Finally! Now that the brick work out the front is finished (and I’ve finished painting it), the drive way is now in! It’s “wattle” from the holcim range of aggregates.
The walls are painted in ‘steel dust’, the same as the moulding on the house. Landscaping consultation is done, so not long now until greenery!
Wow, we’ve been in the house for six weeks now, and when I actually sit back and look at what is happening it’s quite amazing.
You might remember my posts about the garden shed, some hard landscaping, and lawn. Well, I’ve been busy! Firstly, I built a workbench for the garden shed, copying the design of one I made previously for the garage (details below).
I gave the new Palmetto lawn it’s first cut with the new Bosch Rotak cordless mower (which is pretty awesome)
I’ve put the first coat of paint on the front garden beds, and installed the new letterbox facia, and as usual, have been moving sand around the place. It’s keeping me super fit!
Let me start with the lawn. I cleared out all the rocks and rubble, levelled and backfilled with some ‘landscape mix’, then compacted with a plate compactor. Rolled the Palmetto down, and compacted again. Not before installing some irrigation (MP Rotator pop-ups).
It’s been in for two weeks now, and had it’s first cut with the new mower. I sold my old Scott Bonnar ’45 and bought a new cordless mower. I wasn’t really sure at first, because I love my petrol powered gear, but took the plunge and went for it anyway. No regrets as yet. Super easy to move around, light, fast charging, quiet.
How about the workbench in the garden shed. It’s 1500w, 500d, and 900h. 6x legs at 900, four lengths at 1500, four lengths at 420, one laminex 16mm top, 18x 100mm bolts. Build it upside-down on a flat surface and the benchtop slots in nice and flush resting on the leg-tops. A design that works well for me. My garage has a 3 meter long version of this. I’m still yet to build a shelf in the bottom of this one.
What’s happening out the front? I’ve rolled the first coat of duraguard on to the rendered brick walls for the garden beds, it’s coming along amazingly. Second coat will probably go on this weekend once the new driveway has time to cure (is being poured today! more on this later)
Inside, I’ve also been busy, wall-mounting a mini-clothes line in the laundry, fitting sliding shelves under the sink, and getting started on the home network (computer wiring).
Today the driveway is being poured by Nugget Concrete, the same guys that did our liquid limestone out the back. We’re doing an exposed aggregate out front, so will have some info and photo’s up in the next few days!
If you haven’t already, check out some more Q&A videos we did with DAH a while ago right here
The lovely James and Melissa have been documenting their entire building journey with us and are now happily moved in.
With not too long to go until handover, we went out to see their home at their tiler meeting. We used this opportunity to have a chat with James and Melissa about their journey – watch the videos below to see what they had to say. Enjoy!
One of the many exciting, tiring, and time consuming parts of moving into a new house is selecting and decorating the different rooms.
In our previous house, I decorated our little boy’s room in a jungle theme (all inspired by a boy’s onsie I saw).
James and I had discussed transitioning S man from the cot to a single bed while we were renting, so that when the time came to move house he only had to adjust to a new room not a new room and new bed at the same time.
We ended up buying S man his new bedroom furniture from Ikea. This was because I just couldn’t find any boy style bedroom furniture that I liked. I also figure that he is going to be tall like his dad and before I know it, I will have to buy him a king single bed (which he can choose himself when the time comes). Anyway back to the S man’s new bedroom.
I was trying to find a boy’s theme that will grow with him, and not require to many room make overs. You will notice from the pictures below that we have gone for a neutral wall colour in his room (well throughout the house actually). It allows us the freedom to change the kids rooms around without having to re-paint every time, hence neutral walls.
When the little guy was born we had tried out a number of nick names but the only one that really stuck was S man (Spencer Mandy). So I decided to run with that and selected super hero’s as his bedroom theme (Superman mostly). I based the room decorations on red, blue and white and stars.
The staff at the Adairs store in Rockingham were a great help with the selecting bedding. They didn’t have any super hero themed bedding, but we were able to work with the colours.
Our best friends had the name wall art made for S man’s recent birthday, and works perfectly with the room. I am thinking of making my own canavas art for his room, based on this idea from Pinterest.
Source: cricutholiday.com via Melissa on Pinterest
There are still a few things left to do in his room.
So tell me, how did you decide how to decorate your kids rooms?
Yesterday we had a visit from Tod Johnston and camera crew to talk to us about blogging our build and building in general.
It was really great fun and quite an experience. Tod is a top bloke, really relaxed and just generally great to be around. He arrived early, introduced himself (mate I watched you back in the Kenny Kidna days!) and had a chat.
I wont go in to detail, some of the questions included “how did the blog end up on the Dale Alcock web site” and other builder and building questions. I believe the show air’s on Sunday the 26th Feb at approx 5pm on Channel 7 or 7two (will be before the news). It’s a pilot so there may or may not be ongoing shows.
Here’s a pic I snapped on the day!
