Landscaping.....saga

Well, we had a hiccup following my last post.....not going into details, we moved on and now have a new landscaping company.  Unfortunately for them, their first day on the job was 41oC!!!

Prior to them starting though, I have spent months trying to work out what paving we were going to use around the pool and alfresco area.  I have brought sooooo many samples home from many different suppliers, trying to get the right one.

I went from travertine, to pearlised granite, to sandstone and then back through them all again.  Difficulty I was having was that with the house being grey and the pool being a deep blue, we wanted quite a light coloured paver to blend with these colours and really show the depth of the pool colour.  Also didn't want the colour tones being to warm as these colours were clashing with the cool grey.

I was fixed on getting white sandstone.....my landscaper sort of questioned me a little and then when I ventured into a new paving shop I hadn't ventured into before, the lovely sales lady at "Yarrabee Castlemaine" said that having children and pets, I would regret white sandstone as it shows every mark and bike tyre mark.  So again, in a spin and needing to order pavers that day, I headed off home with some samples from her of "Fantasy Granite" and "Classic Travertine".  Shown here........

Fantasy Granite with our Stepney paint colour - works well
but when I took sample home, looked too busy.
Fantasy granite is lovely, it has sort of swirl/marble effect which
 is different to the other more uniform granites.
It was called Smokey Granite at a different supplier I found
on the same day - Komplete Paving.

Fantasy Granite next to the pool and one of the many tiles samples

Classic Travertine - you can see how it is more cool than the
little strip you can see on the right.

Sample of Classic Travertine next to pool.

Again - Classic Travertine - with our chosen feature tiles.

So by midday the next day, I had returned to the Yarrabee Castlemaine warehouse to get actual pavers to just ensure that the colour variation of the travertine worked for us.  Interestingly, I placed them next to some other travertine samples I had and from a distance the didn't look much different however when put next too each other, the YC travertine was cooler in tones than other samples.  So we were excited that we had found it.  The best part was also that they had the right sizes for us with out having to cut them to size and had them in stock.  I had ordered and paid that day and they were delivered the next day.  Ready and waiting for landscaping.

Next job was finalising feature tiles for the sunpod feature in our pool.  After about 10 different samples, I had it narrowed down to 2 that we liked, but then discovered one of the samples I had been given couldn't be used in the pool area, so that left us with the one we have laid - see below.

Following 3 days of paving in 40oC plus temps last week and a good day today, the paving out the back is complete.  The crew will be coming in tomorrow to do the grouting.  Then work will commence on a deck around the outside of the pavers in pool area.

Before Paving Photos.....

During Paving Photos.....

Its funny that in some of the photos, the paving looks quite warm in tone, this is the lighting.

Aqua glass mosaic tiles in the Sunpod from Moorabbin Tiles

Shutters and Blinds now installed

We are very excited to have all our blinds and shutters installed.  Luckily the Roller Blinds and Timber Venetians in the kids rooms were installed just before Christmas.  We had to wait for the plantation shutters as they were coming from overseas.  They were installed last week in the 42oC temperature.

We love all our blinds and very happy with them.

White Timber Venetians
These are in the 3 children's rooms.  Easy to slip hands between the blades to slide open the window. If there is a lot of wind, we just open the blades slightly to allow the airflow through the blinds.  From a previous post, you will note that originally we were quoted on plantation shutters for these windows, but would have needed 4 doors on the shutters and therefore lost a lot of light.  We are happy with the light from these windows.

















Roller Blinds
Am loving the fabric we chose.  It is a new fabric and just gives the blinds some dimension.  Others had recommended just plain white rollers, however I felt that plain white was just too flat.  We haven't used sunscreen blinds as we don't have the need in these areas.  Therefore the blinds are inset into the window frame so that the window frame frames the blinds.  I didn't want the blinds installed on the frame.  This way the blinds are also tucked inside the window frame and roll forward, so we don't have to look at the roll.

Playroom/Media Room

Dining

Dining

Bifold - 2 separate rollers for each section of the doors

Family Room - we had to have 2 blinds here as the fabric
we selected was not wide enough.  The blinds are linked and
roll together when the cord is pulled.

Plantation Shutters

We have these on the 7 front facade windows, the windows you can just see the tops of above the garage roof and then the ensuite and toilet windows just at the side of the house towards the front.  They are all split in the middle so when you tilt the blades you can just move the bottom half or the top half.  This helps with privacy and airflow.  See the photos for the various ways we can have the blades.

Top half closed, bottom half open