother. woohoo So Gogol Bordello here we come! Watch Out! Perhaps we should wear some Purple--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_81l4DXlwM

I'm not sure how much of the festival we will see. It is a 12 hour event starting at 10 am however Gogol Bordello aren't on until after 8pm on Sunday night. So we are planning to stay in Perth for the night and return home early Monday morning.

Now to explain my urge to do "something" with our house this weekend. Mum and my Aunt are coming back from Perth with us. I will be taking them down to Busselton ( 70 kms away) on Monday afternoon to check out Mum's possible new home. Mum has an appointment to meet the sale rep, hand over a deposit and pick flooring and window furnishing colours for the brand new retirement villa she is planning on buying. Then they'll be returning to our place for dinner and to stay the night. Mum's already booked her sister and herself onto the Tuesday coach/train journey home. Dh just has the task of surviving Tuesday morning with them both. Ooops.
If it wasn't the last 3 days of work for me for 2 weeks I would have taken the Tuesday off as well to help out.

So the house is still the same as ever. The Developer still has not planted the trees at the back of our block. Hubby saw him on Wednesday and asked what was going on. He was told next month or after that, we assume depending on some rain making an appearance.
I think I'll just start getting fencing quotes regardless and hopefully get a fence up without waiting.

The plasterer has vanished leaving our ceilings with plaster stripes waiting to be sanded.
It's been nearly a month since the plastering was done. ( he was returning the following week to sand) You might remember we had held off doing any more wall painting until the ceilings were repaired.

Bec.. Lighting are dragging their feet getting an electrician to come and replace/repair one ceiling fan that blew up 3 weeks after it was installed. so we've been one ceiling fan down since Mid Feb. We did suggest we use the local electrician, collect a ceiling fan ourselves ( closest store is 90 + mins away) but they want to use "their" guy.

There seems to have been a lot of interest in some of the blocks around us this week. Not sure if the Developer has dropped his prices or what. But we've had quite a few cars driving around and people getting out and wandering over the sand pads on a articular couple of blocks. Hubby actually saw the Developer on Wednesday organising a mini bobcat drive to clean up the blocks. Since then the bobcat driver has been around every day, all day, scrapping and tidying up.

Meanwhile the house across the road from us has been having the float done on the internal walls this week. Next i imagine they'll either put in the glass windows or do the white plaster or ceilings. I have only walked through the shell once, before the roofing started. It doesn't feel right to go over there now and to be honest I'm not that interested anyway. I guess they'll be in September /October or so if they keep at the same pace they took for our place.

This weekend

2010-03-01T15:34:00.009+08:00

Had a little adventure this weekend. I feel a bit over whelmed but that could be the wine I am now enjoying.

This weekend was a 3 day weekend <> so I had organised to pick Mum up from Perth, approx 225 kms away and bring her back here. I booked a Bunnings ute/truck for the Friday night collection for a 24 hours stint. My plan was to collect the "ute", drive to Mums and then sleep, load up the ute and drive home and then return the ute before the 24 hours was up. I also had in mind the idea to bid on some ebay items that were due for collection on the Saturday morning. I managed to win a nice large 68 cm flat clr tv yippee to replace our 24 yer old tv on it's last legs that the kids watched in their play room, to collect. My problem turned out to be that in my flurry of ebay bids one slipped in that I had missed checking location on and was a good 30 kms from Mums oops and yes I won it.

Anyway Collecting the beast managed to be not too bad except for getting used to driving a manual car after 6 + years driving an auto. ( spent almost 10 mins in the car park convincing myself that perhaps there was something wrong until I finally let the clutch out far enough to reverse)
At this point I must say I only manged to stall the car once in the entire 24 hours of driving time!( forgot the clutch) Which I am quite proud of.

Anyway I finally got out of the Bunning car park and started heading to Perth on Friday night. After the first 180 or so KMs it started to get a little dark and I noticed the dash lights were not working!!!! arghh.. I drove the rest of the way relying on other cars and the occasional light from a street light and I have to admit the light from my iphone a couple of times to double check the speed. phew. Saturday morning i was able to find the dash dimmer switch but because it was quite bright by this stage I couldn't tell if the dimmer switch had just been turned right down or if the light was truly broken.

Eventually I arrived at Mums to discover she'd organised the neighbours to load on the BBQ in the dark.. errm yeah Mum, wonderful. I was hot , tired and hungry and wanted a rest, I really didn't care. Morning came and I drove off to collect the tv 30 kms away and return. We then frantically loaded up the rest of the truck with plants. jammed packed. and the scary thing is Mum still has more of the same. We loaded the truck frantically for 45 minds or so and then tried to cool off before leaving asap.
Mum has decided to sell her house and find a retirement village. I kept asking her if there was anything else she wanted me to take. Of course once we got home she thought of several large, heavy items. blahhh frustrating as I can take the plants in the car boot but not heavy stuff so while the ute/truck was hired it was a perfect opportunity for heavy things.

And off we went. the ride was very hot and windy, the truck was supposedly airconditioned but the air was hot not cool. We stopped within a 100 kms of home and bought petrol to fill the tank at Perth/city prices and as we stat trying to cool off before getting back into the truck a g/f rang wanting to know what we were doing tomorrow. Nothing I said. A very good friend I had not seen much recently, I was thrilled to have her planning to visit us.

We got home by 2.30 but needed to leave by 3 to meet some people at a retirement village in Bunbury at 3.30 to check it out as a possible place for Mum to buy into. phew...

Home we came, then there were frantic actions to unload the truck, clean it out, grab a drink and quick refresh before heading to Bunbury. We made it to the Retirement Village and the people we were meeting for 3.45, only 15 mins late. All hot and bothered but we did it. .. Mum enjoyed her visit and discovered she had a bit in common with the people I'd found for her to meet. at 5.00 we said our goodbyes and hurried off from our visit to get petrol and return the Ute in time for its 5.30 return. JUST.

Phew I discovered I had traveled 487 Kms in barely 24 hours. ( the Bunnings man had forgotten to write down my starting milage, I personally know I had to have done more than this as I think it was well over the 500 kms. ) BUT given they charge heaps of additional mileage for every km over 100kms i wasn't going to say a thing.

Hubby and the boys met us at Bunnings and we went to the foreshore to cool off for 30 mins and then further into town for a Chinese meal to finish off the evening. Mum was a bit heat struck and so was I. Thank goodness Hubby was driving home.

we had a quiet Saturday night. :) Yesterday, (Sunday) Mum and I decide we'd investigate the fresh markets in the next town !4 kms away, we'd be back by 10 and then check out the 2 junk shops in town to see if we could find a cheap tv type cabinet for the new tv. we made it through the markets and began t head back to town when my gf rang to say she was 1 street from us. oops. only 10 hours ahead of expected. So directions given and by the time Mum and I got home she was there having a cuppa with Hubby. Poor hubby, even females to males but him the only adult male... I think he found it tough as I scrubbed off the bbq and he was pretty much "informed" by the others that "he" was the bbq cook. hmm not my doing. I usually BBQ. Not that we BBQ often.

Last night we had a great BBQ. Two hours or so afterwards Mum went off to bed and g/f and I went off to try and investigate where some "live' music was coming from. No luck .. oh well. off to bed for visitors and I finally crawled into bed at around 1.
Anyway it's 4.12pm Monday now My g/f left early-ish this morning and Mum got on a bus to take her to the trainstation to head back to Perth at just before 2pm.

