Alfresco deck

This weekend was the alfresco deck's turn to get a scrubbin with the Flood PowerLift Tannin and Deck Sealer Remover - I have the blisters on my hands to go with it! I don't have any before and after pictures at this stage as I made a start late in the afternoon so the PowerLift cleaner wouldn't dry out (must be kept wet the whole time) and it was too dark by the time I finish to take a good picture.

We bought three pandanus trees for the front yard, but now that we have them we don't know where to plant them?! I'm finding landscaping design quite tricky and I'm scared to plant anything in case we mess it up and it looks crap ha! The trees have been planted in a makeshift posse until we can draw up a landscaping plan. I looked into having a professional draw up our plans BUT it is insanely expensive and I wasn't prepared to fork out $3k just to receive drawings and plant list. If you are landscaper and you create landscape plans for DIY at an affordable price then please comment below with your details,we would love to hear from you.

Landscaping can really make or break a property and I think it adds great amounts of value to your home. Doing it right the first time avoids costly mistakes of having to re-do it later down the track.

This weekend sees us starting the massive job of cleaning the fence to prep it for oiling. This job will be a killer!       

Portico deck + retaining wall extension

Here's a before and after shot of the portico deck after our cleaning efforts last week. The Intergrain Ultradeck Oil has come up really well. We may need to do another coat yet, which will make it a tiny bit darker. Alex also extended our retaining wall to the right of our block to support the driveway - another two sections had to go in. One bonus with all the construction happening around us at the moment is that a concrete truck happily came over and poured the holes with cement for free and dumped a heap of cut dirt to back-fill the wall saving us a bit of cash! Our retaining wall to the opposite side of the house also got a slight clean up with an extra length of hardwood added to the existing wall for more height (it runs approx 600mm off the fence line so we plan to fill it with soil and turn into a garden) so the stumps could finally be cut-off to height. They will also require another layer of oil, we used Linseed Oil for our retaining walls, before we back-fill with soil and prep for the garden to go in.    

 

 

 

Exciting things like... side gates & curtains

You know your life is sad you're building a house when certain things like side gates and curtains are exciting!

Alex and I conducted a little drive-by stalker-style survey of our estate to try and get inspiration on what style we wanted for our side gates (after finding a gate, jumping out the car taking photos and driving off again), we then set to finding all the pieces to build our design with. Direct Line Timbers were our go-to again and provided us with the steel frames, latches/locks and the merbau timber. Alex had a crack at putting it together and this is how is looks! I think he's done a fab job! It's not 100% complete yet but they are coming along well.

Our portico, alfresco and fence have finally started to get to the blonding stage (as you would know - fresh timber should ideally be left for two or three months before they're oiled or stained, to allow the sun and rain to help tannins leach out of them) and are ready to be oiled. We used Flood PowerLift Tannin and Deck Sealer Remover to clean the merbau to give it a nicer more consistent look before oiling but plan to only use a  high pressure hose for the fence before we oil it. We've chosen to use Intergrain Ultradeck oil as it's a good quality oil and retains the natural merbau colour, which we love.

I also finalised things to start the manufacture of our curtains! Hoorah, only took 3 months ha! (plus another 4-6 weeks for them to be made) Sheer curtains will go in all the bedrooms with a sun-blockout roller blind behind them and sheers for the stacker doors going out onto the alfresco area. Plantation shutters are planned (but not ordered yet) for the bathrooms, toilet and media room. Nudie runs no longer!

Not easily seen in the pic but the timber slats are different sizes

Sheer in charcoal for bed 2,3 and 4.
images from Block All Stars

Sheer in white for the stacker doors and master bedroom
image from the Block All Stars

B + S Wedding // BALI

Such an absolutely beautiful Bride, wedding, location and holiday!

Attending the wedding in Bali put a few things (house wise) on hold for us, but going to B + S's wedding was important to us both and we were so happy to be invited and to attend.  Such a magical day and these two cuties were gorgeous!

And I managed to pick up some beautiful pieces for the house and ideas for the garden while there! 

