Day 20

Day 20 - shed slab stage 1.

Up early for a pour today...

When the boys and I arrived, all the concrete was in. 

And the pump truck was packing up. (Nice looking pump truck too *wink wink)

Pretty awesome to have such a great group of people helping today. Thanks so much everyone, and to all your families for supporting ours! So much love 😊

Joshy climbing up to watch Uncle Wayne closing the rig down. Pretty cool views from this clay pile...

Learning all about the pump truck from Uncle Wayne.

Screeding off the slab. Skillful hands at work (thanks Steve!)

The first stage which you can see is the inside of the shed walls. Stage 2 will be an 'apron' out the front which will be undercover. Like an awning, but big enough for the trucks to park. 

In this photo you can see the apron and busy little Isaac helping away. Well, actually he's just using a dustpan to shovel dust around...but he's doing some pretty good imitation!

Hopefully this photo turns out okay, but I wanted to show a panorama of the space as it is now. You can see at the left-hand side where the driveway will curve in down to the shed and in the middle of the picture where the dirt has been cleared is a turn around/truck and trailer parking for all the work vehicles. 

Looking forward to seeing this shot change in the weeks ahead as the road base goes down and the shed goes up!

Signing off...

Day 19

Day 18 & 19

Hard to believe we have only had the house and land for 19 days. Someone pinch me?

View of the house from the street, carport side. As you can see, building work has now begun. 

Our new home is now a construction site. 

Back verandah railings, stairs and end window wall have been removed, just the posts remain. Really starting to visualise an extension now!

Asjustable steel stumps are now in, and ready to begin flooring up the carport extension. 

And day 19 saw the floor starting to take shape!

Over on the shed side...

Isaac & Caleb watching from the back bedroom as the bobcat spreads the dust ready for slab steelwork to begin. 

The boys had a blast on the dirt pile with all the machinery around them! Boy bliss!! 😀😀

Yep, even the littlest boy 😆 

* you couldn't really call it dirt though, could you? More like black clay...

Is that good for gardens? Complete amateur here.😳

Poser 🙋🙊

Will add more slab pics tomorrow, prep is finished now (on dark, so no good photos to show)...pour happens tomorrow - day 20!!

Our New Coop -17 Bedwell St, Cranley

17 Bedwell Street, Cranley.

The Barnes' NEW Coop 😄

In the first 2 weeks after settlement, Mum and Dad Barnes graciously gave of their time to come and 'camp' at our new place in their caravan.
They worked hard doing so many helpful, little and large jobs behind the scenes to help get the house and land ready for what is to come.
First step was to remove all of the trees which were in the way of fences, extensions, or were generally dead or not wanted for our use of the land.

The before and afters on this alone are pretty impressive! Dad slept many a night by a huge bonfire in the back paddock, getting all the trees burnt down to ashes.

 Now there is a barely a hint that they were there...just a few stumps left as features in some of the gardens.

This is the front of the house before tree felling started.

Joshy & Isaac loved driving around in the Cruiser, chaining up trees to drag down the back to the fire. Grandad also bought them a beloved tipper wagon, perfect for picking up sticks and taking a load to the fire. Joshy would work at this job for hours and is very thorough. He so enjoyed his days helping with the tree clearing and watching it all happen!

We will miss having Grandma & Grandad's caravan and cups of tea/lunches and dinners with them at our new house. 

We've also made a start on removing exterior cladding for the back verandah extension... (thanks Dad!)

That's the back of the house taken from the fence adjoining the house backyard, and the business parking area. 

Pier posts have been cut out and drilled for the garage extension, and the entire house has been levelled (not too much to show for that, but huge obvious benefits! Like, a level floor! 😜)

Preparation has also begun on the business side of things, with 33 loads of soil levelled and compacted ready for a shed slab to be poured very soon. 

A load of road base was needed in the drizzly weather for the trucks to get down to the shed area, so the beginnings of a driveway and carpark are underway as well. Very exciting times!

