How's Your Weekend!

Look what hubby is up to today. After a dubious scone cooking effort on his behalf (someone may have put a few too many coals around the camp oven) we enjoyed a cuppa by the dam, then onto his latest project, stick raking! It's an exciting life we lead.

Have a great weekend all!

hmmm Sorry about the product placement, but someone has to watch his cholesterol level :)

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day... and neither was the Gallop Inn.

Patience is a virtue... apparently I am learning that :)   We're so very close to submitting plans to council I can smell the ink being written on all those forms!  Should have our plans early this week back from the draftsman. (Thanks Brett and Sarah!) and then off to Engineers Plus for more technical info. Because we aren't connected to the council sewerage, we are putting in a pretty nifty septic trench system. Col from Enviro Water Design has put together our hydraulics plans incorporating the Advanced Enviro-Septic System.   This system is perfect for us, being a simpler system, leaves a greener carbon footprint and a more economical system. Here's a link to their videos if you're interested.

 http://www.enviro-septic.com.au/advance-enviro-septic-australia/galleries/video-gallery/


Now those plans are all done, so my next few days will be spent filling out those forms to submit to the plumbing department. Generally building applications that have an onsite sewerage system in place, take a little longer than the average sewered lot application. So by lodging the plumbing application while the engineers work on the structural side, I'm hoping to speed up the whole process a tad.

So what have we been up to while the drafting and engineering experts have been busy... well look at this. We've cleared, we reconstructed the dam... and it rained!!!!! It was really important to us to have the trees cleared and the dam done before the first rains. This meant the compacted topsoil would be broken up and the dam made deeper to be more effective in holding water for irrigation of veggie gardens and paddock grasses and fruit trees. Well we got all that done just in the knickers of time!

 Okay so it looks a little bare, but you cant build houses on top of trees. That one little peg on the right is the edge of the house verandah.

Looking from where the front verandah will be, (you can just see the peg just off centre to the left)  this will be the view over the dam. I took this just before it rained.

And here are the before and after shots. Nifty timing hey!!! The top photo is a bit of an optical illusion because I've been told it looks like an open cut mine. In reality, the dam now averages a depth of around 10 feet. The bottom photo is after just a few days of rain. I'm so excited because now I can see what we have to work with garden wise. There will be a beautiful terrace spot that we'll backdrop with lillypillies and small native bushes. Then in one spot where we'll be bringing a spoon drain to carry water to the dam from the back, I can imagine how amazing it will look with a creek bed created with river rocks, down to hopefully some bush rocks into the dam to create a rock pool look. Of course this won't happen overnight, but a girl can imagine :)

To finally show off how beautiful this place is coming along, Rick built me a little bonfire, a over Easter we shared a late afternoon, quietly imagining the trees and shrubs and memories we will create on our little piece of paradise.

Stop Start Stop Start

Well we have been busy behind the scenes. We've tripped to Town Planning and we have stage 1 underway in as much as the application for the tree/vegetation removal is in their hands now. I feel for the guys in there, because it is a process and we have been down this path before on behalf of clients. So we understand that things take time. Add to that, a new town plan brought into effect late January, and everything needs to be double checked. Suffice to say, it was a very large glass of G & T that I looked for when we got home. It's not that it was difficult, we just made it more difficult for ourselves by not lodging a building and plumbing application at the same time, as they would have negated our request for a large area of trees and vegetation for removal.


But you see, its a bit like what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

There is a process that needs to be followed, so that you have accurate information to give your builder for quoting purposes.

A building and plumbing application can only be lodged once the soil test is done and that information is passed onto the engineers so that the footings are correct and the hydraulic people so that the sewerage treatment plant and subsequent disposal area can be designed.

BUT, to get a soil test done, we (a) have to get vehicles on the site - they cant at present because of the trees, and if we did get them there, and then did the soil test (and then engineered the plans etc etc etc) but THEN removed the trees, then we have changed the outcome of the soil test. This is because one gum tree can take up tremendous amounts of water. So removing them obviously changes the structure of the soil.

