To be sure, To be sure. Happy St Paddy's Day to you all.

This is a picture that makes me so happy. This steel will become the foundations of our new home. When we went out to the block this morning, we came across some workmen who were measuring up the dimensions of our home and I must say I had butterflies. It seems to have taken an eternity to get to this point and Im hoping that the next few months will fly by. 

It was reassuring to talk to the tradies who told us that with the amount of steel involved, our house will not be going anywhere in a hurry. So although Im in no hurry for a cyclone I feel safe knowing that it will be supported to take whatever Mother Nature throws at us.

These are my Passionfruit Vines I planted a few weeks ago. I was reading that its best to plant an animal liver or heart in the hole with it to help it thrive. Seems to be working so far as they are both going quite strongly. It usually takes about 18 mths to 2 years to fruit so hopefully they will provide us with an abundance of fruit when they do start to fruit.

These are our final drawings. The first picture is of the elevations. The major changes we have made are that we've added Dutch Gables to the roof and added an extra window to the front of the house as it only had 2 before and they weren't evenly spaced because there is a wardrobe where it would have been if it was symmetrical. All in all I think its going to look great. There will be some nice leafy plants in between the windows that will balance it all out.

The only other change that needs to be made is the basins in the bathrooms. There are 2 in the ensuite and only 1 in the main. 

Im looking forward to updating as much as possible in the next few months as it means the more updates the more progress, so please hang out with me and I hope you enjoy sharing our journey with us 

Its all happening!

 We are getting some of the boring mundane stuff out of the way. So this is the fence ready to have the palings put on. We also have leveled out the back section so that once the fence is up and locked we can start building planting the vegie garden.

Fences

My drawing of how the garden will look.

As you can see there will be a section for the vegies, some chooks, a pond with a nice shady tree to sit under. I want to plant some climbing roses over the fence to make a feature and then plant a passionfruit vine to cover the side fence between us and the neighbours.

If youve got this far Ive left the Best for last. We have decided on a final Plan and will be hoping to start building in the next 6 weeks. Apparently, the banks and Council are the biggest hold up and then once that all goes through things will happen pretty quickly.

Im starting to get excited again and can see where things will go. My kitchen will have a great walk in pantry, we've modified the bathroom in the kids area, theres a rumpus room off the main bedroom now that will be turned into a parents retreat/Pool Room. The section between the rumpus room family room and patio will have an inground pool in the next 12 months or so and there will be a big glass fixed window in the family room that will highlight the pool area when its all finished.

Once this all goes through we can start to pick colors, tiles, the kitchen, fittings etc and then the fun stuff will begin. I cant wait :)

A Family that fences together stays together!

The first turn of soil

 After having such a bad run with the actual house we decided that we would like to start the back garden so that when we finally move in we will have some fruit and vegies established. So I finally have a weekend off work and its off to the block we go to start working on our fence. The plan is that we will have about 8m x 22.5m sectioned off for the ugly things like vegie garden, chook shed, garden shed and compost heap.I would also like a passionfruit vine, some fruit trees and an ornate tree with a garden bench and a fairy garden.

Club Banks

The goal was to dig some holes, mix cement and put the posts up on Saturday, then come back Sunday to start putting the palings up. After having the soil classed as "E" one would think that it would be easy to dig a few holes or 10 but apparently that ground is rock solid and very compact. So after strapping his hands up and a lot of cursing Gav got 7 holes out of the way. The kids got a bit bored so they swam in the wheelbarrow, they rode their bikes and went for a ride to the Climbing spider.

The Poles

 Because it took so long to dig the holes, the poles went in today. So some time in the next few days we will go out and start the palings. Once that is done we will build up the garden beds and start building the chook shed. I want to put in my passionfruit vine as soon as possible and start working on making pavers to go around the garden beds and around the house.

Vegie patch

So although not as exciting as picking tiles and toilets, I will be updating on garden progress until we decide on a new plan for the house. All going well the garden will be completed by May June in time for us to move in to our house. We are speaking to 3 new builders, have some designs in mind and are waiting for the Industry to come back from Vacation to get on with it. We need to look at prices and inclusions and see what takes our fancy. I've added a short list of three plans that we are looking at and trying to visualise living in.

What do you think? A B or C