It’s so lovely being here! Quiet, peaceful, a beautiful view from every window, and so warm and spacious. After 4 years, we finally made it! It was definitely worth persevering. We feel like we can breathe again. We finally have all our stuff back and unpacked – and everything is just fabulous.
And then we were out again…..
On the Saturday before we were due to move in the builder touched up the scratches on the floor, but didn’t mix the floor coating correctly, so we ended up with shiny puddles on our beautiful mat finish floor. We saw it on the Sunday and had absolute kittens. He tried to fix on Monday, and it just looked like we had dirty splodges on it. By then, with the furniture removals booked for Wednesday, we had to move in anyway. A week later, we had to move out so that it could be professionally refinished. And move a bunch of the furniture Fortunately, my lovely sister was away on holiday and loaned us her house, while it was fixed. My study still has real problems, but we got sick of the furniture being scattered around the house so have moved it back in. Not sure when or even if it will be fixed, but we really wanted to get sorted and unpacked.
Still have a few issues – the Ilve gas oven doesn’t work, so we’re waiting on replacement parts for the repair. Fortunately, the solar is doing well, so we’re able to use the electric oven. Probably didn’t need the gas, sigh. Generator coolant sensor still not fixed, still waiting on Blue Diamond. Not impressed. I’ll do a separate post on how the solar is going.
The large front door didn’t stay shut if there was any kind of breeze, unless you locked it with a key which was really annoying because we use it all the time. So we’ve bought an Ultraloq U-bolt pro that you can open with a key, finger print, phone or key pad, and lock with the push of a button. Brilliant! Can now go in an out without the keys. My finger prints don’t work, but that’s normal for me – it works fine for my husband – and I just use the key pad.
So much whinging! Did I say, it so nice being here? It’s been so worth it.
And it’s so WARM. The Pacific Energy Neo 2.5 (gotta give them a plug!) is absolutely brilliant. We started off with doors closed, but now leave everything open because it can warm the whole house. The odd thing is, it burns so well that you can’t smell or see woodsmoke outside. You have no idea that it’s in use. I know that’s great for your health, but I do like the smell of woodsmoke. Although wouldn’t want our lovely fresh water being tainted.
We wanted a new outdoor lounge and I’m so glad we didn’t buy it until we moved in. We have a great view of the dam from the indoor sofa which is now blocked by the back of the outdoor one. We were going to buy something similar, but now we’ve ordered two sofas that don’t have arms so that the view isn’t blocked from inside. But we still want to be able to face the dam when sitting outside so we managed to find ones that easily convert to sun loungers. Funky. Can’t wait for them to arrive and the weather to warm up!
Marks going to be busy for the next year or two making new furniture for inside the house. And I’ve got to do some paintings, coz we’ve got a lot of walls to decorate. It’ll take a while for us to have it just the way we want. But that’s the fun part, right?
We spent the last month of the build working really hard outside and its paid off now, although we’ve still got a lot to do.
We’ve built a fenced yard for the dog enclosure – 1.5m tall dog mesh and run some fencing down to the dam to (mostly) contain them if we’re out the back. We still have to add the snake mesh before the weather warms up.
We planted loads of grass, which surprisingly has grown quite well through winter. Looks so nice with grass rather than dust and/or mud.
We’ve had to get and spread a lot of soil, because the earthworks guys didn’t leave enough – what we had covered up the waffle pod slab, but left a low patch all around the house -creating a lovely moat when it rains. Perfect for creating wet muddy dog prints through the house. We’re gradually filling it in. I definitely don’t like mopping.
We bought tynong toppings to do the hard stand out the front, but despite being ordered it didn’t turn up when the bobcat was here moving the soil up to the house. So manually spreading it has been hard work – we still have a few minor puddles, but it’s doing great. The driveway is muddy and potholed but that needs to wait until it stops raining since the cheaper local gravel turns into quicksand the first time it gets wet. The first time it dries, it sets, but it won’t get to dry until summer… So can’t be laid until then.
We built the path to the bushfire shelter (1.2m wide, non-combustible for fire regs) – edged with left over bricks and filled with tynong toppings. We ended up doing a wide brick edged path from the wood shed around the side of the house so its easy to move wood and access to all of the utilities is from hardstand.
We’ve installed the clothes line.
The builders left pavers so Mark’s paved the area outside the side doors although he did his back in doing it.
We’ve got the greenhouse, garden beds and fence to build, although we’ve got the greenhouse foundation and the fence posts in, the new dam is full, and the banks are grassed. I’ve bought the irrigation pump, the inverter and the solar panels. Just need the MPPT controller, cabling and irrigation equipment.
So much still to do, but it’s the fun stuff now.
Off Grid Living - Building the Dream 