Itchy green thumb...

Today we took a trip out to the block with His Lordship's mum and grandmother. They haven't been there since the fencing went up and some trees were planted-therefore they made suitably impressed noises!

I am desperate to get some vegie beds going and to prepare the area for fruit trees. Due to committments over Easter this will have to wait a couple of weeks! Then we will start to prepare a version of a minimal dig garden.....by using a spaded edge and turning the cut lumps of grass upside down a slightly raised garden bed with earth edging is created. A thick layer of newspaper, manure and grass (from the slashing) will be laid on top and allowed to sit for a few weeks before the bare rooted fruit trees are planted.

We are only a few days away from our colour selections at National Builders Group's Colour World-can't wait!

Planting a future....

The first tree we planted on our block- a willow myrtle. You can see the length of the grass on the block next door-which is what we have been diligently slashing and mowing!

Today was quite a full onefor His Lordship & I...we spent 4 hours at the block-mowing, whipper -snipping and planting!

We have commenced our boundary plantings with a line of Willow Myrtles along the side which runs South East and some Willow leaved Peppermint Gums along the back boundary. At least with so much space to play with we can put some bigger trees in!

The side boundary planting of Willow Myrtles

Here we go!

The final plans arrived today-and I'm excited!

The consultant from Colour World has also called and made our appointment-April 8th. We couldn't go any earlier due to wok committments. The Princess will be coming with me as His Lordship is colourblind and trusts me implicitly!

The plans are being lodged for the building permit so within the next 5 or 6 weeks our slab should be down and it's all systems go!

Good things come to those who wait...so they say!

Ok, it's been 7.5 weeks since we received our plans for modification-we express posted them back on the 9th February-and are still waiting for our finals!!!! Apparently, the process involves the plans being vetted for 5 star energy efficiency.........

I've also had to arrange a letter from the planning department at Moyne Shire so that NBG would believe that we are allowed to build across the two blocks............aaarghhhh!

On a better note, we have some fencing done, the crossover is installed, we have erected our compost area and the company are ready to erect the garden shed & chook house........

Cris and I have been out there mowing and slashing to prepare for the installation of the vegie beds, with more to do this weekend.

"Ärpa"with Zane & Angus at the back boundary of the block.

Plans and progress!

Woohoo-we have our preliminary plans! There are only a couple of minor changes and then they can be submitted to council-fingers crossed!~

We have also found out that more blocks have been sold-one to a physiotherapist.

After much thought about what to do with water requirements, we are nearly sure that we will sink a bore for the garden and toilets and have one 10,000 gallon tank for the fresh water.

Fencing will be done on Monday-so I will be able to start the vegie area!

The Princess and the tree....

OK, not much has happened in the last 4 weeks due to the Christmas break that the building industry takes. However the excitement is beginning to build! Our block of land settles in 2 days and we sign the contracts for thebuilding next week.

We meet with the vendor of the block early next week to arrange for the fencing and driveway crossover which were included in the price. Then we will look at getting the garden shed erected so that we can begin the process of setting out the vegie garden prior to moving in!

This photo is Chloe in our tree the first time that she actually walked on our block.

We are ready to select our colours for the house-the appointment at Colour World in Melbourne will be made when we sign the contracts next week-woohoo!

We have a couple of sets of friends who are also about to commence building-one couple with Metricon on a town block and the other couple are building with National Builders down the road from us. It will be interesting to see how the process goes for us all!

Here we go......!

OK, it's been over 3 weeks since my last post-and what a lot has happened!

We've managed to move into our rental(despite the husband going fishing for a week-luckily he brought home fresh schnapper!), had settlement on our old house, applied for our bank loan for the new house, accepted a final quotation from National Builders Group and now all systems are go!

The valuation from the Bank came back just what we hoped for, so we will be able to build what we want (and still have an indecently large mortgage). We did delete the verandah off the front of the house-couldn't justify the $11,900 cost! Maybe when we win Tattslotto.... :-)