13 Week Maintenance Inspection

Wow, how time flies!  Last week we had our 13 week maintenance inspection with Tim from the contracted maintenance company who came over to check the list of defects we had noted.  7 was the magic number of listed faults we found.  They were all quite minor really eg. a missing cover to the light switch in our laundry, a faulty front door handle and a slight crack to the bulkhead in the kitchen.

We were pleasantly surprised to have the maintenance company ring us that very same afternoon to schedule in the work that was required to fix the issues.  We really didn't think that we would hear back from them until the new year.  We now have confirmed dates for trades people to come in next year to fix the defects.

Needless to say, we were very impressed.   We're also really happy to note that we are yet to find any major problems with the house so far.  Well done Eden Brae.

 

Decisions, decisions...

Who knew choosing turf was going to be such a confusing job?  There are quite a few varieties of turf to choose from:

Buffalo - (Sir Walter, Sapphire, Matilda etc.) is drought tolerant. Low mainenance, maintains it's colour in Winter. Less invasive into gardens than Kikuyu or Couch therefore less maintenance.Less mowing than Kikuyu (approx. 50% in Summer). Requires less water.

Couch- has a fine leaf and texture.  It has a rich green colour but in frost prone areas it will become brown over winter.

Kikuyu-Needs full sun, easy to grow due to the runners it sends, fast growing so needs mowing at least once a week during summer.  As it sends out runners, it does invade garden beds.

So after much research we decided we go for a soft leaf Buffalo called Sapphire.  It is a fine and smaller leafed buffalo variety.

We used 7 ton of 80/20 turf underlay to level the front area before the turf could be laid.  Was totally back breaking work which we did mostly in the evenings as it was so much cooler to work when the sun was down.

80 sqm of turf

Also planted a row of Japanese box hedges along the front wall  and Society Garlic along the  front of the deck.

We were lucky that it rained almost every day the first week after the turf was laid.  It's been almost two weeks now and it seems to have survived and looks to be growing well. It might even need to be mowed soon.

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.