A Flurry of Activity

Not sure how I missed writing a post last week, but now I have a heap of banal events to regurgitate. So let's get cooking!

To kick off, a little background news. Andrew's been working on getting into fast world of boob jobs and facial reconstructions for a while now, no doubt with the intention to earn a metric f$@k load of moolah to pay for that Maserati he's been eyeing. Not that we'd expect anything less from our boy genius, but he's been offered a plastics rotation in the magical far off land of Adelaide, and while we couldn't be happier for him it does mean that our steadfast Brisbane comrades will be packing up their dog to leave us for the time being. Such bittersweetness.

Anyways, the reason for the exposition is to provide some context around our latest visit to their lovely home with camera gear in tow. I was "commissioned", if an amateur shutterbug could be bold enough to use the term, to take some snaps of their abode for the impending rental listing. All faults represented belong to the photographer rather than the subject of course.



It was a rather cloudy day so I really wish I had a proper flash gun and slaves to light the rooms and outside properly. I've always worked with natural light up till now but I'm starting to think I should be investing in gear that will allow me to control my lighting environment better. There's only so much that my meagre photoshop skills can fix in post processing after all. I found balancing exposure of the warm indoor lights with the cool light of an overcast day to be especially challenging.

As for our own house, things have progressed quite nicely in the last fortnight. In fact, as of today we are officially out of the realm of work that needs to be done by tradies (w00t no more dirty shoe prints on our floors!). The sink we've been waiting for has finally turned up so the plumber came back to finish off the downpipes, toilet and sinks. An added bonus was that he stirred up the pipes when installing the hot water regulator, which has dislodged a large collection of rust and almost doubled our water pressure. Still getting used to the idea of being able to use more than one tap at a time.



The painters also got started last week and have done a great job of matching the colours. All the joins, nail holes and splinters from the builders have been fixed so the final result looks stunning. Amazing what a fresh coat of paint does to a place.



Unfortunately we'll still have to get up on the ladder to do the touchups for the patio and car port rafters ourselves. Something that I'm saving for the Christmas break. The rest of the work is up to us anyway so roll 'em sleeves up and prepare to get dirty.

To cover a large expanse of bare concrete in front of the deck, Alison and I ordered this rather nifty outdoor rug from America. It's made of 95% recycled plastic, presumably from soft drink bottles according to the manufacturer, and can be hosed off with gay abandon. I normally wouldn't be one to choose such a garish pattern, but Alison was rather smitten with the design so I relented. Bollywood it may be but it's still preferable to the dull harsh grey of slab. The rest of the patio will be selectively concealed by supple furniture to drape ourselves over on warm summer days.



Rusty has also become an outdoors dog, adding his charming hues to the mix. I'm not entirely convinced if that's going to be his permanent post but it'll do for now until the vegie patch comes along. It's nice to be greeted by a friendly face as you walk around the side of the house.



John and Sheena came down on the weekend for another working bee, this time with the aim to lay some pavers around the side. We ended up building a path from the back of the patio to the clothes line as I was rather keen to have a line in place to mark we will need to turf. I toyed with the idea of paving the whole area under the clothes line, but I think John and Alison's idea of using mulch will prove to be far more maintainable.

Through this whole DIY building process, I'm either going to bulk up muscles I've long since forgotten or break my back in two. Depends on my bone density and whether my suffering spinal column decides to give out first I guess. Boy were those bloody pavers heavy, and we even got the smaller ones which should have been easier to install. It looks like a small path, but we still had to lug over a tonne (that's not hyperbole by the way) of bedding sand and 44 of these 400x400 pavers around the back of the house.



Placing the pavers was slow going initially, but the time we took seemed to diminish in proportion to our increasing aptitude, or perhaps we became less stringent with each merciless wave of lethargy. By the end of it we were slamming the bastards down just to finish before it started to rain. One hopes that traffic will settle some of the more wobbly pieces at the end.

The garden has received a bit more attention from us as well, and we're proud to announce that the front yard is finally complete! Next to the carport we've planted a line of Murrayas and scattered about nine bags of heavy chip bark to tidy things and dissuade weeds from joining the party. Hopefully this will grow into a reasonable hedge in a few years.



The last small garden bed next to the path was a little tricky to plant due to the severe slope. Given that it was so close to the concrete I didn't want to put in anything with invasive roots, but it had to get enough height eventually to peek over the crest. In the end we've opted for a trio of Gardenias at the back of the bank, with a skirt of blue Agapanthus to compliment the cream flowers. It'll take a lot more water than some of the other plants but at least it's right next to the tap.



So work continues. Christmas is just around the corner and then we'll get cracking into some of the beds and jobs around the back of the house. I'm especially looking forward to putting in our line of ornamental gingers so that our patio area can get some greenery. It's been ironic that all our hard work thus far has been for the area of the house that we hardly use. Still, it's certainly nice to be able to drive in to this.



Apologies for the vertigo inducing panorama. No, we don't have a magic front gate that wraps around itself.