Landscaping, P1

We've been in the house for three months now so I'm well overdue a blog update.

The place still doesn't quite feel like home yet - without many of our personal items unpacked yet (photos, decorations, etc.) it's still quite sterile. Our old place had a floor to ceiling (3.0 metre tall) built in bookshelf, and with all our books, photo frames, and decorations that we've collected from around the world it was the focal point of the living room (remember it was only a small townhouse). This house however, is much larger, and doesn't have any shelves to put all our bits and pieces or books on, yet! I have plans to change this, but of course it all takes time and money.

Our first priority has been the landcaping. After living in a dust pile for the last three months (which becomes a mud pile, with torrential mud rivers, every time it rains), and with everyone who walks past day or night able to see straight into our living room, we are well and truly ready to have fences for some privacy and a landscaped backyard to get out and enjoy.

The process has been slow going so far... very slow going! One of Ben's mates, who runs a landscaping company, helped us get started for 'mates rates', as well as this we've recruited various friends, family and work mates for their cheap labour (a Subway lunch and a beer at day's end is usual tender). However this meant working to fit around various shift and family schedules of our own and each of them.

First of all was the brick edging. This area encloses the lawn - a nice big area for outdoor games to be played and pets to run around on.

 

The guys installed the irrigation system at the same time as the brick edging, ready for the turf to go in on top. This unfortunately was a bit of a failure due to terrible water pressure, a problem we are still working on.

A couple of weeks later, we got stuck into the fence posts, pardon the pun, as the boys cemented  in all the steel posts ready for the fence rails and palings to go up in the following weeks.

 

Because of the lay of the land and the site cut, we needed two large sections of retaining wall - along one side and along the back. This means we had to use much taller fence posts, as you can see. The fence will sit 1.8m on top of the retaining wall which itself will be 1.2m tall at the highest point. We got the posts at 4.0m and we'll lop them at the top once its all in.

A few days later, we had the turf delivered. This was perhaps slightly premature - the site prep had taken a lot longer than expected! We were racing the clock all weekend as the turf lay drying out by the minute in the harsh Aussie summer sun. Luckily we had a lot of volunteers over the two days. Some not quite as experienced in the manual labour and landscaping realm as others, but all were a massive help!

 

 

When it comes to the heavy lifting and backbreaking labour of landscaping, even I'll admit there's just some things that guys can do better than girls (well girls our size anyway), but Caroline, Katira, and I were finally able to lend a hand with this section of the work. It was much to the disgruntlement of our muscles over the coming days though - who would have thought shovelling dirt around and rolling grass would be so hard? And being the middle of summer, it was hot work too!

Finally the site was ready... It was time for the glory run - the laying of the turf! With dark clouds bearing down ominously on us it was a case of all hands on deck, but we managed to get it done just in in the nick of time before the rain gave our grass (and us) its first nice soaking.

There's obviously quite a bit more to get done. So stay tuned for part 2 of this post!