The front wall

We started on the front garden this week.  We decided on creating a formal garden and  wanted a low wall to complement the look. Tossed up between doing a rendered brick wall or the dry stack wall.   I decided that the dry stack wall system in Ebony (more like dark grey) would be best for the front boundary. It was also a lot cheaper.  This should look really nice with the box hedges that we're going to plant along the back of the wall as well.

Trench dug

Ben's invention for lifting the blocks

Blocks laid on road base

All done

Now we can organise to get our garden beds done and turf laid.  

Finishing touches

Picked up my shadow boxes from Impressions in Castle Hill.  Ben offered to put them up for me.  What an effort that turned out to be.  They're pretty heavy and a sign at the back of them said that it would be best to use the services of a professional picture mounter.  Well Ben did a very professional job in my opinion.  He had to make special brackets to attach them to the wall.  Didn't want to take a chance that they would fall and get ruined.  It took him hours to hang them but it all worked out well at the end.

Picture alcoves at front entrance

Hall Table

Work in Progress

After many quotes from landscapers, we finally decided to go it alone and do most of the work ourselves. Ben just could not believe how much of a mark up the landscapers were putting on the many quotes we received.  He's a pretty good handyman himself so I suppose we will be able to save heaps of money by doing things ourselves but it will be slow going for a while.
We made a start two weekends ago, before the rain came pelting down.  The weather has been a major drawback.  What happened to Spring?
Since we're putting down stepping stones and pebbles on both sides of the house, we laid down road base, levelled and compacted the base in preparation. This weekend we cemented in the stepping stones on a brick base and then laid Geotech fabric over the road base to stop the weeds from growing through.  Then spread out 4 ton of Nepean pebbles.

Pavers laid on brick base

Geotech fabric rolled out

Nepean pebbles

 We are quite happy with the end result.  Just need to add some potted plants.  The deck goes in behind the pebbled area, but that project is for another day.  It was really back breaking work and very hot as well.  Very sunburnt and sore at the moment.  Next weekend we have so much more work to look forward to.

View of the setting sun from our Alfresco area

We're shuttered!

My shutters were finally installed and we totally love the look of them.  They allow us to adjust the amount of light we want in the room.  I chose white hinged shutters which allows for the windows to be opened easily.  Ben says they make the house look very American with the dark wooden floors. I'm just glad to get rid of the sheets and butcher paper we used as a temporary fix.

Ready for installation

Family room



Media Room



Master Bedroom

Jay and his mate from Bosetti Blinds took about 4 hours to put them up.  I didn't realize that there was quite a bit of work involved in installing them.  Very happy with the product and service from Bosetti Blinds.  I can highly recommend using them in the future. 

Fenced in!

Finally, we have fences, part of it anyway.  We managed to get an approval from two of our neighbours to have the Ezyclip fencing installed.  Ezyclip consists of colourbond posts and caps with wooden paling inserts. It's neighbour friendly as both sides look the same.  Very neat and tidy as well.
Still not able to get in touch with the neighbour on the left for an approval.  Then noticed that there is a "For Sale" sign on the block today, so that explains why they weren't too keen on paying for the fences.  We decided to just go ahead and do two boundaries, which is the right and rear fences.  We decided to have one row of sleepers under the fence and this cost us a little more.

We had accepted a quote from another supplier almost a month ago but they never turned up to do the job.  When we called to ask what the delay was, we were told that they had actually lost our quote.  Well, by then we had lost our faith in them.   I called Mike from Ezyclip who came and quoted the job for us and once I accepted the quote he booked in our fences for the very next day.  Now that's what I call service.  The two sides were complete in a day.

Rear of the house

Now our dog Alex can run around freely in our back yard.

What's going on at "Waterfall" The Ponds?

There's been so much of working happening at "Waterfall" @ The Ponds over the few months.  The rain gardens are taking shape and you can really start to see what we have to look forward to when it's all done.  Will be a great place for an afternoon stroll and a place to relax.  Two pedestrian bridges have been built over Second Ponds Creek to link us to The Ponds Boulevard.  We've heard that Landcom are spending million of dollars developing the rain gardens and kids playground.

The major part of all this work has been the construction of the bridge over Second Ponds Creek which will link Riverbank drive to The Ponds Boulevard.  The bridge looks almost complete and should be opened soon.  It should cut down on our travel time to The Rouse Hill Town Centre by about 5 minutes.

The Bridge under construction

The Bridge almost complete

Here are some other images of our little piece of The Ponds:

Early evening at "Waterfall"