And the landscaping begins...

So now to get our heads around landscaping an almost entirely empty 1 1/3 acre block (eeeek).

We are starting with the driveway, we want something that is easy to use and that is no easy feat when Jason drives and F250. However, it seems we have somehow managed to reach that happy place between usability and  aesthetics.

Bringing in the big guns

The progress has been somewhat hampered by yet another downpour of rain as soon as any form of heavy machinery lands on site. It is now a bit of a running joke with the machine driver that, 'hey its raining again, I must be at the York's'.   

Our very own moat.

That being said it is really starting to take shape now, rain or not.

Perhaps one day we will lay bitchumum on the driveway but for now we are just going to have to settle for stone. The wall in the above pic will have to be retained and we are going to make a full length garden bed along it at about 1 metre high. We're hoping to use a brick to match the coloured concrete of our verandah.

INSPIRATION:

Week 23...

I'd still like to believe that we'll be in by Christmas but that is just around the corner and my faith in what the builders are promising is slowly fading. However, progress is still happening and we are moving closer to the finish line every day.

The painters have been busy this week and we now have colour on the outside walls and the start of the colour inside.

Dulux Silkwort for the render, Surfmist (to match the facia) for the boards and white gloss for the pasts to match the window frames. 

Slightly of topic but how cute is our new neighbour?!?!

Just added an whole new level of beauty to the view over our back/side fence.

And not to mention this cuteness we've been working on for the past 30 weeks.

Last weeks 4D ultrasound. And part of the reason we are really feeling the  pressure to be in before Christmas. 

Now we are just waiting on the concreters and hopefully the cabinet makers next week. The cabinet maker had a slight delay when the quality of the 2 pack finish on the kitchen doors and drawers wasn't up to standard when they received them back last week so the whole install had to be delayed until they could get them refinished. Sigh... I guess delays are all apart of the building process but please cross your fingers that this is the end of it for us.

Its time to start thinking about the garden

With all the excitement of building the actual house its been hard to find time or energy to think about, and agree on what we are going to do with the other acre or so of land that isn't covered by the house itself.

We still can't decide what we are calling our 'front yard' and what is our 'back yard' but this is the area we will be looking over from our kitchen, dining and pool rooms and also from our bedroom.

I know I want to use a lot of Hydrangeas, some Wisteria and maybe a few David Austin and climbing roses.

I'm also loving the Hamptons style planter boxes.

We have already started planting some stuff. We have a row of Lilly Pillys along part of the boundary which will one day hopefully grow into a hedge. We have also planted a bunch of fruit trees; nectarines, peaches, apricots and citrus.   

INSPIRATION:

Love the white bench seat, the hedges and the built in planter boxes.

Love the idea of having mini hedges running along the edge of the verandah

Love the combination of Hydrangeas and mini hedges matched with a very pretty white gate.

And one day maybe we can even build a pergola like this but with a roof or a covering of some kind of climbing vine.

Week 22...

Render is done and we are now ready for paint!!!

Oh the difference 5 months makes!

Week 22

The inside is looking like the real thing now too. We have cornice, skirts and arcs, doors, WIRs are fitted out and the last of the outdoor beams have been boxed up.

Left: Double shower in en-suite, Top right: Master bedroom WIR, Bottom Right: Loving the Gyprock Concerto Cornice we used throughout the main living areas.

One of the kids bedrooms.

Living Room.

We chose our slab of marble this week too.
Well wasn't that a daunting task... so much pressure to pick the right one when its costing so much. In the end we picked this one for the even spread of veins and lack of yellowy-brown tones. 

From Corsi & Nicoli

Next step is paint, first outside, then in. Once the outside is painted the concreters will be back to do the front verandah deck, our bedroom patio and the alfresco area.

Week 5...

Pesky rain's still causing us issues. Even tho it has physically stopped raining the aftermath is still stalling the process. The concreter is due tomorrow and in a bid to avoid any issues with access we decided to make a start on our driveway. At this stage we have just got direct access to where the carport will be with the intentions of expanding and include a turning circle closer to the end of the build.

Eventually where that pile of soil is will also be dug out and be a part of the driveway/turning circle.

There are still a few decisions to be made. We will need to put in some kind of retaining wall on the west side of the driveway and then there is the question of what to surface the road with (currently we have temporary road base to aid with access). But at least for now, no-one is getting bogged and work should be able to proceed without delay (hopefully). 

I'm thinking something along these lines for the retaining wall. It's going to be about a 20 meter wall so price will have to come into it somewhere. So more research is needed I guess. 

