Don't fence me in

Well, yeah, do fence me in!

Much hard work from Stephen and Graham doing the fencing over the past week or so - I was just the Gofer. Amazing the difference that having machines makes to the whole thing. Stephen dug the 27 postholes in about half an hour with his Huski and auger. Then the rest of the day was spent filling the hole with concrete; dump the post in; make sure it's level & upright; move on to the next one. Much easier than the old way we used to do it!

Couple of days later they did the rails - butt joined straight onto post, none of this checking the post out stuff! Then the palings. The fence down driveway is just normal paling against paling. The one in front of house is paling on top of paling so there will be no gaps - it's What Neighbour? fencing. A nail gun makes things a lot easier too! So that's about 50 or so metres of fencing done.

Stephen then used the Huski to dump loads of soil over the fences for Zoe and I to spread out in the gardens. There is now 3 metres of bark to put down too - at least it is light!

Easy to spend a couple of hundred on plants and they cover hardly anything.


The east side of the backyard - the bushes have grown a bit. Well except for the two deaduns - bloody lilly pillies! The back fence is now going to have Pittosporum 'Emerald Lustre' along it (the shiney leafed plant). The side garden has a Fiji Fire, couple of murrayas, a native rosemary, miniature lavender, geraniums and marigolds.

The west side - the new side fence and gates. The 'sticks' are dracaenas that I rescued from old yard and pushed into the dirt to root. They are now growing new shoots and can be moved to wherever. The one lonely planted tree is a native gardenia Randia Fitzalani. In the foreground is the Corona tree (a lime) and a couple of pots of grassy plants.

Services alley the girls call it. The path to the front door. I should have thought this one out a bit more and moved entry to side of house like Zoe and Troy will have. Ah well, maybe next time ;)


The other end of the alley. The new side fence and gate is on the left of the car. Plants so far to go in are Bird of Paradise Strelitzia Reginae, Tibouchina Jules, Angelonia Serena, large size of agapanthus and small size of agapathus, and some white flowered ground cover thingy. The front part of this area gets full sun most of the day. The alley is in shade during the mornings. I would love gardenias there but I think it will be too hot.

Driveway - 28 metres which I am NOT going to reverse down. And all that space that I have to fill with plants as well. Definitely roadside type plants - grasses - for this hot area.

The adventure continues ....................

End of the year

And almost the end of this part of the journey.

The council now has cashed all the final cheques, including the monstrous amount for infrastructure (an almost $80,000 "donation"). So now I just sit and twiddle my thumbs waiting for the sealed plans to come back. Then it's off to the solicitor to have them lodged with Titles Office or whatever it's called these days, and we will have 5 instead of 1.
Zoe can then build her house after the long long looooooong time waiting.

It's been a stressful year. The house build wasn't too bad - colour choices are stressful! In retrospect, a lot of things that got forgotten at last minute, or could have been changed; but nothing major. Certainly no complaints against the builder, who must have had his patience stretched to the limit with the stuff ups caused by the sub division part. My walls are straight, nothing leaks and nothing has broken.

The sub division on the other hand - arrrghghh!! horrible horrible horrible. I don't think there has been one step where there wasn't a hold up or problem, and most of the problems were caused by Project Services. damn them to hell.

The next stage can begin soon .. Zoe and Troy's house. And the building of 3 houses on the front blocks ... sigh ... I am a sucker for punishment I think lol. But rather that, than pay around $100k in CGT.

A happy new year for us all :)

Demolition - Day 9

Gone! Almost. Today the orange machine ate the rest of the 'walls' and removed the stumps. The last thing standing was the old downstairs dunny - a small weatherboard room on it's own. Looked funny but I didn't get pics cos the demolition dudes were in the way all the time.
They have also removed the old septic - gingerly - even though I told them it hadn't actually been used for about 20 years.








As I stood chatting to them, one reached down and said " look at this!" . He had pulled out of the dirt, a fully tied noose! Zoe and I were a bit dubious about the contents of the septic after that.



So tomorrow they complete the clean up and take up the last of the stuff they are keeping.

Demolition - Day 8

Well they had left an orange machine yesterday and today it gone on with its munching of the house. Now it looks really forlorn. A shock as you drive up and there's no house!

Some of the posts have been removed. A remaining walls just tumbled. A lot of mess to be cleaned up.

So one more day, maybe two, and its gone.


South side of house

Demolition - day 7

Not much difference to see today. A few walls missing and all the 6 inch pine floorboards were removed. You could only see that if you stood underneath.

Finally they took the old front door. It had been standing there, without windows, walls or roof around it, complete with its lace curtain. Long as no one got in !

Demolition - Day 6

The skeleton is slowly disappearing. The pile of timber to be taken away, in one form or another, grows steadily.




South side of house where bedrooms used to be.



The back verandah once had railings too.

Demolition - Day 5

Well as Megan and Dave's house gets a roof, the old house lost hers. The zincalume has been removed. It looks very forlorn now.

It was too dark by the time I got home to take pics, but I will do so in the morning.

Bit of panic stations when BCC trucks turned up at 7am and started drilling on the newly laid road surface (of course). I went and spoke to the Stop/Go Man to make sure it wasn't the water pipes being dug. It wasn't. Phew! That probably involves actually having the plumber lined up ready to connect new house to new meter and is supposed to happen on 30th October.