Sealed At Last

Finally the weather was not too wet or excessively hot and the driveway got cleaned and sealed with an amazing polyurethane finish. The drive now looks glossy and sparkles in the sun and we will be able to put our cars away in the garage from tomorrow. I am now taking bets who will be the first one to ding the car going in and out! (Most likely me sadly).

The renderer for the pool was supposed to trun up yesterday, hmm unless he was invisible and the new fashion in rendering is to leave it looking like a block wall I figure he didn't turn up. I'm cross as this is delaying the final payment on our building loan and costing us a higher interest rate until its converted to our mortgage. The pool company will be getting a firm email today.

On a positive note, we have a gardener and landscaper coming to plant out the final beds which are too hard for us to dig after all the trucks and builders going back and forth and to pour concrete steps, a slab for the shed and put in pavers, gravel and more planting for us. The raised bed containers for the vegetable garden have been ordered and all we need now is the shed and the garden is almost finished. We would also like to create a BBQ area by making a deck with covered pergola extension off the back of the outdoor room so I will be getting quotes for that soon.
Doesn't look like it will be long before the garden is finished and the fencers are returning next week to finish off the side gates and fences so the yard will be fully enclosed and hopefully puppy proof! Good timing as Angel spoodle puppy arrives tomorrow.

Litlle Angel

What a sweetie

Visuals

Rear of Garage

Dingo Action

No More Moonscape

Resort Furniture From Freedom

Outdoor Seating

Outdoor Dining

Cleared Ready For Veggies and Puppy

Feature Bed Near Outdoor Room - Pony Tail Palm Should Get to 2m Eventually

Feature Bed Near Pool - The Grass Here Will Be Replaced With Gravel In The Future

Citrus Grove - Left to Right Orange, Lemon and Lime

Hunter Gatherers

Yesterday we did a round trip of Brisbane sourcing statues, water features and plants. We came home with lots of ideas, prices, measurements and things we want to add to the garden wish list. Plus 3 dwarf citrus plants, some liriopes and 2 pony tail palms from the best and cheapest nursery in Brisbane out at Redland Bay.

The ladies at Lagoon View Nursery were really friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and passionate about their plants. The place is massive and they have a really simple pricing method - small pots $5 up to big pots $30 ! We got plants for $30 that we would normally expect to pay around $75 for. All their plants are extremely healthy specimens and we only looked at about 25% of what they had in stock as our car boot was full after 15 minutes!! A bit of a journey to get their but well worth the trip, definitely going back for more.

On the way home we stopped at yet another garden centre for afternoon tea and a look at their aquarium centre which was lovely with sea horses, clown fish and coral reefs. All in all a fun day out.

None of the water features lived up to expectations as we'd like something similar to what M have in their displays but I have sourced this (see below) online from a firm in Brisbane who make them to order for you.....now the only problem is convincing Sandy that $5,000 for a water feature is a great investment!

Now That Would Look Amazing In The Garden Don't You Think

My Pool Sucks & How We Fixed It

The pool was looking lovely and warming up enough to swim in but then............. it starting making a gurgling noise, then air was bubbling up from the return vents and the water started to look cloudy. That can't be right. So I checked the control box which had the no flow light illuminated. So as instructed I did a backwash and rinse and oh no this made things worse. Now there is no flow at all and the pump in sucking air not water. Not a good thing I can tell you. Now I'll have to ring the pool handover guy for some advice, hopefully it is something we can fix over the phone and then once up and running the pool will need to run for 24+hours to get it clean and balanced again. Oh hum there goes my relaxing Saturday morning.

GLUG

OK now being the determined logical person I am I wanted to fix the pool myself so logic says if there is air in the filter I need to force water in and push the air out. Makes sense. But where and how to force the water in? Firstly I tried directly in the pump skimmer but this seemed to be forcing air in too. Think ,think think and thanks to the magic of Google I found a piece on how the pool professionals put a hose with and inflating balloon like cuff up the pipe from the pool skimmer box to force the water through. Now I don't have an inflatable cuff but the article then went on to suggest jamming a thick sock around the end of the hose to create a seal. So one hose pipe, two towels for kneeling on, one pair of sports socks, two adults, a child, lots of on off with the tap and repositioning, half and hour and very aching arms later the pool is fixed. Hooray.... I love it when a plan comes together.
I've reconnected the pool cleaner, put the chlorinator up higher and left the pool to run for the next 24 hours. fantastic. My pool no longer sucks - well it does but in the right way this time.

