Landscapers Finished - It's up to me now!

The landscapers have finished their part of the job. They came back the next week and put the rest of the weed matting down in the spaces at the front and along the side of the house (which the supervisor had originally not seen on the plan...oops!) and I've been dialing back the grass watering as the grass has become more established. It's even had it's first mow now!

On another note, I've ordered a gate to go between the garage and fence to try make the place a bit more secure. I went looking for a gate on a tuesday arvo, and ordered it the wednesday morning about 3 weeks ago. Just as well I did start looking then cos the bulk order was about to be placed and instead of 6 weeks, I would've had to wait 16-18 weeks if I missed that one!!! Will be a nice looking gate though. Nice solid double metal gate with narrow slats and key lockable handles. I was going to take a bit more time to save up for a nice gate, but dad urged me to get it done faster and offered to pay for it with an IOU after I had an "incident" as follows.

After a night out down Margaret River way at the outdoor cinema, I pressed the button to put the garage door up, drove in (about 11:30pm) and we got out of the car, opened the kitchen door and started chatting to the others already inside. All the doors had been left open as we were only a cppl of metres away in the kitchen from the car in the garage and had the intention of going back to unpack the car, when I heard the garage door stating to go down. I peeked around the corner and thought, "That's odd. Must be a timed security feature or something", as nobody else had closed it. Left it at that. In the morning hwoever, I got in the car and the remote was gone. In short, it had been nicked from the car while we were standing just inside the door, and they'd closed the door behind them!!! THe nerve of some deviants!

Reported it to the cops later that day and they dropped in that night for a quick look and told me just to be extra vigilant. I had turned the door off to render the remotes useless, and have since wiped it's memory and reprogrammed the 2 we still have. Easy fix, but still a annoying. 

So here's some pics of the garden now that the landscapers have finished their part of the work.

Finally got the piano moved in too with a bit of help and has helped make the front room feel purposeful. Slowly getting around to getting the smaller things done. Like putting nails up for pictures etc (and nearly going through power wires and water pipes!). Would like to get stuck into some more of the landscaping stuff too, but alas, time and money will dictate those things!

Landscaping Takes Shape!

I spent a few days on my previous break at home installing ag pipe to drain away the run off from the roof when it rains (say that 10 times fast!). It involved 40m of 600mm deep trenches dug by me and dad, filled with 50 - 100 mm of blue-metal to improve drainage and ag pipe laid along the length and with drains beneath each down pipe (allows overflow onto the grass instead of backing up the pipe in really heavy down pours). We then put more blue-metal along the sides of the piping, and then back filled it all in. This sounds like fair enough work as it is, but they were some of the hottest days we'd had this summer, so the gazebo I borrowed from dad made a huge difference, providing a bit of relief from the midday sun.

The front down pipe was easier to deal with as the one above the paving had already been plumbed into a soak well, so we just probed around and found the run in pipe and tapped into that, also installing a drain beneath it allow any overflow into the garden.

So monday morning last week I woke early to meet the fence painter and was pleasently surprised when the irrigation installers arrived a day early to install the irrigation ready for the landscaping to start. 2 days later, the landscaping started nice and early (I decided to stay in bed for just a little bit longer while they rattled around outside) and they got most of it done on the first day! Here's the pics I managed to score before having to leave for work!

Before landscaping started, I put in a lot of effort leveling the sand and weeding the sand out with help from the GF

Moved in and Loving It

So I'm all moved in (and have been since just before Christmas). In fact, I've been enjoying it sooo much (and I've been that busy!) that I've forgotten to update here!!!

So here you go folks. Some pics of me all moved in! Was a busy 6 days at home but sooo worth it. I'm not quite finished, but now it's only stuff that I had before I decided to build a house thats left to go. All that personal stuff that takes time to sort out. My sister however has managed to move in almost completely before I have (she finished moving in only a few days after I started, although she had a lot less moving to do!).