I feel a bit numb. ( might be the wine) I need a weekend to recover though as much as I loved the visitors. Is this how it is for other people who have visitors??? It's a bit of a rare occasion for us as we live a fairly quiet life normally.

Hubby has run off ( 2 hours ago ) to visit a mate. ohdear.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

2010-02-17T19:58:00.006+08:00

I feel a song coming along. But perhaps I shouldn't be too sure of myself. After all they do say tomorrow never comes. Anyway, tomorrow the first tradies return to begin sanding back the ceiling in some parts of the house in preparation for resealing and recoating. They claim they will be able to catch more than 90% of the dust with their "special" machine. We'll see. Of course we've had to buy drop sheets as they don't supply them to cover computers and the tv. Hmm out of pocket for us which is a bit rude considering it's their mistake. oh well as long as that's the only cost to us. ( Do I really believe that? Nope. There is bound to be more outlay from us when they fix the mistakes. ) Not looking forward to the possible mess when I get home from work tomorrow. It's meant to be 38 C tomorrow too and with the tradies sanding that means no aircon.

This photo looks a bit odd. perhaps I've traveled to a different planet. Actually it's just a white spot on the camera lens. Not another planet above the moon crescent :)

Electricians

2010-01-31T07:50:00.007+08:00

Ceiling fans-

Our sparkie was booked for 8 am yesterday. Well Sparkies are never on time right?

Hmm Well this one comes early!

So there I was still in my pj's sorting out washing and there was a knock on the door. 7.10 am. Oh dear.

Hubby was no use at all having worked until quite late on Friday night he was mostly asleep still as I muttered about a knock at the door and frantically hunted for something to put on.

Anyway job is done. Fans look fabulous. Of course it wasn't warm enough to really use them yesterday. isn't that always the way. But it's sure to warm up again many times in the next couple of months. Sparkie cleaned up everything and took away the old chinamen hats and empty boxes etc.

It seems timing is everything and we certainly haven't got it.
Perfect example to follow.

Last night I went to turn the laundry light on and discovered the light wasn't working.
Then I realised that when the sparkie had packed up everything he had also packed up the old globes. duh! 4 perfectly good, old tech incandescent globes.
Ok no worries I thought. I'll ask hubby to put in a replacement globe as he can replace a globe without needing a chair. It was then that I found out that Hubby had noticed 2 days before the globe wasn't working but hadn't gotten around to replacing it. It had been a busy couple of days and who thinks to use the light in the laundry that often. it had just been forgotten about. Shouldn't have really been a problem until... wait for it... When he went to replace it he discovered not only was the globe not working but the actual fitting part the globe goes into seems to be broken. hmm if only he'd tried to replace the globe sometime in the previous 2 days. It looks, according to him, like a job for an electrician. :( See what I mean about timing.

Call out fees etc and to think we'd had an electrician in the house just 8 hours earlier. Timing! I did wonder for a minute if the sparkie might have damaged the fitting somehow from above as he installed a ceiling fan in the rooms nearby but the globe is actually broken so it's likely the damage was done before that. No idea how.

For those of you reading from other parts of the world here in Australia you aren't allowed to do your own electrical work. Hubby is going to try and take a closer look today to see if he can work out exactly what it is that is wrong with the fitting and if it's something that he can fix himself. A shame the sparkie has also taken all the fitting bits of the 4 lights that were replaced with fans as this is probably what will be needed. rats!

No way do I want to call out an electrican to fix what will likely be a 5 minute repair/replacement job. With a huge callout fee the job will be a ridiculous price. We do have plans to have some more lights fitted that will require a sparkie but had no plans to do so for at least another year. So hopefully it is something hubby can fix or otherwise we'll be living with no laundry light. What a pain.

Stuck in Holding Pattern

2010-01-27T18:12:00.003+08:00

Nothing new on the horizon. I guess I could start making lists of things to be done with details on materials etc.

Went into Bunbury to watch the Australia Day fireworks last night. Left home around 4pm. Such an easy trip. Next year we are going to wait until 5.30 or later before leaving here to go in. That will give us plenty of time. Nothing like the sort of time frame we'd need for the bigger Perth ones. For those you'd have to head in at about 2-3pm at the latest and then fight with my bigger crowds for a semi decent spot. We had no trouble finding a great position .

No contact from the Developer about the trees but we heard some bad news the other day via someone at the local Council when i tried to find out what was happening. Seems there was a rather awful family tragedy for him and his immediate family recently ( b4 xmas?) so Council is giving him 'til next month while everyone recovers from the shock.

Ceiling fans go in on Saturday. After much messing about we found someone a little bit cheaper for our fan install. Hopefully it will go well.
It's back to work for me so no more sitting on my butt fiddling about online as much.

Time to save some $ towards the next garden/house project. I think it will be paving.

Nothing much happening

2010-01-17T09:52:00.003+08:00

Took an evening stroll last week and shot this pic with my phone in the street behind ours.

The stars are so pretty I spent some time last night lying on the retaining wall outside gazing up at them. I miss the big paved driveway from the rental (nothing else) as it was so pleasant to lie there and star gaze.
It's been pretty warm here recently. Today is supposed to reach 41C so well over the old 100F mark.
Youngest has been going to swimming lessons all week and has one week of them left.
I haven't caught up wih hall the people I'd have liked to over the break. So far! But I will be trying to see a few people in the next 2 weeks. I owe so many people a visit when I next go to Perth that the thought is quite daunting. We have our first non family visitors staying over on Saturday night which I am looking forward to.

Developer still has not planted the trees for our buffer zone despite visiting us the week before Christmas and telling Hubby he was returning the following week to do them. grrr

Still no news on the repainting.

We've booked someone to come and install ceiling fans in the main living areas and the bedrooms soon. What a drama trying to find someone local who could do the job. We have discovered we should have insisted on conduit in the walls around the switches if we've wanted ceiling fans with controllers on internal walls. The electricans have all not been interested in doing it because it means gouging out a hole in the plaster and brick. They only want to put controllers on external walls.

The first flower from the Scarlet Queen Elizabeth roses. They need a good boost to toughen up the stems. Our ones in our old house were such vigorous growers where as these seem a bit frail.
Peace roses. Plant leaves look a little stressed. Hope it's just the heat.

from the air

2010-01-11T06:38:00.003+08:00

Aerial shot taken Dec 11th.

And roses go in.

2009-12-30T09:36:00.007+08:00

The row might not look straight but it is!

After finishing digging it it was finally time for the reward. When we decided to sell our last house I took cuttings from my favourite rose plant to a local rose nursery and they were able to graft the cuttings on to new root stock. I had to do this if I wanted this rose at the new house because no one was growing that particular rose in WA anymore. It's a Floribunda rose ( always thought it was a HT) , non scented and I guess because of this not very popular. It's called Scarlet Queen Elizabeth. But I love the colour of the flower. After about 9 months of waiting anxiously I heard they had managed to get 17 plants from the cuttings I'd done so I took a trip up to Perth and picked out 7 to keep.
For months I've had an idea in mind for the rose garden. A zigzag look of two rows with room between for others. I'd drawn them on computer in the proposed layout and even set them out in their pots last week and thought it looked ok. However with the ground ready finally to take them I didn't like the look at all. Trying to imagine them with random roses between just didn't produce a good look in my mind's eye. So I've opted for a single row.

I will be buying some more roses later on. Some scented ones.

Black magic.
Black Velvet
"Black Velvet " in memory of my nan who passed away about a month ago. ( it was her favourite rose)and "Papa Meilland" will be three I will be buying.
Papa Meilland ( for it's lovely scent)

At this stage I'm not sure what others I will buy.

