Current pics

Excavation around the pool and rock placement View from the back (the new 'hill' - the water tank!)

Driveway ... love the shape!

Bikeman and the kids getting their feet wet. Looks so much better down that side with the excess dirt removed, a much more usable area.

So close but yet so far.....

Everything seems to have ground to a halt. Mentally that is. It all started when we had a sleepover (which was great fun, I might add!) but ever since that day I no longer see this place as a construction site that has work to be done but instead I see it as a home. And I want to clean it and live in it! 'Who cares if we don't have skirting boards anyway' I find myself thinking. I see now why everyone says 'finish it before you move in or you never will' - it's that mental step that you take from giving you the drive to finish and just wanting it all to be over. Although the interior has stalled a little (yes I'm STILL painting... egads!) the exterior is looking absolutely brilliant! Dean the Digger has been here many days now shaping the driveway and the back yard around the pool with some granite rocks sourced from another building site and they look fantastic! How that man can make that huge machine carry and place those massive boulders like they are light as a feather I will never know. He is brilliant at his job (and a great guy to boot)! Photos to follow soon - to top it all off both my computer and Bikemans computers died within a week of each other so I'm using a borrowed laptop and I'm missing my Photoshop for minimising those photos! Oh the timber floor is finished and it looks fabulous. Not too red at all, it's just perfect. And the timber floor layer was excellent, a 'devilishly handsome irishman' (self proclaimed) who was quite cute, I might add, although I could only understand about half of what he said his accent was so thick. Gorgeous, but who knows what I could have agreed to??? We all stayed over again at the 'block' tonight as Blue has his new school orientation tomorrow morning, and Pink has her last day of kinder (and I've volunteered for Kinder Duty - she's been bugging me all term to do it!). So as we were here for basketball tonight anyway thought it was just as easy to stay. This really is a lovely house and I'm so looking forward to moving in here. At night in particular it is just so lovely to sit and look at the view, the lighting inside is just perfect and it feels like HOME. Mind you a real bed and some more furniture would just be the icing on the cake! So when are we moving in .... well moving date has been pushed out a little to be the week between Christmas and New Year due to a few 'hiccups' and also that we are having the carpet laid on the 23rd Dec. Nothing like leaving it til the last minute! And we need time to get motivated again.

Let there be light :)

It finally happened ... we have electricity. No more plugging in 3 extension cords and having to turn off the floodlights when we want a coffee. No more having to go home when it is dark. No more going to the toilet with a torch. Let there be light!! And yes that shadowy figure is me, working working working .... sweeping at 9pm ready for the flooring to be laid the next day. Rumpus room looking back toward the front entry way - can just see the bottom of the beautiful chandelier KQ suggested ... love it! Don't have a very good picture of it yet, bit hard to photograph with a camera phone. Best to come visit and see it in all its glory!

I LOVE the way the house looks from the front. The front lights that Bikeman suggested look just perfect with the front of the house. And with the chandelier on it lights up the little triangular window above the door. Fantastic!!

When are we moving in again? Seems like a real house now.... click! Lights off, goodnight...

Flooring, Tank and Verandah

Well we have flooring! Delivered on one of the wettest days I've seen in a long time. The poor delivery guys, it poured for 5 mins before they arrived then the whole way through the delivery, and then promptly stopped about 5 mins after they finished. I helped them to avoid too much mud being transferred into the house and got saturated in the process. They attempted a few runs with their normal shoes - anyone who has been the Block on a rainy day will know that is not a good idea - and finally accepted my offer of gumboots. All good fun! Our lovely tank... just waiting to be hooked up and filled with water!

The roof is now on the verandah, and it really finishes the house off nicely. Gives a lovely bit of shade to the front area of the house, I can just imagine sitting on the deck sipping a nice cuppa and looking at the beautiful view.