More shelving...

After a long delay, Tony and I finally got around to putting up the extra hanging shelf in the garage today....finally our garage is coming together.

the re-stacked area...underneath all the boxes is a tall boy, waiting to go to my mums

The new shelf...most of the items stored here are books and such that cannot go out in the shed

Letterbox

Finally our estate is now receiving our post via a mailman....it is so good not to have to go down the street to check the mail.  Delivery started last week but you had to have a letterbox up...did we...nope, it was still sitting in pieces in the garage.

So last week Tony and I erected it...sadly we had to wait until this week to be able to use it...talk about Australia Post ripping us off....Mid March I paid for our postal box, as no-one knew when the deliveries would start...so in i went on Monday to cancell the box and start receiving our mail in our letterbox on Tuesday.....there was a cancellation fee....all i got back was $6....the woman said to me, "didn't you know when you were getting the mail delivered when you paid for your box?"   Like,  NO!!...or i wouldn't have paid it..duh...

Anyway..here is our pretty letterbox, which received its first mail today   :)

Backyard 3......

Over the last couple of days we have managed to put in the edges for the paths in the backyard as well as laying the first layer of the crushed brick, it will now be over a week until we can continue, this will be when Tony has his next lot of days off...he wants to hire a 'wacker' for two days to compact the brick down so we can lay some more on top of it.
Anyway, the pics for so far...

The path to the dogs shed

along the edge of the house

utility area

the rest of the area will be grassed...gradually so we can control when the dogs can go onto it  :)

the area in front of the shed will be grassed, the larger area is where the clothesline will be on the fence

part of the sideway done

Paths....

Well, it has been a long time coming, but, we finally started work on the path to the front door.

Over the last few weeks, both Tony and Adrian have been out there digging out the scoria we put down when we moved, and then the crappy soil with all its added extras from the build.....getting the levels right for the paths took awhile, as the weather seemed to know when we were out there trying to do something, as everytime we started, it would rain....

We ordered our 24 pavers that we needed for the border of the path, these took a week to be made, in the meantime we got some sand in for the base, we thought we would play it smart and only put the sand around the edges and compact it down, this idea was great for those pavers that were being laid long ways, the other pavers would have to wait for their extra sand until they were to be laid...clear as mud right?...it will make sense when you see the pics...again, it rained while we were trying to lay the pavers, so we called it a night and went back the next day to do some more....
While Tony was finishing off laying the pavers and trying to make sure that they were all level, I finished off getting rid of all the weeds in what will be the front lawn....it was then i noticed that we didn't have enough pavers to finish the job....some, cretin had stolen one!!!  what in the hell do you want with one 300 x 600mm paver?....I hope they dropped it and broke their toe!  We rang the paving place as we knew that 25 pavers had come in on the pellet, sure enough the lonely paver was still there, the guys there thought it was a great hoot that someone had stolen a single paver...grrr

Now that the pavers have been laid, we went to Thomastown to order the crushed brick for the insert and for the paths down the side and back of the house....OMG!! we needed 11.5 cubic meters $$$$, at the same time we ordered the terracotta chips for the front garden beds.

These arrived yesterday, so, naturally we had to play with the brick stuff in the path....at this stage it looks like a tennis court, hopefully after we wet it down all the dust will disappear and you will be able to see the bricks.....what we ordered was 7mm crushed bricks...the chips are actually similar in size to the exposed stones in the driveway  but in a red colour, something to go with the house bricks and a contrast to the grey drive and pavers. 
Once we get the paths all laid, we will get in a wacker to firm everything down, so until then the front path is not quite finished.

Since the paths are about to be laid down the side of the house, I thought i had better get a move on and do the plinth rails of the fence, so i don't get paint all over the paths when i spray the fences...so while i was at it i also did the posts, one day i just might get around to finishing off the palings...lol

the original front path

dug up and ready to go

Tony hard at work, wacking down the scoria

scoria base

our sand edging

Stoneage pavers...Limestone in Charcoal grey, 600 x 300 x 40 mm, the paver on the left is the correct way up,

the start of the key effect, you can see now why we had to wait to put the extra sand down

finished edging

terracotta chips in the garden bed

11.5 cubic meters of crushed brick

part one of the bricks in the path

the messy front yard

cleared

better view of the cleared yard

street view 16-2-11

the painted plinth and posts

The Third Shed..........

Yay!...finally we go the third shed up.....now that we know what we are doing it didn't take us long at all.  All the dogs came out to supervise us, and wag their tails in the dirt creating dust storms....lol
Now we need to put flooring into the first shed, so all the boxes going into it don't get wet bums....
It is great to finally get the side of the house back, it has had the 3 sheds down there for about 4 months, now I get to paint the fence...lucky me :)

Backyard.....2

Having the day off for the public holiday, didn't mean sitting back watchin sport and drinking, no, it meant out in the back yard tidying things up and moving stones around....sounds simple but it was very time consuming.
It does however look alot better and neater...now we only have the area around the dog shed to weed, but that won't be done until we shorten the litterbox at that end.

The shots of the fence that i promised.....

Before shot

before shot

Rex....site forman

part way through the clean up

after shot...this is where the third shed will go

after shot

Screen Doors.....

Yesterday, our retractable screen doors were installed on the bi-fold, and the two french doors.  They went up quick as a wink....now the object is to teach the dogs when the doors are open they can't always just walk through them...they are pretty smart cookies, so they should pick it up quickly (fingers crossed).
I took pics, but it is hard to see the screens, see what you think.

If you look carefully you can make out the screens