Dig, dig and more digging.

2009-12-29T14:22:00.008+08:00

As you can see from the photo's this little bed is only the start of a huge garden production that will be a number of years in the making.

I have to wait until the 4th to find out if I can get any more tube stock punnets of the dwarf abelia. Hopefully they nursery will have some in stock.

I'm about half way through digging in the soil conditioner. It's a bit warm to finish atm and seeing as I'm not used to physical work I'm doing a small bit each day. I really need to dig it in further but this is just to make a start on the bed and then I'll use some more to increase the percentage of conditioner to sand when I actually plant my roses and other plants.

A few shots from slightly different angles of the bed I'm working on.

And some plants from Mum. This photo is really here so Fu can have a fit at all the dietes and rhoeos.

I found this nice little plant at the local "Thrifty Link hardware store. Quite like it. So took a couple of shots so I remember it.

Fans and Garden

2009-12-28T13:37:00.009+08:00

Got home from Perth yesterday evening feeling quite shattered. We caught up with family and managed to do a bit of Christmas sales buying yesterday as well. Went to Beacon Lighting and picked up 5 ceiling fan lights for the house. This means all bedrooms except the spare will have a ceiling fan and we will also be putting 2 in the main living area. We did try to get the same ones exactly but couldn't get them in the same colour combinations so have settled for 2
different colours, 3 variations on the same model. We've had to leave 3 of the fans in Perth until our next trip as we ran out of boot space.

This is the one for our bedroom.

This is one of the ones for the main living area where the computers all are.
This one is also for the main living area and will be between two ceiling lights.
We have 1 chrome fan /light with wenge blades, One chrome fan with wenge blades for the main living area.
2 white ceiling fans with lights for the boys rooms and one white eco version (T5 fluro) light fitting for our bedroom. This one has a slightly more bulgy light fitting section but it was the only way to get the fluro light which is meant to be brighter than the ones in the other lights. They are all hallogen not CLF as this was the only version offereed in this light model. We couldn't find any other fans that we both liked although both of us saw ones we liked individually.
The brand is Lucci and the fan is called the Futura. Choice magazine didn't rate it super highly
(We didn't have $350 to spend per fan) but in the mid price range fans it was one of the better ones.

These are the minor bedroom lights. You can see our main bedroom one behind it.

Today I started on our first proper garden bed. ( There's a temp one for some plants that will eventually be moved near it) the weather isn't exactly perfect for gardening but I've been itching to get started and finally the retaining wall guy finished the last section of wall at the front of the house. ( I think we should have one more block but never mind perhaps he can add that when we eventually bring him back to do the other side of the house. I planted 18 dwarf abelias along the edge of the retaining wall. I'm going to have to go and get another punnet of 6 as I ran out.

First I started by digging in some of the soil conditioner and garden mix into the builders sand pad and then added more as I dug each section for the plants themselves. I plan to grab some wood chips to mulch near each plant when I go to the nursery tomorrow to buy the extra punnet of abelias.

I still have to dig the rest of the soil conditioner into the rest of the bed. The bed is about 10 m long by 3m wide. Once its done i'll water in some molasses.

Started on Christmas decorations. Finally!

2009-12-06T07:48:00.007+08:00

Today our youngest, 'R" decided he wanted to help me put up the Christmas tree. The tree is definitely looking the worse for wear with one branch base broken and quite a few bits broken off it now. It's well past it's use by. Given that we bought it 2nd hand many, many, years ago it's done well to have lasted so long. It's the tree type that has conifer type branches with individual bits and they aren't the type of tree you see that often any more so it will be hard to find something the same but it really will need to be replaced for next year regardless. While I am tempted to rush out and replace it now I guess it's nice to have it join us for our first Christmas in the new house.

Anyway on to the decorating: Once we had finished "R" declared that it looked better with less so off came 1/2 the decorations and it's now down to red/blue/gold as a theme.

So no lead crystal decorations that I purchased when still working back when I was 7 months pregnant with the eldest and which have been on the tree every Christmas since. I haven't figured out what to do with them "instead" yet but perhaps I'll find a place for them somewhere. No embarrassing pics of the boys as very littlies that hung in Christmas wreath photo frames, no crafty decorations this year.

After we'd finished I tried draping the silver tinsel that we had and it just didn't look right so it's come off for the moment. Perhaps if I buy some gold tinsel it might look better. The tree lights will need to be tested as well. haven't put them on yet. So the tree is a work in progress.

This is what I started on last weekend. Pulling out all my Christmassy ornaments and putting them together in the lounge room. The Santa used to be a light as well and when the boys were young we'd place it on a coffee table in the lounge room with a snack for Santa and the reindeers next to it. The battery light hasn't worked in it for years but it still makes a lovely ornament.
Today I've added the stockings below. One for each boy. The Christmas Tree one belongs to "C" and the reindeer one to "R" I asked them if they really wanted them up but they told me they didn't want to miss out on finding surprises in there on Christmas morning.

I wasn't sure what to do with these stars. I used to dangle them from the curtains in the lounge room in our old house and then I realised I could do something with the electric fire so this is where they will sit for the moment until I come up with something else. Perhaps a stack of christmas crackers. I'm not sure. Had to switch on the light mechanism to make it appear more realistic.
We picked up our new organza sheers for the lounge room yesterday. they have turned out too short for the window. I did give the correct measurements to the curtain girl and explained how far from the floor i wanted the curtains to finish, asking her advice as to what drop to make them to achieve this but some how they've ended up at least 3-4 cms too short. Luckily the rod is quite high above the window and DH will be able to drop it down about the amount they are short. So not too big a drama to solve because as they are at the moment they look terrible. We love the colour and look though.

I've draped a chain of Christmas bells across them . It looks very festive although it hasn't shown up in the photo terribly well.

R's been doing some constructing of his own.

2009-11-28T05:57:00.003+08:00

Youngest has been "landscaping" the front yard this week. So far we have a 2 hole golf course.
( I've been roped in to play 3 games with him today) and now our very own stone circle.

more pictures

2009-11-26T18:19:00.004+08:00

back filling is still to be completed. but It looks great. So much so we are going to get the guy to quote us for the retaining wall we need on the other side of the house. which is probably a bigger job and is certainly more fiddly as it will include several direction changes and a set of steps. He's been brilliant backfilling over our septics as well. It seems they weren't covered the way they were supposed to be. So he has backfilled with some of our additional soil and covered up a service pipe so it's just visible instead of being nearly 500mm above ground level.

finally some action.

2009-11-25T18:33:00.005+08:00

Still waiting on the maintenance guys,

still waiting on someone to put in some trees

HOWEVER

Finally our first retaining wall was started today. yippee The first of several. We plan to put them in gradually.

Once this one is done we can start on the front garden which I have been so looking forward to.
The guys will be finishing it off hopefully tomorrow.

piccies

2009-10-02T14:34:00.002+08:00

oh dear

2009-10-02T10:38:00.004+08:00

We had a call this morning from D the man in charge of WA C B maintenance team He wanted to call in and see our issues as per the paperwork we handed in yesterday. Very fast work. It seems we have some painting dramas to look forward to.
A-M I'm thinking of your painting dramas now and feeling a bit stressed.

ceilings need redoing, sanding, re-taping, repainting in at least 2 areas. One of them being the main living/dining/kitchen/games area. then cornices need patching and repairing. It's going to be messy. Paint sheets everywhere.

he's said something about getting in a cleaner afterwards "if " it's messy. but it looks like a few weeks worth of work as it's a several stages job.

