Spring has sprung

The vertical garden prototype was reproduced (times 3), painted, mounted on fence, filled with potting mix and plants. Unfortunately the local possums decided that sushi train had come to town, and ate the tops of most things. We had no time to address the damage as we were about to head off on our camping trip.

But since we came back we've erected possum deterrent and an automatic watering system and everything is coming on nicely, both in the vertical and horizontal gardens.

On left, two lengths of vertical garden, below, all three.

Horizontal garden - still room for some more plants, but looking pretty.

Geranium slips, recovering from possum depradation.

Despite being eaten down to bare stems, they are growing. Possum deterrent (gutter guard tacked to the fence) seems to be working.

Vertical gardens - step 1

Despite horrid weather, the garden slowly expands - probably a dozen more plants than in the last photo and bluebells have been popping up all over the place, even though I thought I'd dug them all up when preparing the garden for replanting.
We have started on the Vertical Garden Project - constructing same from PVC drain pipes. Photos right and below show the prototype. Now to construct four in total, paint and plant. Watch this space.

And some time back we put this planter (right), received as a present eons ago, up outside the living room window on our nice rendered wall. It looks even better now as it has plants in it. To be shown in next photo shoot.

Garden update

On Queen's Birthday Monday we head out to Midway soil & gravel to see what they can offer. We choose the gravel. They ask us when we want it. We say, when can they deliver. They say, "Now?" Having already ascertained that there was a non-trivial delivery fee, I ask if they could deliver soil at the same time. No problems.
So we bolt back to Albert Park, scoff lunch and lay tarps in the lane outside the garage in time to receive half a cubic metre of gravel, same of soil. The piles look dauntingly large, and there isn't that much daylight in an afternoon these days. But despite Peter's anxieties, we manage to get it all barrowed into the garden or stored in containers before dark.
In the next week or so we progressively distribute it, buy plants and plant them. Now the garden looks like this (note the rose - the first rose of winter?):

The sun shines, garden progresses

More free time lately and better weather, so more trips to Bunnings and more work. Sleepers now fitted in place, more pavers purchased and laid, although we are still levelling. We discover that the pavers are more fragile than they look, one has chipped and one has broken in two during the levelling process. Back to Bunnings. We need another half a sleeper anyway, not to mention bags of good soil to go in the newly edged bed. Also still need to source some gravel to put round the pavers, something Bunnings doesn't have.

And now for the garden

After another visit to Tasmania, we return at the beginning of May and continue work on the garden. The climbing rose which blew down over summer is re-growing rapidly, but urgently needs tying up before it blows over again. Bit by bit we dig up what was left of the brick paved patio and brick path to the garage. Bricks are packed into the trailer and carted off to become part of a friend's barbecue.
We make yet another trip to Bunnings to buy sleepers to edge the deck and pavers for a new path.
Now we need to level the area where we plan to lay the pavers - in the process we discover there are still a lot of roots left from the calistemon we removed last year, and these need to go if we are going to get the path level. Much work with mattock, spade and axe and we have a barrowload of firewood to give away.
The holes resulting from our root excavation mean that more work is required to get the path area level, but this week rain has stopped play. When the weather improves we will fix the sleepers in place, do some more levelling, then start laying sand, gravel and pavers to complete the path.

Back, and busy again

After spending the summer in Tasmania, we return to the house at the end of March. In our absence the deck has been built, and beautifully stained by our house-sitters.
We spend a very busy week getting the garden into some kind of shape, buying deck furniture, which includes a flat-pack storage bench which, after erection, not only provides a very comfortable seat but also a place to keep the Weber and gas bottle which we cooked on all through the renos last year.
Here's Peter sitting on it, with coffee and newspaper.

Rain stopped play

A showery week prevented us from putting another coat on the fence. But we did get the garage tidy enough to put the car safely off the street before heading to Tas. Scheduled on our return: fitting of blinds, rendering of the wall, and building of a new deck.

