Garden shed....

Today we finally got time to put up the first of our 3 sheds in the back yard....this one was going to be the 'guinea pig' for them all as it would be the easiest to put into place.

Firstly it took the 3 of us girls to hold it while Tony put the first wall together....(Adrian was asleep after morning shift), then Kell and I (well mainly Kell) to hold the rest of the walls, once it was together the fun part was trying to manoeuver it onto the crushed rock and into position, it didn't help that we could only manhandle it from two sides as the shed has the house at its back and the spa fence on one side, but up it is, now we only have to put the flooring in and my Chrissy decorations can move in  :)
I still need to paint the back fence before we start on the dogs shed in the back corner, hopefully i can get time to do it or at least start it on Thursday...tomorrow is a wipe out as i have a dog show and Tony is getting the paint on his way home from work anyway.

This one gives you an idea on how far we had to move it back into the corner

The finished product

Roses....

Purchased our 'Blushing Pink' Iceberg standards onWednesday along with some French Lavander......Planted them all by myself with Tonys help...and blow me down if the next day (thurday) didn't blow a gale...am pleased to announce that they are all still in the ground.  :)

Part 1 of the garden done....part 2 will be awhile.

Next job will be the putting together of the 3 sheds, lets hope we get all the pieces on the right shed.


Merry Christmas to all who have been reading my blog.
May you get your hearts desire.

You will have to excuse the mess from next doors build :(

Nature Strip....

We went shopping today for some roses and lavanders for the new garden bed....found what we wanted. french lavander and pale pink iceberg roses :)
When we got home we nearly fell over....the concreters were back and were doing our naturestrip....yes! two months after doing the driveway they returned...as you can tell we had no idea they were coming, even if they had let us know we wouldn't have been holding our breath waiting for them.

Well!!!.....the third garden bed caused all sorts of headaches for us....literally.
While putting in the starpickett to hold the sleepers in place, we have managed to pierce the gas  main...yep...fair and square in the middle of the bloody pipe...ggggrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!
It took two hours for someone to come and repair it after we rang them to report it, I was so worried about the dogs and cats, especially Mia who has 3 weeks to go before she has her puppies.  Thankfully the courtyard area wasn't affected.
So, what should have taken a few hours ended up taking all day but at least it is all done now, I am going to go out later and plant our roses and lavanders.
All that will leave is the path and grassed area, definately a job for after xmas.

the offending gas pipe, don't you just love the depth it is?

the granitic sand on the nature strip

Garden....

Yay!!!! Finally we have made a big start on the front......we are now in the possession of a garden!!......as you know Tony made up the external edges for the garden beds, so yesterday we ordered in some soil and went shopping for the plants for the garage bed.
For my birthday last year Adrian and Ashleigh gave me a voucher from Chris and Marie's, thought i might have trouble spending it there as they really don't have a great variety of plants just lots of what they do have...but, no, I had no trouble at all, in fact i had to add some (lots) of $$ to it.
Ended up buying 4 standard white Iceberg roses, 4 Hidecote lavendar bushes and a Pittostrum, went for the slightly bigger plants, hence the greater expence.

Back home we then had to put the soil into the beds after working out our spaces...laid some pipe in preparation for a watering system, then plant the 'plants'...doesn't sound much but it did take us a few hours...okay. so we stopped to talk to some neighbours for awhile :)
The only thing else we need to do (besides hook up the watering system) is to get some topping for the beds, but that won't be done unitl all the beds have been finished.

The study garden now has soil in it but it won't get its tennants until i get to my mums to collect my plants from her...(she has been looking after my plants for almost 18 months  now...thaks mum), hopefully we can get there in the new year.  This bed will have Gardenias in it.

The third garden bed is yet to be started but I think that that will be remedied today as Tony is on his way to pick up the flanged star picketts for the bed.  This bed...well i'm not too sure what is going in here...maybe some more roses and lavanders to match the other side.

Front yard.....

The front yard has finally been started, I know, it took us long enough...
...yesterday Tony started on the garden bed along side the drive, so far he has levelled it out and put the sleepers around it to form its border, today he thought he had the easy job, doing the garden bed under the study window, so he levelled it, started putting the sleepers in and ran into concrete...yep the overspill from the pour, now the garden bed looks like its a grave for a long tall skinny person, what should have taken about a half hour to do ended up taking him three quaters of the day, at least he found a use for all the dirt he took out of the bed, it now has made a level walkway to the side gate..hooray!!

So, what did i do while he was doing this, i hear you ask...decided that i really should give the side gate and front part of the fence its second coat..glad i did cos it looks much nicer now, I also finished off the fence in the spa area then gave it its second coat too.

Came back from painting the spa fence to find that Tony was just finishing off tidying the front yard...it looks so much better.

Yesterday we also finally put up our house number, so now you can find us :)

...then...luxury, we finally got around to having a spa....was it good...no, heavenly was more like it.

garage garden bed...minus dirt, thats for another day

study bed....note the where the concrete was....

the now level walkway to the side gate

our house number

tidied front yard

street view

the highly exciting painted fence

Gate...