I thought I would also share with you our most recent purchase. We bought a 4-seater, a 3-seater and large arm chair from Schots Home Emporium whilst we were away. Super comfy. Lucky we have a storage locker. 

Kerb appeal

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about how I want to present our home and what it is going to look like as you approach our property and drive through the gate. We are staying within the Hamptons style for the facade and to some extent for the garden as well. However, we don't want to go too formal with the landscaping in an effort to maintain a large useful area not cluttered with plants on the flattest part of the block for things like soccer games etc. Towards the back of the block it slopes away quiet quickly and there will be a large cut and retaining wall in the bottom right hand corner where the shed will be so I imagine the front yard will be used frequently as well.

Our house is going to sit quiet wide on the block as we wanted to make the most of the space we are lucky enough to have. We also didn't want to have the house sitting too close to the road for the same reason, why buy an acre and a third if you plan on building right on the nature strip. We made a choice to go for space rather than water views when we were buying the land as that was what was the most important to us. As it turns out I think we have ended up with the best of both worlds, the room we wanted and a great rural view over the creek, dam and adjacent horse paddocks.

Our beautiful view and my husband and I on our first wedding anniversary.
Left hand photo credit: Vanessa Janss Photography

The stunning house built by the writer of Our Forever Home a blog I found while searching google for my own. We appear sometimes to have eerily similar taste so Louise I promise I am not stealing your ideas (however I will defiantly be borrowing some). I can't believe I haven't found your Pinterest boards previously, they are fantastic!  

We are having a similar facade to her house using a combination of render and weatherboard detailing in whites and greys but instead of the light roof we are going for a darker one.

An example of colours but lacking the weatherboard detail.

      

Along the lines of what we are thinking for colours

This is a house built from the original floor plan we started with before we made all our changes. So ours will have a similar foot print and along the same lines for style but again with a whole bunch of changes to make it our own.

We're not exactly sure how deep the cut for the house site is going to be yet until we see it. We had originally planned to batter it back on quiet a large taper to avoid having any retaining walls but in order to have the extra large turning circle/driveway we are planning we may end up having to rethink this a little. So at the moment we are just going with the flow and will see what the excavation brings when it happens (hopefully in the next week or two). If we need to put in retaining walls and steps that will most likely happen down the track at some stage when the budget recovers a bit. But I do know that I want some small box hedges to define the verandah and also large blue Hydrangeas and my favourite David Austin Roses we had on our wedding cake.


 

Our wedding cake was covered in cream David Austin Roses to match my bouquet. Wedding photo credit: Vanessa Janss Photograpghy

Blue Hydrangeas in white planter boxes either side of the front door with hanging lanterns = perfection if you ask me!

The front door colour choice is something I have gone back a forwards with many times. As we are already planning on three different colours for the facade I am cautious about bringing in another element, however I do want it to be a statement. I want a a solid wooden door with nice traditional detailing, chromed knocker and glass either side and possibly above.

At the moment I am leaning towards black but luckily I still have some time before I have to make a final decision.

 

Trying to be useful

Over the weekend we spent some time at the block hunting for the original survey pegs that were put in over a decade ago when the subdivision was first done. After a fair bit of measuring and a little digging we were successful and found all 5 (yes that's right 5, one corner of the block is cut off at an angle) pegs and marked them ready for the fencing crew who I hope are turning up next week.

X marks the spot, or boundary in this case.

I've been looking a gates/fences and dreaming of what could be but as we have a large block we therefore have a lot of fencing to do and at this stage it will all be visible by passes by. Two of our boundaries are road facing, the block next to us is still empty which means the fence on that side will be in full view until the block is bought and built on too and the bottom boundary joins with a reserve so it has already been fenced with a rural style fence of pine rounds and barb-wire. This means that we have close to 300 meters of fence and you can imagine how much that could cost if money was no object. Alas it is and we have to be sensible.

In the end I've decided that having a solid fence around the entire block would look a little funny and somewhat like a prison andway. So for now we are putting in the same rural fencing as the existing bottom fence and one day maybe we will upgrade to a white post and rail fence.

I am also thinking a nice wrought iron gate will fit with the fence we are building and still keep me aesthetically happy. I've found a could of beauties and am waiting for a quotes from Farmweld a South Australian company I found online. Fingers crossed they come in under budget.

 

This turned out to be great timing as I received a phone call from the builder just this morning telling me he will be doing a trip up to visit us, the block and the local tradies next week (insert excited face here). The first step will be to get the surveyor to peg out exactly where the house will sit so the excavation team can come in a do the site cut.

Finally it seems we might actually be ready to start, but I'm still not holding my breath as I've already learnt not to believe it until I see it.