Fenced off and walled in

Fencing continues on Friday and the following Monday. In between we reduce the height of the wall between us and the house behind by knocking off four courses of bricks.
Then a pause in proceedings before a big day last Friday. Brickie comes and closes the gap between us and the other building site, fencers came to cut the fence on the other side to the prescribed height.And a nice man from Uretek comes to inspect the side wall of our Little O'Grady street property which is also the boundary of the garden, and gives us the good news that although the wall is leaning a bit, there is no risk of it falling down and we don't need to worry.
Sunday we paint the fence - fortunately before the massive storms that came through on Sunday night. Waiting for the weather to settle so we can put a second coat on.
Progressive pictures:

Fencing continues

Fencers returned on Wednesday with a skip, and used their digger to remove all the grass and weeds and some of the topsoil from next door's garden beds. Neighbour worked with them to clear rubbish until they had filled their skip. Garden not yet totally clean but an unbelievably great improvement on the jungle it was a few days ago.

Thursday, the actual fencing restarted, after about a week's break while work was done on the neighbour's side. Here's what the retaining wall half of the fence looks like...

... and note how tidy next door's garden looks.

All over by Christmas?

No, not World War 1, but the final stages of the renos.
Today we put up the last pictures. A number of them have moved from their previous locations, and we are enjoying being surprised to see them somewhere new. The last light fitting went up, so the pictures are also all suitably illuminated.
Peter has been doing some artwork around the edges of our floor tiles where there were some bits of bare concrete, and although the colour match isn't perfect, it looks good.
After further consideration, blinds have been ordered for all the windows, and we hope they will arrive and be fitted before we head off to Tas at the end of October.

We finally selected a fencing contractor who started this week on the replacement of the fence on our south-west side. An issue for this project was the presence of built up vegetable gardens and very large, very old fruit trees close to the fence on our neighbour's property, which were the principal cause of the collapse of the old fence, and a potential danger to any new one. Somewhat to our surprise, rather than being concerned about the impact on the trees/garden, the neighbour is taking advantage of the absence of a fence and the access through our other neighbour's property to do a complete transformation of his garden. On Monday our favourite tree fellers will come and remove all the trees along the fence line, and the fencing contractors will use their little bobcat to take the top layer off the raised beds (including the grass and weeds currently growing there). Neighbour has been out in the garden today doing some clearing up himself - we think it is going to cheer him up to have his yard back under control. We lent him a shovel and made encouraging noises.

Not sure what the birds and possums are going to do when the trees go. We will also miss the shade they provided in the summer, but we can replant some greenery on our side to compensate. And if it gets hot this year before it grows high enough, we'll just pull the new blinds down and/or head off to Tasmania to sail.



And now we can see lots of things that aren't really all that attractive...

Let there be light (reprise)

Sometime back in April the tracks were fitted for new track lighting. Once everything else was done, we went hunting for track lights to match ones we already had from pre-renovation days. It turned out that this was no simple task. We had an eBay disaster when some that looked the same in the photo turned out to be HUGE, industrial size. We found tracklights in lighting shops which not only didn't match but were also wildly expensive. Finally we found what we wanted at Lawrence and Hanson for a modest price. But they had to order them in, and we bought the globes on the internet at a fraction of the asking price at L&H. It all came together today - lights picked up at L&H, globes collected from our post office box, and we spent time today assembling them and climbing ladders to put them up.
I now have a brightly lit kitchen, and all the recently re-hung art is appropriately illuminated. After weeks of being in gloom it is a big improvement. Three more pictures to hang, and we really will be all done.

Our turn to work now

With the builders and tradies gone, it's time for us to put the finishing touches in place. Pictures are finally almost all up, although the Chief Picture Hanger thinks that some are too high. The Assistant Picture Hanger thinks they are fine as they are, and as the Chief has 'done his back' (picking up The Age from the front verandah!), her view is prevailing at the moment. The Sound Engineer has done a great job of ehancing the little cabinet we bought on e-Bay so that it holds TV, tuner/amp and most of our DVDs and some CDs. He has connected up our ancient but very good Sonab speakers wirelessly, so we now have wonderful surround sound for TV, radio, or recorded music.
We have finally found and ordered tracklights which a) fit the new track and b) match our old ones - they will arrive Monday and finally our living area will be lighter by night, as well as by day. Still to go - blinds (jury still out on whether we need them) and the garden. We are trying to get three quotes for a new fence, so that we can then negotiate with our neighbour to get it fixed. Hopefully that will happen next week, although getting the quotes has been an extremely slow process - has been going for several weeks already.