Happily I can report that we have had our application approved and we can now get serious about removing the trees, repairing the dam and get ready for the rains.

That was the other issue I was concerned about. The topsoil has become compacted and so to take full advantage of the coming rain, I needed for the ground to be broken up. This way instead of running off, it will soak up, and then we can get busy planting with good quality natives that have longer life spans than the current ones, and improve the quality of the soil.

Anyone looking for information on looking after small acreages can have a look at a very clever lady called Jane Meyers. She and her hubby run seminars etc and have a website called Equiculture. Very easy to understand and good quality information. I am hoping to have her up in the Bay next year to conduct seminars.

So unless it POURS down tomorrow, the work on the dam starts at 6am bright and early Saturday morning. Did I mention I'm not really a morning person!

To The Draftsman

The day arrived. Months of drawings, several 2b pencils, numerous pieces of scrap paper, hours googling different ideas, endless conversations over early morning coffee, mid morning coffee, afternoon coffee and finally........ we arrived at a point where we can nit pick no more. The plan is complete.

I have to say, that the builder (aka hubby) has done amazingly well. As with all people intending to build, we are conscious of budget vs our wish list. We've managed to design a home that (a) suits our needs for now (b) can be very easily and with little cost to new owners, suit a larger family - ALWAYS keep in mind a resale factor - and (c) can be built in three stages so that we can build as we feel comfortable to do so.

Off to Brett we went. Brett Turner of Design Plus Group, has been our draftsman for as long as we've been in business. It's exciting sitting and discussing ideas with someone who shares the enthusiasm, understands what your are trying to do, and shares ideals concerning designing for the climate, environment and the family living in the home. Now I will admit that I do tend to glaze over when the boys get excited talking Ibeams, portals, purlons and rafters. Lets face it, while I appreciate that all of this is very important to the structural integrity to the home, I want to talk about design factors, which way to run Linea Boards and Axon, layouts of rooms, positions of windows, and then put me in a room with laminate samples and tiles I'm a little like a kid in a lollie shop.

BUT when I hear words relating to financial savings, and ideas like, no posts on the back verandah, I sit up and take more notice!

So here's some tips on what to take to your draftsman.

Budget - You need to be upfront with these guys. They have a fair idea on cost of construction. You have to be realistic. You cant build a 400m2 house when you only have money for a 280m2 house.

Wishlist - make a list of what are must haves, and what are wish lists the latter being the items you can be flexible about.

Address or site plan. If you don't have a plan of your block of land (it should be in the contract you received when you bought it) have the address. The draftsman can look it up on various sites. They need this info for many things apart from the obvious of where to site the house. Your local council will have zonings over various areas of your region. Some of these zonings can have an impact on how and what you can build on your land. The easiest example is a bushfire zoning. Low, medium and high all have different construction requirements.

Your ideas, I'm using Pinterest to help me put my thoughts, ideas and colours together for the new home. It's Steampunk, so now she's looking on Pinterest for steampunk bathroom ideas..... and she founds some!! She also wants a chandelier in the bathroom.... not going to happen kiddo
amazing what you can find on there. I have told the daughter that she can pick tiles and colours for her ensuite, and suggested she use pinterest to give her ideas. She loves

Also have a look at the house you're leaving. What works in it that you'd like to replicate, what doesn't work that you'd like to change. Measure the bedrooms so you understand sizes. Have a good look at your kitchen. is it too small, is it big but useless when it comes to workspace? Do you need drawers rather than cupboards. Laundries are the most spectacularly overlooked room I find. A good working laundry MUST have bench space. If you don't have room for a good sized laundry, look up. Can overhead cupboards help? Would a front loader washer free up bench space?

There are so many aspect of designing a new home it can make your head spin, but a bit of forethought and trusting the professional people around you, makes life so much easier.

Oh Lordy, We're Do We Start

Firstly, Happy New Year. I hope the celebrations were fun and fabulous.

We were out with friends last night, and we were discussing our observations of 2013. We'd gathered on New Years Eve 2012 and decided that 2013 was going to be a year of big change. We were so spot on with that insight, as many of us there faced huge changes in our lives this year. So last night we again looked forward and decided that 2014 would be the culmination of those changes. We're a philosophical bunch.

