Paths.....

Today Tony's brother Warren and his wife Jeanette came over to give us a hand in ripping up the path between the Alfresco and the Spa as well as the pebbled area between the garage and the alfresco.

Warren use the mattock while Jeanette and I shoveled the stone into the wheelbarrow while Tony wheeled it out the front to put in a neat pile of the nature strip.

We have replaced it with some of the crushed brick that was left over from the back paths....Jeanette and I had the ominous task of stomping on the bricks to help compact it...boring and tedious work...but the end result is worth it.

After a bbq lunch we tackled in front of the garage...so far all we have done is to remove the stones....during the wet weather the dogs were using this area to pee in...and boy, does it smell....so we will leave it for a couple of days before bringing the crushed brick in.

We finished in time to sit down and watch the Melbourne Cup....
poor Tony then had to get ready to go to work...boo.....never mind...nice overtime  :)

From this.....

....to this

And from this...

to the halfway stage

Study.....

Talk about a pain in the a**e.....what was supposed to be a one day undertaking ended up taking 5 days....grrrrr
Friday night Kelly and I cleared out the study in preperation for painting the following day...easy....
Saturday, Tony & I washed the walls and decided to do the entry way at the same time, thus giving the study more time to dry out before doing the feature wall.
Walls washed...check.....masking done...check......walls painted...wellll.....the entryway was done in a flash...after all we are only doing one coat in a semi gloss acrylic over the low sheen....entryway finished....
Study on the other hand...found out that this room had only had one coat of paint put on it...not a problem....did the three walls....went away and literally waited for the paint to dry (this is when we did the entryway)....
masked the feature wall and started painting...we had so much trouble finding a colour we liked for this room...ended up choosing a Taubmans Crimson Belle...which is a raspberry colour...when we bought the paint i commented to the sales guy that i thought it was too pink, so he put a dab onto the colour sample and dried it...okay...fine.
Put the first coat on the wall...hmmm...not a very good coverage, and yes, it still looked too pink..maybe it will look better when it dries....came back two hours later to do the next coat....still looked too pink, plus you could see the overlapping marks...darn! it will need a third coat.
Came back and did the third coat, using all the paint up...neither of us were happy about it and when you held the colour sample up against it, it still came up way to pink...
so off to Bunnings we trotted on the Sunday...found a slightly darker shade, so purchased 1 ltr of it, this one is called Ruby Flame...while we were purchasing it, the sales lady asked us if we had put a grey tint undercoat on first....ummmm, no, we're we supposed to? Yes, to stop the colour bleeding thru.  We decided that since we already had 3 coats on we wouldn't worry about the undercoat.....silly us, we could still see the overlapping marks BUT, the colour was perfect.
Monday, after waiting round nearly all day for a delivery that didn't turn up, I went back to Bunnings and bought some undercoat and some more paint...got home and applied the said undercoat...Hmmm...it covered the wall very well and did hide the appalling paint....by this time Tony had arrived home from work, so after dinner I applied the first coat..WOW!!! so much better, pity we didn't know about the undercoat from the beginning..excellent coverage...no overlapping marks visible...yay.  Waited for the appropriate amount of time to pass and did the final coat....
To say we are happy with the result is an understatement...we both love how its now turned out.  So this morning i have cleaned the carpet and the room will be put back together tonight when Tony gets home from work.

Stage 1...after 3 coats of the Crimson Belle

Stage 2, with the added coat of Ruby Flame

Stage 3, undercoat

Stage 4...finished wall

Busy, busy,busy....

Its been a productive week.  Tony's brother lent us his high pressure washer...and boy have we had some fun with it.
Firstly, Tony washed down the driveway, which did have some oil spills on it...must say the footpath and crossover are frightening how white they have come up.
Next, we used it to wash down the Spa Gazebo, after we decided to remove the windows and the bar from it...looks sooooo much better..Tony also jacked up one corner of the gazebo and straightened it...the installer had for some reason installed one corner lower than the others.
The next day i used the washer to clean the slab around the spa...professionally laid slab and it is not level...it has hollows and dips in it, and with the revolting weather we've had here it went slimy where the water was pooling...yuk!
Then today we cleaned down the alfresco area with the washer...6 months of 6 dogs on it had turned it brown..with all the mud they tracked onto it.