Finished! It's official

Michael from Zeev Kitchens came on Saturday and Sunday, working for hours to put the sealer round the splashbacks and the kickboards of the cupboards in the kitchen. He did a lovely job, so by Sunday evening we were really all done. On Tuesday we handed over the last payment to Profast and had a ceremonial removal of the signs from the front fence.
We began re-hanging the art on Monday, starting with the pictures in the hall, then the two big pictures came out of the garage. On Wednesday we hung them in their former places in the living and dining areas. On Thursday, the one in the dining area fell down again, punching a small hole in our nice new plaster, but no damage to the painting. So much for stick on hangers. It's now back on the wall, resting more securely on screwed in hooks. Still got our smaller pieces to re-hang, but with the big ones in place, it looks terrific.

Finished product, with pictures

Kitchen 1

Here are the long-promised pictures!

Dave (builder) delivered final invoice and certificate of completion for us to sign today.

Kitchen 2

Still waiting to hear from Dave (kitchen) about when our splashbacks will be sealed, but otherwise we are all done.

Dining

Bought a splendid orchid to sit high above the fridge.

Long view

Lounge area

Only thing left to do is hang the art.










Unpacked last box of stuff to go back into the cocktail cabinet today, and the ottoman and scatter cushions arrived.

The space, and the view

Close inspection of the last picture will show you what our next task is - to fix up the garden, starting with the side fence, which is on point of collapse. So we haven't seen the last of the tradies yet.

Finishing touches

Yes folks, we are really really nearly there.
This week we've had the builders finishing the odd bits of flashing on the windows outside and the renderers doing the final coat of render, so that's pretty much it as far as Profast is concerned.
Today Armando sent Giuliano to finish off the painting - all done including the range hood chimney which now matches the ceiling and is even less noticeable than it was.
Took our ottoman to Bluestone yesterday to have it upholstered to match the couch - it and some scatter cushions will be back by Friday.
Next door the builders have finished messing about with the party wall, so as soon as the paint has dried, we will be able to put the furniture back where it belongs and, finally, rehang our art collection.
All we need now is the caulking of the splashbacks, and some more tracklights. Minor hiccup in that area - Peter found some LED tracklights on the web and ordered several. The trouble with buying things on the web is that the size of the object isn't always obvious. When the tracklights arrived today we discovered they were shop fitting size - about four times bigger than we need or want. They might be back on eBay this weekend. Meanwhile we continue spending our evenings in gloom until we find some smaller ones. Can't win 'em all.

We got flue!

No it's not a typo - we're pleased, not diseased. This week the flue was fitted for the range hood and it looks as innocuous as we had hoped, even though it's not exactly the colour we thought it would be. The issue of it going straight through the tracklighting was solved by sparky Damo shortening the track. Then Dave, Chris and Mick cut the hole in the ceiling, fitted the flue and its chimney And it works.
Painter has been notified that he can now come back and do final touch up. At least Dave said he'd tell Armando - must check...

Baulked, not caulked

Unscheduled visit from Michael (kitchen) on Thursday. We chose a brown-gold for the splashbacks, which works well with the wooden shelves and the formica on the benchtops. But the current fashion in kitchen colours is neutral, white, off-white, greys. So although there is a caulk that comes in a colour called mustard which is almost a perfect match, 'they' don't stock it and it will have to be ordered in. Which one might think could have been worked out a couple of weeks ago when we specified the colour for the glass, but one would be wrong. So it will be at least a week before the mustard caulk will arrive from 'them' and we remain unsealed until then.
Renderers came Friday. We queried the colour of the render which was supposed to match the window frames and they cheerfully told us that the job isn't finished - that's just the base coat. Correct colour will come with the final coat. Hopefully next week.
Waiting for last things continues.

