One year old!

As of last week we have been in our house for one year already.
Although there is still so much to do, we have accomplished a lot in the last year.

Vastly different from the boggy mud out the front at handover

Drainage is still quite a problem. The middle part of our block has an inch or so of water sitting on it constantly, it's so boggy we can't get the mower anywhere near it, even walking across it you sink down dramatically. Once (if!!) it dries out we have decided that we will dig it up to lay some agi pipe which should hopefully help clear some of the water away next winter.

Not a great pic, but you can see where I got bogged and gave up.
One good thing with the long grass in the middle - it serves
as a great camouflage for the huge dirt pile at the top!

The grass seed we planted all those months ago has finally produced some grass - and lots of weeds, the green looks so much better than the dirt. We can't really plant more grass seed over the bare dirt in other places at this stage due to all the work that is going to happen with the drainage.
We have sorted out the area near the tanks, it was another drainage nightmare, it now has agi pipe and has been covered in stones. Looks really great. We still have to finish shaping the garden bed in front of our bedroom window for more pebble garden, and also get more pebbles to put along the front of the living room and alfresco. Due to our large eaves, we cannot get grass to take in these spots, so thought it best to continue on the stones. We will also make some stepping stones out of leftover bricks across the stones in front of the alfresco.

Yay! Some grass took! Stones to go in that
attractive bare patch 

Freshly washed after completion. Even
the walls and tanks got a clean :)
We still need to edge it properly and work on
the bit that will link it to the front of the
Master bedroom

I have planted a few more small natives in the garden bed near the front path, and also a couple of small bushes on the small hill outside the master window and near the septic, I'm really hoping these take well.
The trees planted along the driveway are all still alive and growing, and majority of those on the back batter are still alive as well. There have also been another half dozen natives pop up on the back batter to add to those already planted.
We got our first 'bill' for power. Although I actually had to pay this time instead of receiving a credit, we are still ahead as the credits we have received in the past covered it. Not too much credit remaining though so hopefully the next bill won't be very high, or will be credit only. The next bill will make it one year with the solar so I'm really eager to find out how much electricity will have cost us for 12 months. We had a great week of weather last week so we turned off our HW booster, it was lovely to get some free HW again even if we had to turn it on again today so only had one week of relying on the sun.

Rain at last!

So the rain has started and the sound of the water falling into the tank was wonderful. Stuart and I were working out there in the rain today, he slashed the higher part of the backyard and then we got to work planting out all our fruit trees - excluding the citrus which we will do when it warms up a little. We ended up using the kanga to carry some extra dirt up there to help build the trees up, so its gone from looking slashed and great, to looking trashed and muddy.
I'm sorry to report that there wasn't really much progress at the house at all this past week. The builder met us on site on Friday and greeted us with 'I'm so embarrassed'. It seems after completing all the bog fill, sanding and getting down some drop sheets the painter was called away to another job - and neglected to tell Glen.
The kitchen guy was supposed to return Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday - but still hasn't shown. Something weird is going on there. They have put vinyl wrapped panels on the back of my breakfast bar (which I didn't ask for and not sure I want but am waiting to see it set up properly before deciding for sure), and now the kickplate for the breakfast bar which was in place has been removed from the site completely.
Can't remember why the outside concrete didn't get done - the weather until Friday night has been pretty good, but Glen assured me that is booked for Monday.
Our kitchen sink, basins and laundry trough have arrived though, and Glen thinks the plumbers will be installing the spa bath next week too. So painters, joiners, plumbers and concretors are all set for next week - maybe!! I'm glad the plumbers are coming as today watching the rain I saw that a gutter has been put on angled the wrong way, so water was pouring out of it onto the ground rather then going down the downpipe so hopefully that can get fixed too.
The HWS people did return on Friday - the system itself is still not installed but the evacuated tubes are, very  slow installation this one. They keep saying its too wet - even after a couple of weeks of barely no rain at all.
We have finalised our curtain selection and they have been measured and ordered, we've ended up choosing quite a few colours, hope they all look good.

Fruit trees at top corner, planted along top fence in an L shape

The leaky guttering. Wasn't even raining hard when I took this

The evacuated tubes for the SHWS

It's all happening now

Not a lot happened at the house after lock up due to everyone experiencing difficulties in getting equipment to the house. The polisher finally came towards the end of the week, but managed to get bogged and not get his heavy equipment unloaded. The HWS people also turned back. We have ordered another 6 trucks worth of recycled concrete to reinforce the driveway and hopefully this should make things easier. This should be happening at the start of the week, hope it doesn't get put off like it did last time.
We had a meeting with our builder on Saturday, and there is a lot about to happen.
Early this week the plumber is finally going to do some drainage work around the house which should also help a bit, and Glen thinks that the excavator may be used to lift the polishers heavy equipment into the house too. The water tanks should hopefully get connected by the end of this week as well, will be great seeing some of this water collected.
The tiler is ready to start doing some screeding and the painter is ready for everyone else to be done!
Meanwhile Dan the fit out man has been working there all weekend, and has managed to put architrave, skirting and cupboard doors up in the girls bedrooms and laundry, and also do the doors in our section, and the skirting and architrave in our room and the WIR. I am really surprised at how different this makes the rooms look. He won't be able to finish the fit out until the concrete has been finished.
So providing the access issue can get sorted, the next few weeks are set to be pretty busy.
We now have to pick our garage door type, and do up some drawings on how we want our cupboards to be set out.
Managed to get a couple of lights yesterday, and are getting closer to a decision on the remaining lights. This lighting decision is really doing my head in, and so far has been the only thing I haven't enjoyed choosing.
Rather then tracking mud through the house today I walked around with only my socks on. It's a pretty cold day and my feet didn't even feel chilled! Looks like our thermal mass is doing its job :D

Roof insulation completed

After several days hard work Stu and I have managed to finish installing the roof insulation. We took on this job to save some money, but with the time it took, plus our ebay bargain turning out to be not quite so much of a bargain we are only just ahead from what it would have cost us to have the builders complete it. Oh well, you live and learn.
We have also finally decided what hot water service to go with. After much research we have decided to use an Apricus Evacuated tube Solar, with electric boosting. We have gone electric as we are not on town gas and as we are expecting to install solar power hopefully not too far in the future this will be hopefully a better way for us to boost. To help minimise the boosting, we have gone the evacuated tubes which heat up the water more efficiently, and are also having a stand on the roof to maximise heat absorption. The stand has already been installed and it's going to take a bit of getting used to, but it's there for a purpose after all, not to look pretty.

The new stand minus the evacuated tubing

We had another site meeting late last week, just confirming a few things. Plasterer is now set to be started this Thursday, and brickwork to start the following Monday.