I can't believe people are still reading my blog!!!

wow I really get a shock when a email comes through and its a comment on my blog. We have been in our house for 18 months now and I have been so slack with this blog, I will have to take some new pics and upload them if I can remember how 😀

Slowly but surely

Every weekend is spent outside trying to get the yard looking good.  Whoever wanted a 1/2 acre block I will never know ha ha..  We laid the turf, well 2/3 of what we need which took all day 350sqm 4 weeks ago and we watered it for two weeks twice a day which took forever, we had soaker hoses to start with 35m long, they work well but are a total pain in the bum to get them sitting up the right way, then my mum gave me a wobbler sprinkler and its wonderful, so powerful and saturated a huge area so saved us a lot of time.  Now after the wonderful rain we have had the turf looks great, even up the back where we have left the original grass/weeds is green.  

Standing on the alfresco looking out

From the back corner and the mulberry tree

From the back corner looking to the front

Looking from side fence, still more turf to get

We have been planting a lot of trees, when we purchased the block about 20 saplings were planted a long the side fence in 3 rows. I have removed 1 entire row as it was just ridiculous, too many gum trees and once they grew would be too many for our block. I have been replacing the other 2 rows with deciduous trees and fruit trees.. Up in the back corner I have planted 2 apple trees, a lemon tree and what I thought was a cherry tree that I transplanted from my mums house but there is one round thing growing and its way to big to be a cherry so it will be a surprise ha ha.  We planted a Golden Elm on the front corner of our block, once it gets bigger it should give us a bit of shade to the western side of the house and hopefully be a bit of protection if anyone misses the corner, fingers crossed that never happens. I'm really enjoying the planting of trees and spending a whole day outside fiddling about.

The Cherry Tree that isn't!!! 

One of the Apple Trees

Lemon Tree

Golden Elm 

My mum brought me this tree it has pink pom pom flowers

Our fence - I love it

I look forward to when we finish the turf and I have a huge garden on the side of the driveway to be completed, I had the dirt delivered weeks ago but just haven't had a chance to level it all out, it's 6 cubic meters for one garden!!!!!  I need some boy muscles to help me, we are going to give it a go of an afternoon after work I want it finished before my daughters 18th in 2 weeks time, fingers crossed.

Pantry = Amazing

I forgot to put this in earlier but I finally found the time to organise the pantry, I absolutely love it.  I think they call it a step in pantry, anyway it's huge I can't reach the top 2 shelves so I have a step ladder for that 

And it continues to the right behind the wall. 

This is our junk drawer after I tidied it up today, wonder how long it will look like that. 

Oh and our brand new bar stools.  I was given the heads up by someone else building in our estate about HN having 70% off bar stools so we went straight away. We bought 2 wooden stools but they didn't look right and the boys couldn't get their legs under the bench so we went back and got 4 of these, turns out they are the same as what was in the display home, now everyone is happy, thanks B&K :). 

Back at work

We are back at work and I'm struggling I just want to be home to do my house stuff.

I put my first garden in between the front path and driveway it's not the best garden as its too skinny but its going ok.  I mowed all the grass and planted some of my trees I brought with me like my bay leaf tree and a crab apple I brought.  We went to a wholesale nursery and we had a ball. We brought a Lemon Tree, Mulberry Tree, 2 Apple Trees a Granny Smith and Pink Lady, Crab Apple, Jacaranda and a Golden Elm. It was so much fun but of course we didn't have the trailer so we had to do 40 min round trip to get it..  It ended up being too windy to plant any of them so they are still under the alfresco waiting for a good day.

We were tossing up between a deck out the back or concrete, I was so over the dirt and not being able to open the back stacker doors so the concrete won being a third of the price. It looks brilliant same colour as our driveway and done by the same concreter, Fords Concreting. 

Last weekend we got  32 tonnes of top soil delivered, so much fun watching the huge truck drive up and around our block, I really should of been a boy. 

So out came the shovels, wheelbarrows and rakes and off we went. We started on the little mound first about 10 ton..

We did that in a day and my god were we exhausted!!!!!! Bags not doing the big mound, I'm begging the excavator to come back ha ha. 

As you can see the smoke in those pictures, our little town was under high alert yesterday, scared the hell out of us, thank god for the RFS, NSW Fire Brigade, SES, Police they poured into Wilton yesterday through our estate it was very reassuring I tell you..  The better thing was watching them leave when the threat of fires was scaled down.  We will see what tomorrow brings, I will be thinking of all the people in the Blue Mountains tomorrow.

Last Thursday

Friday

The glow

Kitchen pictures

I love love my kitchen

We still need barstools but haven't found any we all like.

See my lovely porcelain tiles, cleaned!!!! Took me ages to vaccum and mop the whole house and the water marks stay on the tiles arrrhhhh..  I went a brought a steam mop this afternoon, one that does not leave water behind, I will test it out tomorrow..  

Tomorrow I start on the garden, can't wait!!!!  This is what I've been looking forward to, and why we got 1/2 acre so I can have my veggie gardens and fruit trees. 

Clean up

This afternoon we cleaned up the backyard. We had a skip delivered yesterday as we had so much stuff from the tiling, the driveway and rubbish from the old house oh and boxes, big boxes!!!  We filled it to the top and tied it down seen as its so windy. We tidied the left over bricks onto one pallet, the brickie pulled down one of the walls when he started because he wasn't happy with it but instead of throwing them they were restacked so we had to throw them out, my advise would be go around your block before the final cleanup and throw everything otherwise you will get stuck doing it and paying for it.  We moved our shed as it was just dumped all over the back of the block from the removalist. It looks a lot better, I will get out the mower in next few days and clean it up even more.  We purchased ourselves a Stihl whipper snipper yesterday, so exciting, they are so easy to start.  

The next task is the garage!!!!! Arrrhhhhh it's full of stuff. We are going to tackle it tomorrow and hopefully get some order to it...  Wish us luck. 

I'm dying to start on the gardens and getting plants but I'm trying to be patient, I hope to start in the next week or two. 

The Driveway

The driveway is huge, there's a 3m pad on the side and it continues around the back of the workshop. We are getting another slab poured out the back instead of decking as its way too expensive.  Hopefully we will get that next week sometime and the dirt is driving me crazy.