We also need an extra bit of guttering to be added near the front door and also had a suggestion to wait 'til next winter to look at getting additional downpipes put in. He seems to think we don't have enough downpipes and need2-3 more. Hubby grimaced at that although he felt the same. the last thing hubby wants to do is dig more soakwells. oh joy.

hmm hopefully they start no earlier than late next week when the kids and I will be away and it's only hubby here and not while my mum is staying at the beginning of the week.

at least it's a good excuse not to finish our own painting. We might as well wait until the builders painters have finished. .

Tick tock time passing

2009-10-01T18:03:00.004+08:00

IN reverse order:
Tomorrow I must be brave and finish the curtains for our bedroom. They've been sitting partly cut, unpinned and not sewn for 2 months now as I nervously dither about how to sew them. No more.

Today we handed in our 4 month maintenance form to the builder. We should get some action of the few things that need fixing hopefully in the next week or 2/3. Much is cosmetic but there are a few things that do need to be looked into including a section of guttering that seems to hold water rather than sending it flowing down the downpipes.
Our S.S. mentioned that our ceilings needed redoing in the main living area 3 months ago just after we first moved in. This will be something that hopefully gets sorted out now the follow up team are due to start their part of the process.

We've purchased a couple of extra towel rails for the bathrooms for hand towels. Still need a wall cabinet for our ensuite or else for the temporary mirror to be hung. ( Perhaps in the next wave of drilling)

Have looked into getting some earth delivered to do some planting and it was quite reasonable for very ordinary soil. It looks like the plants I have put in will get moved yet again. I think they are too far from the house for the garden border they are meant to be part of.

Yesterday the first of our pictures were finally hung on walls. There are more to do but it's amazing what a difference it makes once a few things are up.

We've had a couple of mini bonfire/fires to start to clear up some of the wood we have here. It's been fun sitting outside on a still night. C has discovered the joys of toasted marshmellows and R loves dropping leaves on the fire.

We splashed out and bought a new tv. Time for some family movie nights.

Several weeks ago our outside clothes line went up. Yippee. Airflow in the garage wasn't the best and it was taking ages for things to dry that couldn't be put in the dryer.

Finally all the soakwells have been dug. Hard going in rock and gravel as hubby will happy tell you. He's just glad it's over with.

talented

2009-09-01T19:28:00.004+08:00

I have a very talented and clever MIL. She makes handmade cards for Christmas and our birthdays every year and we even got a special "welcome to your new home" card from her when we moved in. It had little hand made paint rollers on the front and was very cleverly made.

Today our eldest turned 14 and she made a gift card for him. It looked exactly like a wallet. Which turned out pretty much the perfect card because he was actually hoping to get a new wallet for his birthday as he had lost his wallet several weeks ago when we had a family outing. ( yes he did get a new wallet from us)

His wallet card from the MIL had 2 little "cards" inside with messages and also had some money in it as well which pleased him no end. I wasn't home when she rang this morning but I hope he thanked her and my FIL for the gift.

Thank you B & M.

slowly........

2009-08-28T17:53:00.003+08:00

My LSL is over. We have several half completed soakwells waiting to be filled in. Hopefully G's arm will be ok enough for him to get these done this weekend. We have purchased a basic wireless doorbell. Yippee. So that can be installed this weekend.
We have hooks so our pictures and wall clock can finally be put up. Again, hopefully this weekend. Then the house will start to feel more like home.

The seascape will be going above the electric fire. ( used as a light effect only not for heating) and the Escher s will be going in the hallway.

I would really like to put up all the postcards in their frames that we had up in our last house but they need re-framing and I'm not sure where to put them so for the moment that won;t be happening.

We have a busy week next week. Our wedding anniversary and both boys birthdays to get through. so I'll be busy cooking cake and doing other things as well as catching up on what my class have been up to for the past 2 weeks and finding out what wasn't covered from the war and peace sized file of work I left for the replacement teacher.

Weekend.

2009-08-24T06:06:00.010+08:00

Sunday
Digging:

Hubby has dug the soakwells in a fair way but not technically as far as he is meant to go. Soakwells are meant to be buried with their lids 600mm below ground but in the case of our soakwells they are around 300mm below ground level. The first 3/4 is digging into sand but after that it's sheer determination, bloody mindedness , energy and luck as to how far down he can get. When you hit huge rocks and they can't be dug out by hand there is only so much you can do. G has been digging out the smaller ones but after relocating the holes numerous time to allow for bigger rocks i't becomes a matter of get the soakwells in where you can. After these two he only has one more to go.

Meanwhile I had another go at planting some things in the front and marking out garden areas.

As a friend (W) who lives nearby recently said, " If you want to plant anything it means using a crowbar or a pick." He wasn't exaggerating. Dug 15 holes to plant some border plants using a pick and a trowel. Went back 3 hours later and realised that most were in the wrong position so out came the pick again to move them. Must learn to wear gardening gloves and remove rings. I have a lovely blood blister at the base of one finger now.

I think I had better refrain from gardening today.

We were given a weather station by the inlaws on Friday. Youngest helped me put it together and we placed it in the "garden" to try it out. It has a fairly accurate temperature thermometer. Compared it this morning with another weather station tool I'd bought Hubby for his birthday and it was pretty much on the button.

I am on LSL atm. My 2nd and final week about to start. Should have been in Bali but it was not to be so spending time here getting a few things done, feeling a bit down in the dumps over missing out on Bali but also fighting off a slight cold which I've had now for more than a week.

Most inspired by a friends garden. W & P have been here 2 years and are on a 1/2 acre block and there is barely a vacant patch of ground. Lots of native plants but they also have roses and at least one camelia and several raised veggie beds. I really want to get some soil in to do proper garden beds. I've ordered a couple of" ned kelly" grevillias. yippee should be here in a week or 2. I intend to plant them below the trees out the back. Mum has offered to propagate some kangaroo paws from seed for me and I will have to do a trip up to Perth with minimum luggage and passengers and fill the car with more plants. Hopefully will get to collect a mulberry tree from Maggie, from H1 who offered to grow one from a cutting for me.
When we first lived in Joondalup there was a huge sand bank just across from the estate entrance area that was covered with paper daises ( everlastings) I loved seeing it each year and I am hugely tempted to plant some here. I've noticed seed bags of them for sale in the local hardware store. When we went to visit W and P's last week I noticed they have a small drift of them at the front of their house.

It's funny that I love everlastings as I'm not a fan of pink flowers and pink themed gardens.

http://www.everlastings.com.au/products.html

Saturday.
Getting ready to return from Perth on Friday afternoon my eldest declared that he'd really like to go in costume to to local Medieval Fair on Saturday. So we had a last minute dash around to a fabric shop and I managed to pick up some black poplin fairly cheaply and also some stretchy silver material. Youngest declared he wanted to dress as a thief. In the end I talked him into wearing a cape with a hood. ( what a sewing disaster ) 2 attempts later he had to live with a some what sad cape. Eldest had declared he fancied being a monk. He had visions of a "Monty Pythons search for a holy grail" type monk. Forgot completely about him needing a cross or prayer book to carry. Luckily G was able to fashion a cross from the stem of some bracken while we watched youngest play soccer on Saturday morning at the local oval in the town where the fair was held. Given the short sewing time I'm quite pleased with his monk tunic and hood but the stretchy silver fabric was a nightmare to sew and I ended up re-cutting fabric and leaving it with mostly raw ends as you can see from the photo. After all the late night sewing we didn't end up staying long since youngest had the beginnings of a nasty cold and felt quite miserable.