A few last snaps of the boys, enjoying all the benefits of a new house, and plenty to do and places to roam!

Hello again!

Well hello there! 👋
It's been quite a while...and my oh my, how things have changed!
But we are about to embark on our next big adventure house-wise...so thought it timely to get back into the blog & do some documenting/sharing.

I'll basically fast forward the last 2 years in the rental...from Jan 2013 to June 2015, we have had some tough and trying years with the business really getting on it's own two feet.
Shem works full time AAA now, and we have around 8-10 staff, many vehicles and a big shed full of gear here at our rental home/business premises.
On the family front, our family has grown with the addition of 2 more little boys...Mr I in Feb 2013 and Mr C in July 2014. All 17/18 months apart, and very fond of one another. Mr C will celebrate his 1st birthday next month, and Mr J (our eldest) will be 4 in August.
So things have definitely changed.

The latest blessing for our family has been the provision of a family home. Combined with a business premises. On a stunning 5 acres at the very edge of town, in an area we have been keen on for a long time...we had waited patiently for a property like this for many months. Well, not exactly like this, truth is we had looked at many 'completed', larger houses to suit our sized family and family visiting, but they never had the right amount of land or layout of land to suit our smaller budget. So, we were waiting for an open door into something that would suit us, but we had no idea what. So we waited.
And it did.
We stepped through gingerly, and the door was flung wide open. How very grateful we are!!

Now we need to do our bit, getting our hands (and hearts) a bit dirty, robustly renovating and creating a family home! It needs to fit 3 bustling, busy boys after all!
As well as be a retreat for Mum, Dad and family and friends who visit.

So the task ahead is a rewarding and busy one.
Hang on, if you will...for the ride! 😊

August Updates...

As usual, a lot has been happening! 

We have signed a contract on our house *sigh* & it is due for settlement in a month.  We will be moving out, though, in January 2013.  So we have a few months to potter & pack.

Mind you, I will be a healthy 38 weeks pregnant come moving day!!! 

Helpful hints/ideas for making the move simpler anyone???

One thing I will miss is our little vegie patch - it has served us well in the last few weeks especially- I will miss having fresh salad & vegies on hand.  It's so lovely to stand and water it in the afternoons with Little Boy playing in the grass with the dogs :)

These closest are our bountiful lettuce crop, then tomato bushes (still a few weeks until ripe to pick), potatoes (we've only just planted these in the past few weeks), then there's cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and beans right up the other end.  Not to mention, our lemon and lime trees, which you can see near Daddy's legs.  Onto more new and exciting things...

Little Boy turned 1 on the 23rd August!!

After breakfast, he got to open his present from Mummy & Daddy before Daddy had to go to work.  Check out the 'squeal' of delight on his face at his new tip truck! 

On the morning of Little Boy's birthday, we had 'Mum's Morning' at our house, and celebrated with yummy food & a cake!  We played outside and inside, opened presents and generally had lots of fun!  Thanks everyone who came and played with me!  Thanks for all the lovely presents too!!

Getting in amongst my presents!

Unwrapping my presents with Mummy...this one's a gorgeous little wooden dog that you can push along as you walk.  It has beads on it's 'legs' (wheels) that tinkle as you push it along.  He loves it!

Playing with my friend Trooper :)  Little A in the background too!

One of Daddy's friends gave me a chocolate with sprinkles lollipop.  I'd never had anything like it before!  So sweet & yummmmmy!  Mummy thought she'd give me a hold & let me have a few bites, then save the rest til later so I didn't spoil my dinner.  But, before she could even blink, I had eaten the WHOLE THING!!!  Clearly, I enjoy my chocolate-sprinkled lollipops!!

And here's just a short video of Little Boy 'driving' Daddy's big car - he LOVES anything with wheels!  Truly!  What is it with boys and their 4-wheeled toys??

Going 'back in time'...here he is opening Daddy's present with Daddy... yes DADDY'S present, because Daddy turned 30 in July!!  It's a big time for birthdays :)

We had a small gathering on our back deck with some friends, to celebrate Daddy turning 30. 