With that thought in mind, we walked all over our block, having a good look at it for the first time, now that it was ours. We needed to have a look and try and ascertain where certain buildings were to be sited, and therefore which trees we would need to remove and which trees were worth saving and which ones were just rubbish trees. Now before the tree huggers jump up and down, when I say rubbish trees, I mean those ones that are half dead, dangerous, or trees that naturally aren't long living and are already on the way out. We don't intend to vandalise the land in anyway, but to do what we plan which also incorporates improving the soil and the fauna there, we need to remove trees.

So we wandered all over and had a good look at the fall of the land, and took a good look at our dam. Its quite shallow, choked with reed and runs a good width of the block. Basically, its stuffed and in need of repair. This is not our area of expertise so we called some fellows who have been doing this sort of thing for years. Wayne and Barry met with us to discuss the issue of the reeds in the dam etc. I was so pleased to hear their take on the dam. They have no concerns with the reeds and can see that pushing them out and over the dam wall and spreading them out and adding mulch will improve the soil in that part of the paddock and help the grasses grow. Nice to have someone on board with the same ideals. They have given us a plan of action, and once we have completed all the town planning forms, we're good to go. Hoping to get it done before the first rains and get the paddocks prepared properly. I've been doing lots of reading on managing small properties, but that's another post!

When we first looked at the dam in December the water was about a metre from the edge. Now as per photo below, its about 3 - 4 metres from the edge. Man we need some rain.

Life begins again at.... 50?

And so it begins. 2013 was a year of change. We sold our home, we've had our first experience at renting, our son was married, we had our first overseas trip (to said son's wedding) and our adult daughter moved home again. Its been a year of slow recovery from the disastrous effects of the worst economic times, working out where we wanted to go from here, and could we make our plans for the future before the GFC, still come to fruition.

After months of discussions, both sober and otherwise, on December 18th, we became the proud owners of 5 acres of land at the back of Hervey Bay. Funnily enough, it is one of two blocks we looked at 7 years ago before everything fell apart.

So lets go back to the beginning and tell you about Rick and I.  

We are a quiet couple, have been married 25 years (nearly 26 now!), have two adult kids (one married one just returned home) and have acquired a staffy, a malamute, a cat, a horse and two fish. Pretty normal average stuff.

Rick is a local builder of 10 years in the "Bay" as its affectionately referred to by locals. Speaking of locals, he's a 4th or 5th generation Bayite, and I've been here since 1980 so I reckon we can be classed as locals. We named our business Mikiah - which is a mashup of our kids names, Michael and Kiah. Funnily enough, someone once told us that in one of the African dialects, it means my home. 

We're just a little family business, doing only a few homes a year, I work part time each day as a medical receptionist and help Rick with paperwork and clients with selections for their home and colour choices etc. In my spare time, I help run a social horse trail riding club in the area.

Back to today.  We've decided to give you all, an insight to our next adventure and let you follow along with our progress, highs and the inevitable fun and games that comes with building. Just because we are the builders, it wont be all smooth sailing. The nature of the beast is that things can and do go wrong. As builders, we try to shield the client from most of that. One of Rick's favourite sayings is, there are no problems, only solutions. 

Now this wont be the normal process time. We have a lot of work to just clear the property (once council approval has been obtained of course). We also have to learn about sustainable developing of this property, to prevent over use of areas that the horse/s (there's never just one horse!). We want to develop healthy vegie gardens, chook shed and a whole lot more. We also have to build homes for other people too!

The wish is to create a lifestyle that will take us through to retirement. Somewhere the grandkids will learn the benefit of growing your own food, and playing in the dirt. Somewhere we don't have to spend all day cleaning and tidying, that suits our preferred outdoors lifestyle and living, and generally somewhere to pull up a chair on the verandah, hang our hats, kick off the boots, and have a cuppa.  I hope you join us for the adventure.

 My big beautiful, choked with reed and needing a lot of work, dam. Can't you just feel the serenity!