Exposed Aggregate...

Thanks to Russell and the guys for such a great job. We used the 'Buchan' mix from Mentone Premix. This was initially scheduled to be completed in September/November, but for all sorts of reasons was delayed, supply issues, then ultimately the weather!!!

Anyway, it's finally done and we're really happy with it. Scroll down to see the progress shots.

Maintaining Merbau...

Melbourne has had some serious hot weather, and it was without doubt going to have affects on our new boundary fence. It was given its first coat of natural oil when the wall was constructed, but as soon as the heat subsided, I headed down to our nearest Bunnings and got myself 4Lts of Cabbots natural oil with Merbau tint, an applicator, and got stuck into it. Applicator worked great, and oiled up the redgum sleepers with a nice fat brush. 2nd coat all done in a couple of hours.

3rd coat will be done in a month or so, then it should be fine for once a year maintenance with top quality oil (PPG).

Stairs off rear verandah constructed

After initially thinking of making these steps out of merbau, we decided that we had enough merbau to maintain, so decided to construct these out of concrete. At least they will last forever, not have the same maintenance requirements etc. We'll just use the same external tile that we've used in the alfresco/verandah to tile the stairs. The guys that did our exposed aggregate driveway did this for us also.

Darnley coming to the Party!!!

I received a call from our Supervisor today advising on an issue we raised with them on final inspection. Basically, our tiling in the Alfresco/Veranda has some 'fall' issues, water pools in places when it rains etc.

At the time of the inspection, we said we'd see how we felt about it over the 3 month maintenance period. Well, it didn't take long before we saw this as a real hassle and something we'd have to deal with for rest of our time in the house - which is long term. So I advised our Supervisor and Darnley's Construction Manager that we'd really like this issue brought forward and options discussed.

Now that they are all back from holidays, the call I received today confirmed that they are going to rip up all the tiles and redo the levelling and retile for us. A whole batch of new tiles were delivered today!

Well done and Thank you Darnley!

Lucas is really happy with Dad..

Well the landscaping has been on the back burner for the last month or so as our landscapers had some time off. So with a less than attractive, comfortable backyard/play area, we had to do something for Lucas.. we ended up buying a nice big SpringFree Trampoline!

Lucas, 3 in May, just loves it! It is so safe (for a trampoline) and because it's the bigger of the SpringFree Tramp's, even us adults can have a great time.

Assembly was a bit of a mission, but we had it up in a couple of hours. Will get some pics up soon.