The building of our fence

Saturday 26th December, Matt and family set to work to build the fence. The dad's helped with the labour, the mum's helped with the babysitting and food, and I was site supervisor ;)

We made a quick trip to Bunnings to buy some last minute supplies - like the circular saw.
We were underway with construction by 10am.
After measuring the boards which were supposed to be 90mm wide, they were more like 94mm wide, so we decided to keep the board + gap at 100mm, so our gap reduced from 10mm to 6mm.
We also measured down from our finished height to determine where the first board should start.


Just by chance we discovered that the rod of the Stanley screwdrivers were 6mm, so with 3 screwdrivers as our spacers (plus a 6mm drill bit) the boys assembled the first few boards.


Because the boards were 4.8m long, and the front portion of the fence was just under 4.8m long it made it quick work for the main section - just a matter of picking over the boards for the best looking ones (no knot holes, no cracks or splits).


When the boys were one board from the top they sawed off the posts level so that they wouldn't be seen from the front. The circular saw was just short of going right through the posts (185mm blade?) so it was finished with the hack saw.
Here is the front portion finished.


Australia was doing well in the cricket, we'd had our lunch break - even if it was almost 2pm, so then it was on to the alcove part, which required the cleat to be dynabolted to the bricks - with the cleat needing a notch out of it for the tap on the backyard side of the house.


So at stumps on day 1, we had the front section complete, with 3 boards high in the alcove.


And here is the view out the double sliding doors in our dining area. From inside the yard looks quite small (which it really is - approx 10m from new fence to back boundary fence and approx 8m from house to boundary fence) but it seems a lot bigger when you are standing outside.


Sunday 27th December, another 3 hours of measuring, cutting and screwing meant our fence was complete.
This is the view from the backyard.


View from the front.

So now we will wait approx 3-4 weeks before cleaning and staining with a Merbau stain. We purchased Intergrain Merbau stain which is waterbased, and according to the man at Bunnings, the waterbased stains outlast the oil based ones 2 to 1 - meaning the stain we will be putting on should last about 2 years before reapplication is necessary instead of 12 months. I also like the sample a lot more than the Cabots stain - which seemed too solid to me, whereas the Intergrain showed the grain in the timber.

Lots more planting to do - mostly natives including grevillea, banksia, possibly kangaroo paw and some lomandra in the backyard. Trying to keep it simple, low maintenance, low water and similar colours (purples, yellows and white) but aiming to have a pretty garden in 12 months - 2 years time.

Around the Ground

Things came to a bit of a standstill here for a while, and eventually in June (after having our gas booster stolen off our hot water service) we put up fences. We had to end up paying the full costs because council would not pay half for the end of the court as they deemed it frontage, behind us Vic Roads wouldn't pay because apparently it is a road (yet there is no access) and the neighbour didn't respond (for the second time) and has since refused to pay because "we didn't consult him prior to putting it up". I mean seriously, his share was $500 - it's not like we were asking him to pay the full cost like we did (rolls eyes).

So, here is a pic after we put up the fences:

Since then we had a lot of weeds, a bit of mud and not much else... but we had some privacy, although it was still open to the street.

Fast Forward to December and everything is happening. We have decided to fence the backyard (with the help of the parents) and as a result we decided it was best to plan out the backyard before limiting the access.

Saturday December 12th, we hired a post hole digger and set Matty to work...

6 hours and 5 post holes later we had 5 posts set in rapid set concrete to a depth of 600mm.

Saturday December 19th, we had 91m of treated pine edging, 75 hardwood pegs, 3 cubic metres of Lawn Mix soil and 2 cubic metres of Tuscan Rocks (half 20mm, half 40mm) delivered and set to work installing the garden edging.

I had sprayed the ground where the garden beds were to go using the chalk spray, but decided that 600mm wide was too narrow, so we decided on 800mm wide for the backyard around the perimeter. This will allow us to grow shrubs close to the fence and grassy plants in front.

Matt pegged and screwed the boards on. Who knew that driving wooden pegs into the ground would be such a hard job? No matter what poor Matt did, they would twist so he ended up driving a metal stake in, then replacing it with the wooden peg so it was already started a bit - which did help to an extent, but doubled the workload.

Sunday December 20th, back at it again. Lots more shovelling and barrowing soil, but still not finished...

Monday December 21st, and again... I spent most of the day digging out the front garden beds and filling them with the rocks. They were very dusty but after a light sprinkle with some water the true colours came through. Dinner time the boys (Matt and Brian) set to work to finish the last of the edging - all 86m of it.

Tuesday December 22nd - more rocks... scraped some soil out of another garden bed and filled with rocks... which is where we are up to now. The wood has been delivered for the fence this afternoon (240LM).

Plans are to put up the fence Saturday (Boxing Day/long weekend) and finish the garden beds to the front and back of the fence.

Hopefully more to come soon :)