Sick Gum and first garden bed

2009-08-08T15:33:00.007+08:00

After much googling it seems my sick tree is a Marri tree (red gum /corymbia calophylla ) and is likely suffering from canker. There is no cure. It will eventually kill the tree. If this is the case it also effects flowering red gum trees. Mum recently told me she has a flowering red gum tree tube for me. Not much point in me planting it as they are the only other gum susceptible to this canker.

The tree that is the furthest from the house appears to be suffering. If it falls it will not hit the house but could damage trees closer to the house.

At this stage we will leave it there but it doesn't look too good. I've tried googling to see what I can find but all the things I've read seem to suggest that if it is weeping that much sap it must be dying.
black cockatoos being very aggressive here . they have completely stripped the bark off some other trees we had removed that were prob the same sort. But they've left the other trees we have standing, alone. don't think they are the same variety.

Today I made a start on a small experimental garden bed out the front of the house near the front door. After some excellent advice from" Fu" I've added organic soil conditioner and some pig poo to a section of the builders sand pad. After digging it in. ( Also added some kitchen scraps) I watered the area with a molasses -water mix in a watering can.

Still to get a couple of products when I go to Perth in a few weeks but I've made a start. I hope to plant something in the bed next weekend. Giving time for the soil additions to settle in.

On higher ground

2009-08-07T06:36:00.004+08:00

Things I bet you didn't know.

It seems there is a downside to living on the highest block around here.

earlier in the week we received a note from the Water board to say they would be turning off the water between 8am and 4pm yesterday. Fine. We prepared. Filled the kettle. Put water in 2 buckets ( for loo flushing) made sure our several water bottles ( 2L ones) were all filled etc. I arrived home at 5pm to G not happy at all. Water had still not been turned back on. He'd rung the water board who told him water was on and they didn't understand why all our taps were blowing was air. They said they'd send someone out. Around quarter to 6 the man arrived. it seems because we are uphill from everywhere around us the pipes needed a good flushing after whatever work was done so that we could get water where as everyone around us would have already had water. :( hmmm

The emergency call man wasn't too happy that this hadn't been done. ( 35 kms + traveling time to get out here)

He was here for about 90 mins. Had to flush water from 2 outlet pipes one on the block next to us and one down the road a bit and then had water running from the fire hydrant point across the road from us for close on an hour. I hate to think of all the water that we saw running into the stormwater drains. He said there was a lot of black, dirty water coming through and that was why he'd run the water out for a while. Finally by 7pm we were allowed to turn our taps on. yippee.

The other downside I've mentioned before. The power earthing issue. Due to our rocky block, being the current, end of the line ( no pun intended) and supposedly because we are again on a high block. blahhh This problem seems to have been fixed now. Thank goodness.

same view.

2009-08-02T10:23:00.003+08:00

Same view but now the sun is out.

Maybe 3 hours later.

2009-08-02T07:11:00.005+08:00

Standing at the sliding door looking out past the alfresco. Lots of sand to cover up sometime down the track. A pity I couldn't capture it properly on the camera. The view is much clearer. Mist in the distance. The plum trees distinctive and the view to the paddock behind and the forest beyond. Oh well. A shame as it looks quite lovely in real life but dirty and dull in the photo.

Time to sit with a cup of tea and look out over it while everyone else is still asleep and all is quiet except for the magpies I can hear outside.

2009-07-27T17:32:00.005+08:00

As you can see we still have stuff all over the place. The stack in front of the capping includes all the leftover carpet, and a few things that belong in the garage as well as my little old sewing machine and some painting gear that hasn't made it to the garage yet. Dh is working on sorting out the garage atm so these things will be disappearing soon.

Love the splashes of red in the kitchen.

Clearing and sorting

2009-07-25T09:11:00.011+08:00

Clearing out the office continues again today. Last Saturday G put together the 7 bookcases ( 6 for the office and one for the kids area) I spent some time on the weekend putting some books away but there are still many things to find homes for.

You can see there is still a fair way to go.

Inspired by A-M's beautiful things posts I decided to set up a
"special" keepsake from my childhood. I found it stuffed in a box when unpacking more things today. When I was a child my family did not have a lot of money , however we would often go to country Field Day Fairs. On rare occasions when Mum had spending money she would buy a ticket on the "chocolate wheel." (A spinning number wheel) People would buy a ticket and hope it would come up to win prizes. Mum is one of those people I certainly envy, who are frequently lucky at games of chance. And Yes she does quite well when she goes to the casino. :)

Many of my toys as a child came from the chocolate wheels.
My 2 teddies ( big and little Ted) , my rag doll Jane ( long gone), a small tin single room dolls house ( I had no dolls small enough for it but I still loved it) and this barbie sized table setting.
Definitely looking the worse for wear I was absolutely thrilled with it as a small child. It's unfortunately not complete. Several missing small forks (yes it came with large and small forks as well as bread and butter knives, soup and dessert spoons) and one knife, 1 serviette and two missing wine glasses. still not bad for a well loved toy from 40+ years ago. Little Ted has also come on our latest journey. He's quite worn and one of his glass eyes has been theatening to fall out completely for years but I still cart him from home to home.

So does anyone else have things kept from their childhood?

Or am I the only horrendous hoarder amoungst the people who read this blog.
I also have my very special baby doll, "Christina" and a number of my first books. I didn't have many and not having siblings not only were they fairly well looked after by me there were no "others" to wear them out.

Ok back to my usual geeky self as I'm starting to get visions of being smothered in pink taffeta and lace. arghhhhh... No idea why as I never had anything like that to wear in my childhood.

Our network cables already starting to look tangled in the office. I guess I'll have to sort these out properly some time soon.

wine rack

2009-07-15T17:44:00.004+08:00

Bought myself a small 4 x 3 wine rack rta thingy. a reputable darn thing I'd seen in Howards storage world. But it seems this week is not my week to partake of building challenges. It took me ages to assemble a cheap mini computer desk on Monday and then just this afternoon I decided I'd assemble the wine rack I'd purchased. well one slightly grazed, turned into 2 bloodied fingers and a nice painful blood bruise/blister on the tip of my index finger later. oh the frustration as I tried to get the little metal strips to go into the precut gaps. Hmm I should have stuck with a wooden rack. It did suggest a mallet to help. well it certainly helped me. lose all feeling in the tip of my finger anyway. and some blood. :)

:( maybe I'm meant to just drink any wine I have/buy/get given and not store it.!!!!!!

buyer beware. Bordex wine rack... http://www.australia.bordexwineracks.com/

bugger it I'm going to go and make a start on drinking my wines right now!

Kicking on

2009-07-15T07:58:00.008+08:00

Our terracotta warrior man didn't survive themoving journey but thankfully our buddah did.

It's been a busy half week. Hubby and I both had birthdays. We've still got a mound of boxes in the office but this will hopefully begin to change soon.

I really was keen to get Billy bookcases in the black/brown colour , trouble was the cost to get Ikea to deliver them was well over $300 or a private random moonlighting removalist at least $150 to do the same. Anyway we went to the local Officeworks to check out their filing cabinets and to take another look at their bookcases. I'd previously only seen the 1800 height ones in dark colours but wanted to double check. Found they had some very ordinary "cherry" bookcases in the 2020 size i was looking for for $30 less than the lovely ikea ones I had my heart set on. Decided on the budget SOHO filing cabinets they had but they only had them in grey and I was keen to continue my black/dark brown theme in the office. Discovered they had some timber look ones for an extra $9 each, much more attractive than the grey ones and these could be delivered. Long and short of the story is I rang the 1300 number and ended up ordering 7 bookcases in the cherry ( grimace) and 2 filing cabinets. WAIT FOR IT!!!!!!!

