ITS OURS

As I write this entry, I am finding it a bit of a struggle to stay awake. Three days ago, on Monday, we had final settlement on the new house at 1.15pm. I was able to collect the keys and went to check out everything was OK. The house is a 1.5 hour drive from our old house so on the first day, all I did was check everything and work out what I wanted to do first before we move in next Tuesday.
On Tuesday I took my cleaning gear and nearly all the food out of the pantry, so I cleaned all the cupboards out and cleaned the shower in the ensuite. The only person living in the house before was a twenty year old son of the owner, and for a young guy he did a good job of the cleaning, but for my satisfaction I needed to re clean.
Wednesday morning I was awake early so I left home early and stopped on the way for breakfast. First thing I did was give the shower anothe scrub. Then I still had some time until the shops opened so I prepared Grants office for painting. While I was driving to the hardware store I decided what colors to paint it. It will be white ceiling, cream walls and black trims and doors. The main bedroom has black curtains and as they are good quality and in excellent condition, I have decided to put the in the office instead of just chucking them out.
I managed to finish painting the ceiling in one day with 2 coats of paint. The photos show that the origional yellow ceiling is no more.
I was cleaning the brushes and came face to face with a snake. It was either a taipan or a brown and it gave me a bit of a shock as it is winter. I must have disturbed it as it should be asleep for a couple of months yet.
Today I had a late start as we had to go see our lawyer to sign the transfer documents on our old house so I didn't get to the new one until about 10.30. I managed to move the heavy bureau away fron the wall and remove the old curtain rods as I had remembered to bring my screwdrivers. Then I got all the first coat done on the walls. I ended up driving home in peak hour traffic, which I had managed to avoid the other days. Tomorrow I hope to finish the walls, and the pool man is coming to teach me how to work the filter etc. That is all for now. Bed is waiting. Sleep, blisfull sleep.

New Home

Google Earth address is .............. 27 03' 50.79"S 153 03' 59.73"E



Well here it is at long last...but please remember what I said previously that the colors in some rooms are absolutly revolting. The photo of the room with the pool table will become Grant's office and even though he has crossed over to the dark side because he barraks for Queensland in thr State of Origon, their team colors are a bit heavy to try concentrate in. The room with the blue end wall will look good with the Plasma on the wall and it leads out into a fully screend outdoor entertaining area that overlooks the pool and hot spa. The kitchen is OK for the time being I will be planing on changing the cupboards and benchtops in due course. The bedrooms are all a good size and I will paint them early on. Good thing that I like to paint.

Bedrooms 1,3 & 4


Dining Sunken Lounge
Kitchen
Home theatre

Screened outdoor entertaining

Open entertaining leads to carport
Pool and Hot Tub
Back Yard

More Wildlife

This is the very regal male King Parrot, he is easily identified as a male because the female has a dull green head. These birds are reasonably shy but with patience can be hand fed.
We have had a pair of King Parrot's visiting us and they seem to have had either 1 or 2 chicks each year. The chicks have been all females for the last 2 years.
This photo was taken by Morris, who is the man who mows our lawn and has become one of our friends.

NEW HOUSE

We have found it and our offer has been accepted. We are purchasing in an area totally different from the last place we tried. I will tell everyone our new address and phone numbers etc. via email after we have had the building and pest inspections done and everything is past the point of no return.

The house is a 4 bedroom + study, ensuite, formal lounge, seperate dining, family room, home theatre, and a large office for Grant with a seperate entry into it. There is a very large fully screened verandah that looks out over the pool and hot tub. It is on a huge block of land. I will place photos on the blog in two weeks time when the inspections have been carried out.

The house has been painted appalling colours and that is going to be changed as quick as I can so when the photos are posted just remember that they are not our style.

It is a brick and tile house with a drive through driveway. There is a single carport and room for the boat. Security is installed and it is air conditioned.

We will be open to guests always as we love having visitors so all our friends and family are welcome.

SOLD

We have sold our house and we will be moving the weekend of the 7th July. In Queensland the usuall settlement date is 28 days after exchange of contracts, but with it being 9 weeks away we have plenty of time to find a house and plan the move. Now that the house is sold we can take advantage of the current housing market and hopefully get a good buy. I have been doing alot of research on the net. and there a plenty of houses out there.One of my primary requirements in our new home is that it must be a level block of land, and with Grant working from home we need office space and broadband access.All progress will be included here for anyone to see.

More Wildlife

Here is a photo of the lizards that live in our back paddock. It was catching small moths when we noticed it and it let Grant get really close to take photos.

Plan Rethink

We went fishing last weekend for a while in the Passage and it is just so beautiful there and I took a photo of the full moon over the water just before we went in for the night .
Not too bad a photo for a point and click cheap digital camera. It wold probably have turned out even better if I had turned off the flash.
We have Alinta and Kyrone visiting with us this week for the school holidays and it is great to spend time with them. We plan to take the boat out on Brisbane River tomorrow for them to have a ride. We haven't had any success with selling our house yet but when we do I will then go house hunting in earnest and post my results here.
Thats all for the time being...............

On The Market

While the house is on the market we are not doing too much of interest. We have had 3 Open Houses so far. I hate them but we do what we have to do. Each one has had good attendances so far and we have had a couple of offers. Unfortunately both offers have been ridiculoulsy low and we will take the house off the market and rent it out for 6-12 months before we will undersell.

It is Easter next weekend so we will be having a visit from the Easter Bunny as he heard that Alinta and Kyrone will be visiting for about 10 days. It will be their last visit to this house.
We will probably take the boat out fishing.

Yard Work

The next job to work on was the levelling out of the area just below the deck and planting grass. We have chosen to lay Sir Walter turf as it does very well in full sun or shade and is fairly drought resistant.
With our severe water restrictions in Brisbane we need to consider the long term plan on keeping the grass looking good.
I spread 1.5 cubic metres of under turf soil and lay 100 sq. metres of turf. I am exhausted.

Grant is Celebrating

The first toast is the sweetest

Completed Deck

Having a Zero and rest befor putting all the tools away.



What a wonderful feeling, the deck is done. We are really thrilled with the look. We decided to make the railing a feature by having some portions as stainless rope and some as corrogated metal. The top rail is at the perfect height to lean on or rest a drink on as it is wide and flat. I coated the top rail in the same sealant as the deck itself so that is would be hard wearing and scratch resistant.

Deck Stage 4

We were so close to finishing and down came the rain. With a bit of luck we will complete the work on the weekend.
I did my ankle yesterday, and Grants back has just about had enough at the moment. We should be having our Deck Party in a couple of weeks. Yay.
Grant just discovered, if you want to see the photos larger than shown just click on the photo.

Our Wildlife

We have beautiful birds that I used to hand feed but they got so cheeky that if I didn't feed them a quickly as they liked they would try tear the flyscreens. It gets a bit expensive trying to keep nice flyscreens so I no longer feed them at all.
The wallabies like to graze in our backyard. Its great to live only 27 km from the centre of the city and we have all this!!

Me Relaxing

Me

Grant & Sword

Doesn't look very fierce

Deck Stage 3

Stage 3

The railings are going on