Mummy had some good friends help her set up for the occasion, but forgot to take photos!  Too busy in the kitchen :( But I did pull the camera out the morning after, and here's a few snaps of the deck still set up - very minimal decorations (cause that isn't really a Daddy thing), but ample room for little 'gatherings' of chairs.  It was a fantastic night! (Well, so I've been told...*wink wink)

We're going to miss our back deck too :(  At least we won't be moving until Summer, and we can make full use of it in the warmer months until then!  Fancy a back deck BBQ anyone?  Feel free to invite yourselves around and let us know when! :) 

I LOVE this photo, it's not by any means great photography or anything, in fact Little Boy is pretty blurry (because he's riding the horsey of course!)...but I do love how it captures that moment - the moment between father & son after Daddy gets home from work, and plays a game with Little Boy.  That look of sheer delight on each of their faces.  It's a beauty, isn't it?

What else?

Well, Mummy has loved cooking & creating new things...

How good is a 'fresh from the garden' stir-fry with steamed rice?

A quick sew one night - I was tired of not having a tablecloth and runner which spanned the length of our rather large table - so I whipped one up from some calico I had and blue fabric scraps. 

Much better than 'half' size table cloths! 

Been sewing 'little girl' up-cycled onesies with some fabric scraps, button & ribbon.  Lots of fun - can't wait to get this down pat & be 'neater' at it - I'll be making them for all the baby girls I know!

The first one turned out a larger ruffle front than I would have liked, so I made the second one smaller & I like it better.  I also used my sewing machine to attach the buttons with the second one also.  My only concern is that I made the ruffle, the front panel & then sewed them directly to the onesie (either by hand or machine, depending on thickness).  I also sewed the buttons on AFTER I had attached the ruffle front to the onesie.  Consequently, the inside of the onesie has sewing thread in it, and it doesn't look as neat as I would've hoped.  I would prefer to attach the entired ruffle front to an adhesive backing, that you can iron onto the onsie, and only stitch around the neck line to secure the whole thing (although a curved stitch line is proving tricky!) 

Has anyone used the product I'm talking about?  (Sorry, I don't even know what it is called)

Any hints on 'stream-lining' the design any further?

If you would like to know how I created this look, I'm going to post a tutorial on my blog very soon.  It's an adaptation of a picture I saw, but the picture had no tutorial attached and was a store-bought item.  So I've made up the tutorial myself.  I'm an absolute amateur on the sewing machine (I only got my sewing machine in March this year, so there you go), and if I can do it, anyone can!!

I think this idea works really well if you have a plain coloured onesie with a printed design on the front which, perhaps you don't like, or even if it were a boys suit, and you wanted it to be a girls suit. 

You can buy really cheap onesies at thrift shops, bulk onesies at Kmart/Target/BigW/Best&Less, and upcycle them into something really special!

I have an idea for a boys up-cycle onsie as well, and I'm going to post a blog on this idea later too, but I haven't even sewn it yet, so I won't say anymore.  Only that, I'm going to need lots of boys things come February!!! :)

I sat down at my machine & made a bunch of fabric pocket tissue packs one night as well :)

These worked out really well & I'm very pleased with the finished product.

The top one has the same fabric inside & out, but it looks really neat if you combine two complementing fabrics (I did this for the rest- they look great!)

There's still more though!  In Daddy's corner, the major achievement (besides a steady income, and ongoing work), is the new concreting trailer!  Check out the progress!

It was once an old 'Engine Australia' trailer.  Here is it being prepped for painting the exterior white.

Grandma B giving the floorboards an undercoat, Grandad in the background preparing the trailer for paint.

The trailer now! 

Doesn't it look snazzy?! 

Daddy's current box trailer is loaded up with all sorts of concreting and other equipment, and once the storage shelving & other welded toolboxes etc are fitted to the inside of the trailer, it should be a real breeze to work from!  Not too mention, get rid of having to squish everything onto the box trailer anymore!  Hallelujah!

Signing off for August...