I ordered at 9am Monday morning and yesterday ( Tuesday) at 10.30 a big yellow delivery van rolled up with 2 4 drawer filing cabinets and all the shelving for the 7 bookcases, backs and sides to come today. AND!!!!!!! delivery was $44! So it seems the office will be cherry/ black-brown now. oh well. I've saved around $500. Couldn't resist the bargain. We'll be very busy putting all these together.

More wins. The local ( 35kms away) Crazy Clarkes, ( Super cheap discount store) had black trestle tables 2m in length. 30% off. So I bought 2 and got someone we know locally to pick them up for us for basically the cost of fuel. :) so for $110 including delivery cost we now have a 4 m work bench area in the office. ATM it's covered with items but eventually there will be shelving above the 2nd bench to hold all my wiring, cables, spare hd's and equipment. Very pleased with this.

Delighted to report our broadband is back on. Was very worried as there were only 3 spare ports. One of the reasons I was happy to move to this town( it was one of the criteria) was that broadband was available so I would have been gutted to not have been able to access it.

Picked up my sewing machine yesterday after it was given a service so I should be able to make up the curtains for our bedroom. Yippee. Hubby spent Monday putting up a retractable clothes line in the garage and 6 curtain rods and rails. Even without curtians on the ones in our bedroom and the lounge the rooms somehow seem more finished.

These are the cushions we found for the couch. We looked at suede type cushions but felt the cushions needed to be a different texture to the couch as they just looked lost. I couldn't find anything with embroidery we liked and then saw these. Simple ones in colours that suited.
Kitchen handle pictures for a H1 forumite.
Our office and minor bedroom carpet. It's actually a deep charcoal colour but looks lighter here.
This is the carpet in the lounge and main bedroom. It's a deep chocolate colour. The flash has washed it out.

SCARY PHOTOS

2009-07-11T16:50:00.005+08:00

NOW YOU CAN SEE WHAT I MEANT ABOUT BOX HORROR. This is one side of the office. Luckily there are not boxes anywhere else other than the office apart from some empty ones flat packed ready to go behind a couch and some picture boxes still with pictures in them waiting for a home. This is 1/2 of the box mound in the office. Unfortunately the 'mound will have to stay until I can get some Billy bookcases from Ikea.
Below is part of the office we have started to sort out.

A couple of other quick photos.

We're here

2009-07-11T06:10:00.000+08:00

Still no photos as We are buried in boxes and to be honest I don't

even know where a cable is to download photos to the computer from

phone or camera. Not sure where camera is either. I was much more

organised with the last move 19 months ago.

House is looking good. Had the Site supervisor call in yesterday to

see if we were happy so we could sign off and be on track for the 4

month inspection. We were discussing things we've noticed and I

pointed out a nail in the pantry that had never been hammered in and

he spotted that the pantry ceiling has only had one coat. He also

wasn;t happy with the ceiling coating in the main living area and

will be getting the painters back to redo this.
We've had our flywire doors installed and a couple of window sliders

straightened up. One is still a little loose. It seems someone put a

rivet in the wrong place. The window is ok but not perfect and they

are willing to fix it. Unfortunately the fix would mean pulling the

entire frame out of the wall so We've opted to leave it as is.

G in particular is getting a bit of an extra spark out of living

here. We have an electric current surprise when we shower\ He

describes it as like putting your tongue on a 9volt battery.

Happens when he touches the taps in the shower. Not sure if its a

static thing or earthing thing. Electrician has been back. He's

put in an extra earthing point thing. ( no idea of the proper name,

sorry) He's tested all the wiring and said whatever is causing it

is so low a current reading doesn't show up on his metres which

means its below 1 something...He tested every point in the house

and our surge protectors. . Western power want him to run a couple

more tests next week incase it is feedback from the house down the

road. He did tell us it's something that although not that common it

is more common on properties with a lot of rock like ours.

Finally got the rental cleaned and finished off last night. G has

one more trip there today to empty the last things out of the shed

and we need to return the keys at 9 this morning and then that is

all done.

carpets

2009-07-01T19:36:00.005+08:00

Now that the paint has had time to dry it looks much nicer and lighter. The "flokati" above looks more grey as does the" igloo" in the main bedroom and lounge. Though with the new carpet being a deep chocolate/charcoal in main bedroom and lounge it might look brown again. I wonder how the folkati will go with the almsot black/charcoal carpet. Will have to wait and see.

Tested out the shower in the main bathroom at the new house this morning. It was really cold here again this morning and I'm completely fed up with cold showers here as the hot water system is useless in winter. Unfortunately it's been so overcast and raining and grey here the water wasn't much hotter through the Solar HW system at the new house as I didn't have time for the electric booster to kick in. BUT with the IXL heater running when I stepped out of the shower the rooms was lovely and slightly warm so it wasn't the horrd experience that it is here. Definitely returning tomorrow morning.

Carpets are a coming...
All the underlay has now been installed and the lounge and main bedroom carpet is down but not cut or fixed. I can see the carpet in our bedroom has been joined.

This late at night the carpet looks a deep chocolate colour but it's actually more a deep charcoal. Hmm photos look shocking so I won't upload them as I took them with my mobile and the light was terrible. I've noticed we have the triple hook/nail metal edging in door ways
and the basic double wooden edging on most edges of the rooms. though in one section of the office ( midway) they've done 2 rows of battens.
hehe DH got asked today how come we'd requested a power stretcher and how did we even know of them. :) Our carpet layer has been laying carpet for 30 years and he made the comment that it saves so much on his knees now he's getting older. (i noticed he also has a kicker) Went up to peek tonight after 6 and spotted a range of implements. he was quite impressed that Dh's wife ( me)had been on a forum and had heard about power stretchers from "tradies" that obviously "know their stuff". ( his phrase)and that visit the forum. I'm not sure the guy was too in the know with "the web' Hubby said he looked a bit overwhelmed when he mentioned that I'd read about them online.

mmm toastie

2009-06-27T17:44:00.004+08:00

Well we had our reverse cycle ducted aircon installed yesterday and it's so lovely and toastie warm in the house even without window furnishings. Has certianly made a difference for trying to paint today as the weather is wild, wet and cold.

I went into Bunbury this morning and collected more sealer and my walpalmur "tumbleweed" . I was able to get a 6 L can. If I hadn't been able to my next pick would have been wattyl's "white pepper". I'm just hoping the colour isn't too dark once it gets painted in the office.

Started on the lounge today in "igloo". It's come up browner than I expected. 1st coat is completed in the lounge now. Hubby has done all the edging for our bedroom and the lounge
and for part of the large family room area. Tomorrow he's starting on edging in Flokati in the minor bedrooms. He's just hoping it doesn't look too white but given how much darker igloo is than it looked on the sample board hopefully he will be able to see where he has been. I like the colour btw. It's not too dark at all.
Photo below of a wall half done to see the contrast with the sealed white wall.

22nd June

2009-06-22T18:37:00.002+08:00

Left here at 6.30am yesterday and drove to Bunbury. Got there just as the store was opening.
Spare paint sheets, additional paint pot and another cheap brush and some paint cleaner wipes ( yippee no more white hair) BUT NO paint roller cleaners in stock. Was sent to another hardware store about 10 kms further away. Hmm off I zoomed only to find it didn't open until 9. arghh.. paper, coffee, freezing in the car, eventaully it opened and yes they had them. Thank goodness.

