Laid the turf this morning, in the rain. Erik and I both got saturated and muddy, he more than I.
What a difference a bit of green makes!
housingplans asked: What's up - Just wanted to say sweet blog! I may use some of your content for my blog later if that is OK.
Hi, thanks! And yes, happy for you to use some content. Tina
Hurray for the Shovel Fairy…
It is hard to convey how excited I was to come home to this on Monday afternoon. We had the soil delivered on Sunday, thinking we would get everything else finished and be able to spread the soil in prep for the turf. No such luck. We finished the weekend with the soil piled high on the kerb, where the truck offloaded it.
But when I came home Monday afternoon it had mysteriously moved into our yard!
Looks like Paul, the neighbour’s landscaper, took pity on us and sent his little front end loader over to move it for us. Probably took him five minutes to do what would have taken me hours !
Erik delivered them a carton of beer this morning in thanks.
Retaining wall status update:
This was Sunday’s progress. Unlike Saturday, the rain did not stay away. But undeterred, we battled the mud and plodded on. Erik dug another drainage trench on the downside of the wall, while I continued with flattening the garden using a shovel. I had to dig out builder’s waste, large rocks and a large tree branch. It was slow work!
Erik picked up a load of Nambucca river rocks and we then barrowed and shovelled 800kg of rocks from the road to my mock “dry creek bed”.
Erik did the bulk of the shovelling and all the wheel barrow work. He was in some discomfort this morning…
Retaining wall progress update…
This was Saturday afternoon’s job. Put the last wale in the wall and then added a capping for the kids to run along (arissed the edges with a planer). The wall looks like it’s leaning but it’s not. Just the angle of the camera on my phone.
Erik and Bill were my able helpers. We also put the drainage behind the walls and partially backfilled (with shovels and mattocks!). We’ll need some topsoil, then we’ll turf it.
Retaining wall in front yard is almost finished … big thanks to my trusty helpers Em and Bill.
It had taken two full days work to get to this point. There is one wale missing (my miscalculation) - will get that tomorrow. And have decided to fix a sleeper flat on top as a top rail, to make it safer for kids to run along. I always used to run along walls as a kid, and it would be a bit nasty to slip off the top and catch on a post on the way down.
Overall looking great. Very pleased with our mighty team effort. Still lots to do.. Drainage behind the wall, backfill, dry creek bed.. But it is starting to come together and so far it is just how I envisaged it..
New ceiling fan installed in Erik’s office on Friday. It’s a Vento Fino and is only a small fan, mounted in the corner. The room’s not big and we didn’t want to make it seem smaller by having a bigger fan in the centre of the room. Erik had a choice between yellow or black blades and picked the yellow. It’s rather funky! Even the electrician was impressed.
(Source: vento.com.au)
How clever is this! Walnuts have always reminded me of brains…
Chocolate Skulls Gone Nuts from Ruth and Sira García Trigueros
(via emergentfutures)