Finally the fencing and gate for the spa have been finished, what we thought was going to be as easy job took a lot longer than we planned. Does it all work....yes, and it looks good too :)

Our lawn has come along really well

spa fencing.....

The spa fencing finally went up today...except for the gate as we are waiting on a metal plate to fix this....this was a DIY project and with Tony working 9-5 all week and the weekend it has been a job where he could only work on it for a short time after work.
I must say that i do love the look of the glass fence, it keeps the area open, now all we need to do is to decide what we are going to put on the slab to finish the job off.

Tony also got around to putting his Chiminera together today...pity its summer but it does give us a focal point when sitting in the alfresco.

The grass got its first mow today, finally the ground was firm enough for the mower to run over it...do love the smell of freshly cut grass.

The chip bark area in the backyard (litterbox) has also been finished today.

Bits n Bobs...

I tell you, the weather has been plotting against us.....

....as mentioned before, we made a start on the play area for the dogs, we paid for 5m of chipbark, but all threy had was 2m which they delivered, the rest was to come when they got more in......Tony finally contacted them to remind them that we were waiting for our delivery, so when they did deliver it, it was raining..alot! great, all that sunshine we had had and now it was raining - again!
So, now we finally or should i say Tony has finally moved it all to the play area, just waiting to put the sleepers in place and to grind the excess off the bolts then we can rake it out.
Good thing is the dogs love it...suppose it helps that Adee had chip bark at his place so they all know what it is....yep thats right, one giant litter box, but at least i don't have to go chasing all over the yard to look for it.

Tony's also been trying to get the glass fencing up for the spa, made a start last night but again rain put a halt to proceedings, hopefully it wont be raining when he gets home tonight.

Today the shutters for the bathroom finally arrived, the kids are very happy with their installation., now they will be back either next week or the following week to install the base board, which is just purely for decoration but it was something they couldn't do until the shutters were hung.

Our grass is growing really well with all the sunshine and rain we've had, trouble is is is very soft underfoot, so mowing it is a bit of a problem and believe me it needs it.

Haven't had much of a chance to get out and do more fence painting either, started on the fence around the side of the spa today, got 2/3rds of it done before the rain came, oh well, it will get done eventually.

yea giant litter box

glass panels for spa fence

bathroom shutters, the gap you can see under them is so they clear the bath, this is where they have to make the board up.

open shutters, you can see the sheds outside waiting to be erected.

Backyard.....

Finally getting around to doing something in the dirt pit out the back.....Tony has ordered a stack of 200mm sleepers to mark the pathways and box in what will be the dogs area.  Of course you realized that once they were delivered it absolutely bucketed down for a couple of days....so that got put off until it became finer.

We had made a plan up of what was going where in the backyard, measured it etc etc, then while the boys were doing the dog area it all got changed, yep Tony changed his mind....not a great deal tho.  So now our paths are wider and the dogs have a huge rectangular area to be filled with chipbark.

The area is hard to describe...think of a rectangle 20m x 7m, in the bottom right hand side is the spa area which is 4m x 6m the remaining 3m to the backfence will house a largeish shed for the dogs complete with some grass and a stone path, this area will be fenced off. Right beside this area running along the back fence will be a 3m x 1.5m storage shed, opposite this and running along the house will be a similar storage shed of the same size.
Up along the back fence will be the chipbark area for the dogs, this is a raised area 2 sleepers high with stones on the bottom and chip bark on the top, much kinder to our heavy dogs, this also doubles as their loo and play area, this is 6m x 4m and yes we can fit all 5 Berners on there comfortably.

The clothesline (when i eventually get it) will go along the left hand side fence, any area that is not a shed or chip bark area will be a path, we were going to use crushed rock but found (courtesy of one of the houses in the estate) a really cool material to use for paths, it is crushed bricks, pavers etc...recycling them, it comes in varrious sizes we like the 7mm one, so it looks more like exposed agg.

Currently the dog area has been erected, the stones and half the chip bark are down, we are waiting for the rest of the bark to arrive.  Last night Tony started bricking the areas for the sheds.

I got very excited yesterday as there was NO wind...got up had breaky, organised myself...thought..hmmmm will do the area beside the spa where the dog shed is going, halfway through doing the fence up sprung the wind...by the time i'd done the 3m with the spraygun i looked like a speckled hen, grrr...so it looks like again i will have to use the brush.

Once the back is done then we can concentrate and finish off the front yard.

Chip bark area under construction

Close up of the sleepers

Men working...between Adrian (in the forground) and the house will be the path

The dog area, where the bricks are will be one of the sheds, we will use its wall to form part of the fence to keep the girls in their area, the gate should come to the end of the spa fence.

Where the second shed will be

Play area partically done

Mia and Nikki checking it out with Lulu and Sorcha watching...Tucker was away on holidays

The area for the dog shed, complete with part of the fence painted.

Master....

At long last I have finally cleared all the excess stuff out of our Master bedroom.......the only things in there that shouldn't be are the cream chair and its ottoman, the small chest and a few boxes in the corner of the room, all these will go into the craft room when it becomes available.

Have also finished doing the first coat of paint on the other front fence, I have done this by hand so that its done and doesn't look unfinished, hopefully I can get the final coat done tomorrow.