I think I managed close on 100kms by the time I was home again. A shame it took me almost 3 hours for what should have been an 80 min trip.
We finally started painting again late morning. DH had pretty much finished the main room and completed the lounge. I ended up running a brush around all the non corked rooms to seal between the floor and walls. Also did the main bathroom edges and the kitchen. Only dripped a little paint on the cork. What a pain.

Then it was home again to do some more sorting and tidying up for the real estate agents' visits the next day and to get some general household things done, kids finishing homework etc etc.

Today we've had the cork guys back to try and patch up a door they chipped. grr touched up now with white paint. :( luckily it's not in an obvious place.

Two Agents came with 3 people and looked the place over.
Between doing the normal Monday things Dh has been patching and doing prep work for yet more painting tomorrow and has now gone off to work.
He's done more than me though. All I've managed to do is get hold of another curtain person to give a quote and cook tea. Hopefully topmorrow will be a better day. I have plenty of things on after work hours that are work related againand required to be done this week so getting home in time to help is not easy.

arghhhhhhhh Saturday

2009-06-21T06:07:00.004+08:00

Well painting has commenced. I managed to get sealer on my butt and in my hair as I painted.
Spoke to my mum last night and she pointed out that it was why she always wore a scarf when painting. hmm might get a shower cap to wear today. Not able to get one big enough for my butt though so will just have to not point it at wet walls. :) (Great look not. ) I started sealing the grout in the main bathroom but the floor is quite dirty from when the corking was done so it needed a good clean first and then to dry so I had to stop.

By 5.30 yesterday afternoon we'd both had enough and called it quits. Took the kids to the local pub for steak burgers for dinner. yummo.
DH has declared he is too old for DIY hmm ok dear but we have about 850L of paint to go so no stopping yet. I think what made it worse was we were working on the biggest room which is actually 4 rooms in one so it felt never ending. In fact we still have 3 walls to go( no windows/doors/switches just straight painting yippee) and we haven't touched the kitchen or the cut in sections near doors and windows. Lots of fiddly bits to do. We've decided from now on we won't use a paint brush to do edging down near the cork and just use the roller. Since Dh is too nervous to go too close to the cork with the brush anyway we can get just as close with the roller. Of course this was after spending the entire afternoon doing just that. Still we've learnt now and we won't do it for any more corked areas. Once this room is finished we'll move on to all the rooms that have concrete floors. They can be done much faster as we don't have to worry about paint spatters on the floor. The hallways and kids activity with cork flooring can be done at a later stage. There's no major furniture for there that can't be moved anyway. OK actually at this stage there is NO furniture for the activity room at all unless we buy a new tv so the kids can have the old one. :) Unless you count 2 bean bags.

Biggest pain has been we've discovered we are missing our paint roller cleaner. I'm off to Bunnings to try and buy one. I'm dreading how much it might be, if they even sell one. DH found the Box for the thing in the shed but no appliance. We've used this tool a lot over the years. really good value. No idea where it is. BUT it's not something we can do without as it makes paint cleanup (once we get to water based paints) a much easier job.

anyway time to get organised for my 34km trip( make that 68km round trip) to Bunnings.
( hardware store)

cork

2009-06-14T10:14:00.003+08:00

more $

2009-06-13T20:29:00.008+08:00

Managed to find some beautiful embroidered type sheer curtains in Textile Traders today. It came in 4 shades. The material is normally $20 m but is currently on sale at 25% off so down to $15m. I didn't dare buy it without running it past Hubby as we weren't supposed to be buying curtaining. Anyway I ended up getting hubby to meet me in town to check out something else and took him into the shop. He agreed that the unusual colour that had caught my eye was indeed lovely and so .... SOLD!

It's a bit hard to capture it but it's a dark grey/mushroomish colour. Or rather a dark grey with a hint of mauve/purple. Rather outside my usual style, it will help create a "pretty, feminine, soft, romantic looking set of windows for our bedroom.

I actually went to town mainly to pay some money off on the 2 beds we're buying for our boys but while there I spotted a couple of couches that would be perfect for our family room. We'd seen another inexpensive one elsewhere in a lovely deep raisin colour ( charcoal/brown suede ) but it wasn't available again until September. Of course these ones were the last in stock before the shop closes for good so it was a case of buy now or miss out. As I stood looking at them, one of the couches sold. ( luckily there was a 2nd of that colour). Not 100% sure of the colour. I called G and asked him to drive in and check it out as there was no way I wanted to buy without him seeing them. Unfortunately he didn't make it before the shop closed for the day so he hasn't seen them in the flesh, just my photos. He will be going in on Monday to check them out and decide which/if one of them is suitable. I've asked that they hold the most likely candidate until then ( left a deposit that can be transferred to the beds if need be)
I'm a bit nervous about the lighter couch but i think the chocolate one blends into the cork flooring too much. We'll have to scotchguard it. It also has a recliner built into each end. We want this couch to sit in front of our fire. Mmm Imagine lazing back in the chair watching the flames.

These are the King single beds we've ordered for the boys. Both will be in the darker wood colour. They chose their own bedstyles. I was hoping they'd both pick the same but... oh well.

We are considering these lights for the 2 batten fittings in the kitchen ( in a large size) and a smaller one for the entry area. With the double white section I'm hoping to echo the white downlights. If we'd had chrome downlights there was a white and chrome version of these lights that I really liked. Photo below the first one.

These may end up being our garage lights. We've found them in Bunnings for almost half the price they were in the lighting store.

$pending time

2009-06-12T20:02:00.004+08:00

Floors are looking lovely now they are properly sealed. We should be able to walk on them by late tomorrow in clean, bare or stockinged feet. But no shoes for a week.

Handed in our official notice on the rental.

Went to town today with a huge list of things to do and only achieved a few of them.

We did however manage to order/book our carpets. We also saved $900 because we found a different carpet for the minor bedrooms and office that we liked that was less expensive that what we were originally going to use. It's sort of a dark, charcoal/black colour and is a level loop style carpet. ( a bit like the one in the link but darker) Sorry folks I forgot to take a picture of it. Anyway carpet is now booked in to be laid in a few weeks. Yes, with a powerstretcher before anyone asks.

It is a Feltex brand SDN that they have in bulk atm. woohoo.

Also popped into Spotlight and bought some curtain rails for bedrooms and lounge and some sheerish curtaining for the minor bedrooms. Since I hadn't heard back from the redishades people we decided to buy some of the curtaining lace that we would have been eventually buying anyway and use that for the minor bedrooms. Spotlight sales meant the tracks were less expensive than usual and so was the basic plain lace type curtaining. Left the organza/voile for the main bedroom and lounge for the moment but did buy some rods. Got home only to discover I could have gotten another $30 off with an online voucher that could be used on top of any other discounts! rats! oh well.

Grabbed 2 sample pots for the wattyl paint place as well. One of Flokati and one of Igloo so I can test them out.

sneaking in

2009-06-09T19:27:00.007+08:00

Tonight was the last time we could sneak in before they finish, sand and start sealing the flooring so we went up for a quick photo shoot and to fix up the redi shade in the kitchen. The guys had pegged it up really roughly and it was being mangled completely out of shape. Since I didn't want it being completely ruined by the end of next week when I would be able to get in again it had to be fixed tonight.