Anantara Resort

Motel Mexicola Seminyak

El Kabron Sunsets absolutely stunning

La Plancha - colourful bean bag chill out session on the beach

intricately carved Buffalo skull (symbolizes sacredness, life builder. The buffalo provides all good things for living, and bestows great curing powers)

PNG tribal neck pieces

Working our butts off!

It may not appear much in the pictures but we have been absolutely working our butts off to get to this stage! Every weekend that Alex has been home we have spent majority of our time outside doing the landscaping. Our turf was delayed due to the rain but now that we finally have grass, it hasn’t rained! Hello empty water tank and massive water bill! 

We went with a Buffalo grass - originally it was going to be Sir Walter but we changed our minds to Sapphire, which is another high performance buffalo grass, after seeing, feeling it and hearing raving reviews about it. It is exactly like Sir Walter but is softer, greener and handles full sun much better than Sir Walter. We're super impressed with it and it is SO green!

The decks to our portico and alfresco are now complete and looking amazing. We are letting them weather at the moment so they can be oiled soon. Alex built our entire fence on his own (clever little man I have) without ever building a fence before. We did hit a few hiccups but nothing too difficult to work around. Our fence has been the talk of the street and they all love it (with the footpath being on that side we have had quite a few ‘watchers’ during the process). The neighbours that are due to start construction on their house soon want to build their fence the same way! We went with Merbau for our decks and fence simply because we love the look and colour of it - some would say that Merbau is too good to use as a fence but to be honest, we only had to build one side of the fence as the other sides were already erected. Also, the fence is along a foot path which, according to our building covenants, state that we can't have a regular 'divider' fence there so the Merbau worked out much cheaper than using Hebel or a rendered block wall (it's 35meters long!). The fence will need to be oiled when we do the decks so we have a bit of oiling ahead of us.

So for now we have decks, turf and a fence – still to come gates, river rocks for the sides of the house, gardens and curtains!  Oh and a retaining wall!

But first… a wedding to attend in Bali yew! 

Internet finally!

So much to update you on since our big move weekend and weeks that followed (can you believe that Telstra have still not connected our TV, phone and internet?!) so I will try to keep it brief with lots of pics yay!

In summary:

• Installation of wood flooring and carpet
• Electrical fit out - including 50 or more LED down lights, pendant lights, bathroom vents, LED strip lighting, fans, external lighting etc etc
• Move day
• Termite and pest spray
• Excavation of the backyard to give a more level ground and tidy up of the block
• driveway was cut in
• Josh and Alex prepped the driveway, marked it out, leveled and had the concrete poored - this was a week long process.
• Fence posts and palings were sourced, collected and delivered 
• Fence post holes were dug, concrete poored and posts went in
• Portico deck  
• Summer was bathed hehe

While all this was going on tradies were coming and going at the house to fix a few teething problems and people were arriving to quote for curtains, shutters, turf, retaining walls and so on! Crazy last 3 weeks to say the least.

Alex worked tirelessly putting in all of the lights with Scotty and again on the driveway with Josho. Josh did the most amazing job on our massive driveway! Such a large task for one guy and although he wasnt happy with the finish on the middle section (Josh is an absolute perfectionist and such a hard worker!) Alex and I are just ever so grateful that he did it for us and we are not worried about the finish that only another concretor would be able to pick up! While the boys worked away I made sure they were fed and hydrated haha. Thanks to Josho, Nath and Grant for helping us get there in the end.

Ben from Performance Excavators has done all of our excavation needs and did an amazing job at it. So glad we found him. He's a local super chilled out surfie dude from the area ha!

By this weekend we should have the front yard turfed and a deck to the alfresco area. Alex will also be working away at the fence palings with whatever help I can provide!

The photos are all jumbled up and after trying to re-arrange them a bazillion times and them not co-operating, I've given up!



New deck to the portico



Fence palings being delivered

 

Half the fence posts in

 



After shot of wood flooring install



Day 3 - final section of driveway

  

Day 1 - section 1 of concrete





Section 2 of driveway



After shot of excavation



Shot of the backyard before the excavation work



Before shots of backyard



After excavation shot



POD delivery bang on time again





wood flooring install

Before - wood flooring



Josho working away on the driveway





day 2 - section 2 of concrete with few extra helpers at hand 



Fence posts are up



This is similar to what we want to build