Rendered, and with splashbacks (almost)

Returned Monday from 8 days in sunny FNQ (except that it wasn't always, and was very windy), to find the outside of the house rendered and the splashbacks installed in the kitchen, but not yet caulked. Contacted Dave (kitchen) who said they had to get the colour of the sealant right (good!) and that Michael-from-the-office would contact us later this week. Two days to go for Michael to do so. Keep putting off taking the photos until the kitchen is really finished, and doesn't have big bits of blue tape covering the powerpoints that are actually embedded in the splashbacks - this will presumably be removed as part of the caulking exercise. Amazing (and annoying) how long the last few things take.

Home, home on (with) the range (hood)

Two days of enjoying our new space in peace at the beginning of the week. On Wednesday, Peter does some carpentry on the shelf so that our new super-duper tap can swing full circle. He is very pleased with the neat job he has done.
Builders back on site next door Thursday, enabling us to retrieve our yard broom which they had inadvertently taken because theirs is almost identical. Also to arrange for them to come Friday to fit the range hood, which they do, and it looks great. There is no longer enough room above the plate rack to fit plates in, but as I rarely used this, I'm prepared to forgo it for the sake of having an effective range hood. Builder is going to organise the fabrication of a flue so there will be another wait for this to arrive and then another messy day when they install it and cut the requisite holes in ceiling and roof. Then the painter can return to do touch ups, and finally we really will be finished.
Where are the pictures? Just waiting for the home handyman to finish varnishing his carpentry work so that I can take a picture of the kitchen without sheets of newspaper, paint tin and brush, etc.

Cooking with gas (and electricity!)

Monday 21 July, plumbers arrive early to commence connecting everything from dishwasher to downpipes, sink to stove. I have various appointments, so Peter is supervising. As a result, my message about not bothering with the shelf that the kitchen people have supplied with the sink cupboard gets lost, and the plumbers go to all kinds of trouble to fit the pipes through the shelf. However it is so good to have running water that I don't care. Peter organises a nest of powerboards and cords so that we can plug in stove and dishwasher, and for the first time in 9 months I cook a meal on the stove!
We have another communication disconnect, finding on Wednesday that the electrician has told the builder he is not coming until Friday (once again, after two days of being on early alert). The good news on Wednesday was that Bluestone delivered our recovered sofa and dining chairs, and they look great.
On Friday at 7am we greet electricians Chris and Jason who have all the wiring finished by mid-morning. At last, we can move the fridge and microwave, the last bits of the kitchen still residing in the middle room. The fridge (like us) is elderly, and when we try to move it into its new, snug-fitting cupboard, we discover that (like us) it has a lean to the left that seems beyond adjustment. We eventually succeed in getting it in place by propping up the back corner with a bit of wood, but it has taken the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, we make a sortie to Ikea to buy all kinds of drawer fittings and such-like to help organise our new spaces. We also buy a new thingy to put the TV on (our old cabinet, also Ikea, dates from pre-flat screen days and is excessively large), and two new lightweight chairs, as we've decided that the chairs from our old three piece suite are too heavy for the room.
Between Monday (plumbers) and Friday (electricians) I have been slowly escorting items from the old kitchen cabinets in the garage to the new kitchen cabinets. Over the weekend this continues, and Peter joins me to shift larger items on Sunday. So we now have just about everything back in the kitchen (plus a couple of boxes to go to the op shop), and in the rest of the living area a dining table and chairs, 3 coffee tables, a sofa and two chairs in flat packs waiting for us to get the strength to assemble them. Tomorrow perhaps.
From the kick-off, I predicted that it would take until my birthday to have a liveable house again. I'm about right (birthday is tomorrow), although there are still Things to be Done. But it's a short list now, and nothing to prevent us having a dinner party tomorrow night. Whoopeee!