More garden and pool room finished

The pool room is now finished. We got some stools and two small 57 Chev rear end glass top shelves for drinks to sit on.

Add caption

We have been working on the garden. We planted lots of English box hedge and got Kwik Kerb to do the concrete edging around the whole lot. Once we finished planting everything we put down some limestone rocks to keep the weeds down.

English box goes in

Kwik Kurb starting

Kwik Kurb finished with Lilly Pillys and English box in

Drive up entrance to house

We also got the curb done out the back between the house and clothes line and we bought some large already shaped English box and 4 dwarf pittosporums

Before we started

The site supervisor - Puss the cat

The finished garden bed

Carpet and pool table

We finally got the rest of the carpet laid on the 21/10/2013. We had just kept all the rooms without carpet empty to save having to move everything twice so it was good to get the spare beds and other things out of the garage. We can now finally park our cars in it!

Spare bedroom with carpet

Spare bedroom

We bought a second hand pool table from Melbourne and went down a couple of weeks before the carpet went in and picked it up. It was in pieces and had to be re-assembled. We left it on the trailer in the garage until the carpet went in. We were pretty worried how we would go getting it in and put back together but in the end it all went okay. We got a few people to help us and it went back to pretty easily. The pool table is a nine foot one and the room we have it in is 7 metres long so there is plenty of room for a shot.

Pool table.

Starting to plant and solar panels

Today 8/10/2013 we started to put the first of our trees in the front garden. We planted 9 ornamental pears either side of the drive way.

Starting to plant

Half of them in

We don't want to plant too much in the front garden, We've got such a nice outlook to the block across the road. The couple that own it have spent the last 23 years establishing it. There isn't a house there yet! 

The finished trees

We've found that we get quite a bit of wind here so we made sure that we staked the trees well.

We got some solar panels installed last Friday 4/10/2013. Once the system is up and going we are hoping we don't get much of a power bill being a 5 KW unit.

Solar panels installed

Also today the painter came back and put the first coat of stain on the deck. We decided to just go a natural colour for the stain.

The first coat of stain on the deck 8/10/2013

Starting the garden.

We are finally getting the little things that needed finishing off done. The painter has been back and fixed all the little marks and scratches that needed doing. He has also done all the outside painting that needed doing such as the deck, down pipes and entry.

The deck after it was painted.

 We had the kitchen maker come back and replace one of the kitchen doors that had marks all over it and also there was a small chip in the stone bench top that they sanded out and now that looks better too. The bricklayer came back and finished off the rendering. When it was first done I didn't like the colour, it looked too light but now I think I'm used to it and don't mind it.

The finished render

The weather has improved a lot so we decided to start our garden. We were going to have a big round about in front of the house but we've changed our mind and have just got some gravel put in front of it instead. My plan is to have a border of english box around it and standard lilly pilly's in front of the house.

Bobcat leveling out in front of the house 31/9/2013

Gravel arriving 31/9/2013

Slow progress

We are slowly getting progress on getting the house finished. We got some concreting done at the back of the house from the laundry to the clothes line. We are going to put a garden bed where it the concrete goes in.

Concreting at the back of the house

The bricklayer came back on Tuesday 10/9 and started to do the rendering on the front entry.

Rendering started

We are disappointed in the tiles. We didn't notice that the colour and shine was different in some tiles until they had a good clean and now it is really noticeable. We've spoken to the builder and found out that they are two different batches and we were guaranteed that this would not happen and that they would all be from the same batch. So now there is a dispute between the builder and the tile supplier on who's at fault. We aren't sure what is going to happen but it sounds like they might all get pulled up and redone again. It will be a huge cost to someone (180 square metres of tiles) and an inconvenience to us because not only do the tiles have to be redone but also architraves have to come off and then the painter will have to be back as well. We will have to wait and see what is going to be done. In this photo you can see the different colour but not the different shine.

Different tiles

Splashback

We finally got the glass splashback installed on Friday 16th August. We like how it looks

Kitchen glass splashback

We got the blinds installed on Monday 12th of August. We just wanted something simple so we've just got roller blinds on all the windows. The blinds on the back of the house are not complete block out as we don't have any houses (and won't have) behind us. All the other blinds are block out blinds.

Blind covering the sliding door out to the deck

Blind in the study (you can see how much water we have laying around)

Other than that there is not anything else to update. It is still too wet for any of the outside painting, rendering or deck staining to be done.

Not finished, but we are in!

We got the keys to our house on the 2nd of August. There is still a bit to do before it is completely finished. Most of it is the outside painting and rendering, but we have to wait until the weather gets a bit better before they come back and do it.

We weren't happy with how the pantry was fitted out and compromised with the builder. We thought it would be all shelving either side and instead he put shelving on only one side and cupboards without doors on the other side. We asked if he could put doors on the cupboards and he was happy to do it and we think it looks a lot better. We actually like that there is a place for the micowave and other things. We were thinking we might need some overhead cupboards in the kitchen but now we certainly don't!

Pantry

Pantry from the kitchen

We have to wait until this week for the glass splashback to go in. It's been delayed for weeks and finally they came to install it last week only to find that the holes for the power points would not line up. We choose the same colour for the splashback as the feature walls. The kitchen rangehood was put in on the 1st of August

Kitchen minus the splashback

The lounge room feature wall

Laundry finished

Bathroom finished