For the last two days i have been re-varnishing the gazebo, now its had 3 coats and looks a heap better, today i also started doing the steps and the bar stools, they will need a few more coats yet.

We also finally planted out the garden in the corner of the back yard with a Celtic Cascade and some Lavenders..now to put some type of topping on it ...more than likely it will be the crushed terracotta to match the front as we have a small amount left over....around this we put one of the dog fences, hopefully this will keep Nikki out of the garden and give it time to establish itself.

Tony washing out the Alfresco

In this one you can see how dirty the concrete is..

Newly planted garden bed

Gazebo, now minus the windows and the bar..and with its protective varnish on

12 month Rejuvination....

Last week Adrian and Ashleigh moved into their new home :)  The house took 8 months to build, which wasn't bad when you consider it was a double storey one.

So now we can finally put my craft room together...we have ordered the wardrobe inserts....and after the last fiasco we have measured and remeasured and remeasured again to make sure we have the correct measurements. I have decided that instead of getting shelving either end and drawer/shelving in the middle, we will get hanging space at one end with 3 sections of shelving, besides the fact that the drawer units are too expensive.
We ended up painting the room the same pale blue that was used in the ensuite...what a difference natural light makes to the colour, ended up only doing the one coat so it wouldn't be to dark.
Into the room went the blue striped chair and otterman that have been sitting in our parents retreat for the last 11 months...the ironing board finally has a home and we also put one of the table we bought from Borders when they closed down, this is for the sewing machine and overlocker...somewhere, in one of the many boxes still in the garage is the electrics for the overlocker...hopefully we will find it.

Hallway....well...you will either love the colour or hate it...bright yellow.  We wanted something to brighten up the hallway which tends to get a bit dark...I would really hate to see it if we didn't have the 3 niches in the family room wall to let the light in.

We also bought paint to do the rest of the house....we will start with the other wall in the hallway and move on into the bathroom, loo and laundry before tackling the remainder of the house.  There is nothing wrong with the paint that we originally chose but it was a low sheen paint and we prefer a semi acryillic paint.

Trees....

After being in our house for 12 months, the estate is finally doing something about beautifying the estate....yes!...they have finally started planting the trees on the nature strips.
To say i'm happy is an understatement....not about the trees, but about the type of tree that has been planted, my biggest concern was that they were going to plant Gum Trees....I hate gum trees with a passion!!
So, I hear you ask...what did you get??.....White Cedar Trees.
The Unit next door to us in Moonee Ponds had one of these and it shaded our unit beautifully, mind you, i would have thought that they are too big to be on a nature strip but, they will look gorgeous when they flower.

And as you can see in the background they have fenced off the park, so hopefully it will be completed soon

Up the Garden Path...part II.....

Well, today while dodging the rain, the sideway of the house also had its path done...trouble is, cos it rained last night and quite heavily at that, the ground underneath was soaked, so as the crushed brick was layed and compacted it had the effect of making the ground spongy...or more like you were walking across a sway bridge...the compacted brick was firm, it was the clay/ground underneath that wasn't...hopefully with the next four or five days of sunshine the ground will dry out and become firm.
The pile of crushed brick out the front is probably 2/3rds gone now.  After Adrian has moved out the plan is to dig out the current sandstone path from the Alfresco to the Spa and replace it with crushed brick.

As promised pics from both today and yesterday

Path to the dog shed

from the dog shed back towards the  house

this area will have the clothes line eventually installed

back yard looking towards the front of the house

from the front looking back towards the back of the house...just inside the gate you can see where the water is seeping up through the clay

One day i will get around to finishing painting the side fence...one day.

Must say....Tony has worked like a trojan to get the paths done...THANK YOU dear  :)

Up the Garden Path....

Finally, work restarted on the paths in the back yard.
Boy! was it hard work.
Firstly the paths had to raked to try and level them out....then it was off to the front yard to shovel the crushed brick that has been sitting there since Feb into the barrow...back to the back yard...empty the barrow...numerous times...rake the bricks out...level it...water it...then use the wacker on it.  Repeat this process multiple times....argghhhh...back breaking work...
This was started at 8.45am...stopped at 4.45 (due to the fact that is was about to rain)....and yes...tomorrow is more of the same, even tho it is supposed to be showers all day.
Also got some dirt for the corner garden, now to buy some vegitation to put in there.

Pics will be posted tomorrow after the sideway has been done.
 :)