Lintels have been painted so now all the painting is complete. Unfortunately no one can access inside the house to put in the drain/grates now until a week after the cork guys have finished. Which is very annoying. Flyscreens for the sliders are still to come as well. Hubby went to visit the estate agents today to give notice. Seems we need to do it in writing. BUT we have been minus a lease since June the 6th! duh :) Oh and it seems she will "try" and give us 24 hours notice if she wants to bring through any potential renter. humph!

Cork arrives.

2009-06-08T17:54:00.003+08:00

The 2 cork guys turned up this morning and have already made huge progress. They expected to be finished on Friday ( including sealing). It's then another week before they suggest allowing anyone walk on it at all. So for the next 2 weeks we can't do anything in the house at all. would have been perfect timing if it had been at this stage last week as originally planned since I've been flat out doing reports anyway but never mind.

The floor is currently slightly tacky. It's half of the gluing compound. I didn't dare walk on it though supposedly you can do.

It's Ours!

2009-06-05T06:43:00.002+08:00

We went up and puts some redishades up on a few windows last night. took our stove kettle, coffee, sugar, milk powder etc and cups, a cloth tea towel... had a coffee at the house while we put up the shades.

We got a lovely box of goodies. I was going to take a photo but Hubby was keen for me to open it. ( DS1 had been hassling him from the moment he'd seen it because he'd spotted some lollies in the box. so by the time I got home...) Hence I didn't get a shot. In the package from the builders was a 20% voucher for use at the wattyl paint trade centre. Pretty pleased DH looked through that as he was originally going to buy some paint yesterday and it would have costs us more and I'd priced sealer last weekend. . NOW we'll wait until Saturday and buy all the paint we need in one bulk lot. ( well much of it at least)

well there are still a few things to be done. No one has put the drain grates in in either the main bathroom or the laundry. In the main bathroom the main grate won't even fit because there is cement in the way on one side and not enough cement on the other! will be txting the S.S. about this. Not sure if it's a plumber thing or a tiler thing. We can't move in even if we wanted to until the floor grates are sorted out. Plus the lintels still need 2nd coats and those rocks are still to go. ( we knew about this) Also waiting on flyscreens for the sliding doors to arrive.

Hubby wanted to make sure none of the builders skeleton keys worked once we had handover in case of an unscrupulous tradie so we've used our keys on every lock now. Now to get anything fixed they will have to ring us and we'll let them in.

handover date set- June 4th

2009-05-31T19:37:00.005+08:00

By Friday we had received an email with our final invoice. Hubby (G) has booked an appointment to hand over the bank cheque on Thursday morning and collect the KEYS!

Thursday:There were people at the house on Thursday. yes a door was left unlocked AGAIN!. We'll be checking every day from now on. Someone has been in patching plaster and the cleaner had finished her job. Someone made a bit of a mess in a few places ,I'm guessing after the cleaner left. The tiny downlights in the hallway are very bright at night.

Friday:On Friday someone had been in and filled up a few mortar holes ( they still missed some), the porta loo and waste skip were collected. Someone has done a first coat on the lintels under the main bedroom windows. Someone else has made an attempt to shift the big rock pile at the back. No luck so that means a BIG dozer will be in early next week instead. $$$$$$ Pest control final spray was done. At some stage the OHS construction sign was removed from the wall next to the office.

Saturday: Tiler was in and sealed the tile joints with silicone. There are neat little tins of leftover paint stacked next to the spare tiles and grout in the house.

Picked up a few " Redi shades" from Bunnings to get us started.
Ordered new bed bases for the boys. Paid a deposit with mattresses to be paid for when we are ready for delivery.
Confirmed that the cork layers start on Monday the 8th.
Started a proper list of things to do.
We've picked a main living area colour. Wattyle "Igloo" or something along those lines if we end up using another paint brand.

Almost done and dusted.

2009-05-27T20:11:00.002+08:00

PCI is done and dusted. Most of the major concerns had already been fixed. Yippee.

Rocks WILL be removed.
Still a little minor plaster patching to be done early next week. Cleaner to finish on Monday. ( burst water main earlier today somewhere in town)
One window which has quite a gap when pressed will be replaced.
Linen sliders need to be adjusted.
Some minor touchups to some window frames and a few more small mortar holes to be plugged.
One privacy lock was on the wrong door but we've elected to leave it where it is. ( wouldn't have minded a privacy lock there as well anyway)
Tiler will be in once the cleaner has finished to seal benchtop and tiles that need a seal edge and fill a gap under the jarrah cap between it and some tiles.
Carpenter is going to putty the worst of the jarrah flaw and reseal the timber.

Everything opens, closes, flushes,switches on and off. all painting messes have been cleaned and covered.
Our brick stain from where the brickies trestle rested against the wall early in bricking stage has been attempted to be cleaned twice. Looks like we'll have to live with it. It's nto coming off and the cleaning attempts have only improved it slightly if at all. But it's not too bad. It will be hidden behind a small fence soon enough.

We have one brick discolouring from something.. We'll wait to see what happens between now and 4 month maintenance.
Elsewhere we have about 5 bricks with the green leeching on them made worse by the brick cleaning done. This will fade with time.

THATS IT!
Invoice will be processed tomorrow and we should receive it early next week and Hopefully we'll get handover by the end of next week.

OH for those who are fairly local. Our S.S> muttered that we seem to have started a trend with raked brickwork. lol I said hmm that might be me. I asked if it was people with the same brick as us and he said yes a couple were. Seems possible that a couple of Bunbury and at least one Collie person building read the forum. I explained that I'd commented on a forum that the raked bricks really brought out the markings on the bricks. lol.. When we started our brickies apprentice had never used a raking tool and the brickie hadn't done a raked mortar himself for quite a long time.

Small update: Cleaner has been in and finished off today. Someones been plaster patching but there's a few spots still to go.

PCI Soon

2009-05-25T19:09:00.000+08:00

Well S.S. turned up on our doorstep this afternoon on the off chance of catching DH.

Sparkie is not too thrilled , claims he's never ever put eco flaps into a house with external venting but will come back and do it. hmm yeah right. Like we'd buy the ixl with the eco flaps instead of the cheaper model if we didn't want it.

S.S. is disputing that they said they'd remove the rocks they dug up during site works. BUT we have it in writing that they will he was very shocked when Dh produced the paperwork with the office signature on it stating clearly that the cost for additional rock siteworks included removing it and that it would be the same cost even if we chose to keep the rock. oops Someone their end has slipped up perhaps.

S.S. wasn't available after work Thursday or Friday so we are having PCI on Wednesday while the cleaners will be in. ( fine by us) if it had meant we could have had handover before the long weekend( wa) this weekend I'd have been willing to take time off but since it won't make any difference I won't.
They will then have 10 days ( is that working days or calendar days?) to fix issues. Invoice will start being processed on the day of PCI and will then be sent out to us approx a week later. We are hoping for less than that as the cork layers are currently booked for the 8th. We might have to move them to a fortnight later which we don't want to do.

I've rushed up to the house late this afternoon and taken photos all around the outside where there are defects in the mortar so I can print off photos with the missing mortar sections circled and some of the most obvious paint mistakes. This way we can hand this information to the S.S. on Wednesday with anything else we want sorted in writing. The painters still have 2nd coats to do on downpipes , meter box and possibly eaves so many of these may yet be fixed by Wednesday.

The only issues we have that we are currently aware of are:
Internal-jarrah cap wood flaw, crooked cistern in ensuite( it's not level), one slider rattles in the latch ( something in the mechanism?),a window that needs adjustment to close more securely.

External-scratch on a window frame.

Time to hunt that PCI checklist down so we can go through room by room. WoohOO