Dingo Bingo and Outdoor Seating

How lucky are we? We rang a local dingo company (a small bobcat not the wild dog) to see if they could come and level out the land near our laundry and aircon areas and dingo bingo they could come the next day or in a months time! So they came out on Wednesday and after about an hour of running the little digger over the 100sqm of land our interesting moonscape is now relatively flat and weed free. This means we can now look at getting some concrete slabs poured for a step and small paving area out from the laundry door and another one for the shed. We need to do some measuring and rough sketching of what we need before hand though as we need to allow for raised bed as vegetable plots and a little piece of land for the dog toilet (sorry too much information?). We've decided to have a "that'll do for now" garden and make additions and changes as time goes on.

That same day we got a delivery from Freedom and now have our new outdoor set which fits our outdoor room really well. I finished work at 4pm came home had a swim in the pool, cooked a lovely meal on the BBQ and broke in our new table and chairs. I felt like I was still on holidays. Fantastic.

The renderer should be coming soon to finish the wall around the pool and we still have no idea what colour to paint it now that we have a blue pool not grey. The fencers will also be back soon to add side gates so that the garden is secure and hopefully this spell of dry weather continues and we can finally get the driveway sealed with the polyurethane coating.
We also need to hire/borrow/cajole/bully/press gang a couple of guys to help us move our old sofa upstairs and the spare sofa to the apartment at work as we do not have the physical strength or stature to do it alone.

Off to look at more plants today as well as feature pots, garden art and statues that we can use to add interest to the garden.

Bamboozled

Yesterday was very relaxing as planned. We had a trip out to Masters at Springfield and picked up 6 bags of mulch and 4 dwarf bamboo plants which we planted after lunch. The bamboo look great but we will need at least approx another 6 of them to finish off the rear garden beds. The contrast of the green leaves against our grey fence really makes the plants stand out and the mulch gives the bed next to the pool a nice finishing touch.
Thankfully the weather has been glorious and we did manage a swim later in the afternoon. Ah this is the life!!

Ready For The Planting Squad

And They're In

Only About 1m Tall Yet - Will Get To About 3m and Fill Out More

With Mulch

From The Pool - Yes I'm Was In The Water When I Took This Shot

New Year New Addition

What a beautiful morning this first day of 2012, the most amazing blue sky, the sun is shinning and all is very calm and quiet. Starting the day with a BBQ breakfast in our outdoor room then we may do a bit more gardening and hopefully if the day warms up a quick dip in the pool. I don't love the colour but I don't hate it either so I guess we will keep it, however I will be speaking to out pool builder again to see what offer is on the table before making a final decision.

Loving spending time in our new home it is as if we have always lived here. The house is not as we want it yet as we still need to add some rugs and decorative pieces and more furniture but there is no need to rush. Also the garden needs a lot of work so we feel to focus on that and then let the interior simply evolve and grow as we settle in to it. We have never had such a big garden before and it is a little overwhelming trying to decide what to do with it, breaking it up in to sections seems to be a good way of deciding what we want where. The garden really needs some hard landscaping done to give it some height, depth and interest. I think we will add a deck and pergola and some bench seats around the outdoor room pool area and then some paving and gravel plus some raised beds that we can plant vegetables in. We will also need a small shed and somewhere to hang a washing line. The grass has taken really well and the lawned areas look great, hmm it will need its first cut very soon though must organise someone to come and do that for us. We'd also like some feature pots and plants and art pieces to create areas of focus or may be even a water feature? Oh the list goes on and on - better go and look at those home and garden magazines again for some ideas.

News Flash:
Have a look at this little cutie who will be the new addition to our family.....

What a sweetie!

She is a golden spoodle and will be moving in with us in a couple of weeks.....how exciting. It has been a few years now since we had a dog, it will be great to have a little furry four legged member of the family again.

Joy to you all for 2012.