Die ivy die.

About 12 months ago I started attacking the garden, and in particular the crazy ivy which was threatening to engulf us.  Progress has been slow, but we are starting to see something of a blank canvas in which to plant our awesome new garden. Until then, some before and after's:

 The garden path when we moved in (above) and more recently:

 

Unfortunately, clearing the left hand side of the path has also removed all privacy from our neighbours - before:

and more recently (I'm not going to say 'now', because this photo was obviously taken before our house was repaired):

I also made the most of a some tree-cutter-up-erers (otherwise known as arborists), and had the trees out the back removed -they had been kind of ruined by the ivy. Pre-earthquake:

And now (yes, that's a direct view into our neighbour's back yard - we will have to do something about that soonish):

This tree-trimming has also cleared the path that runs up the side of the house:

 

Thereby letting tonnes of light into the laundry:

 

The stairs....

 This project has been in progress for about two years. The stairs when we moved in were filthy:

Those dark bits at the edges? Grime and filth and disgusting-ness. We started sanding them back just before the September earthquake, then we started renovating the bathroom, and decided we should leave the stairs until there would no longer be workmen traipsing up and down them...little did we know that this would take a good two years!!

Anyway, we finished the job last weekend - a bit more sanding, then a few coats of Osmo Polyx-oil  (a nice and natural oil - serves the same purpose as polyurethane without the fumes and stickiness). And voila!

We didn't sand them back too much,  for fear that they would start to look a bit too new - it's kind of important for us to keep the history in them - the knocks and scraps and dents. 

Painting. Done.

In one week, they painted the whole inside of the house. It was awesome. They arrived at 7.30am each morning and finished by 4.30pm. 

 

And they did a much better job than we did first time round... our house is now crisp and white, with no cracks visible. Sweet.

They're inside!

That's a painter. Inside the house. Painting. And that means we are on the home stretch people!

Hack, hack, hack it apart

 We had a couple of trees fall down off the bank when it snowed a while back...  so today I paid a couple of guys to bring their chainsaws and clear them away..

 

We arranged for two hours work, as that's all we can afford right now, but fortunately they flew through it, and actually cleared masses of broken trees, vines and weeds, right back to our boundary.

That structure up on the bank is some sort of look-out. It's not ours, it sits just on the other side of our boundary, and it obviously hasn't seen sunlight for years.

It's amazing how much space we have uncovered. And it makes me all excited about landscaping and having a proper garden and lawn.....but we still need to wait for stupid EQC to settle our land claim before we can do much more.

Garden Progress

February 22nd 2011:

October 2011:

February 2012:

Yesterday:

At last some really noticeable improvements - with the scaffolding down, my mum and I got stuck into the garden yesterday, turned the soil, laid some compost and planted a few seedlings. There's still a long way to go, but at least the view out of the kitchen window is slightly more bearable than it has been.

For those wondering, the tarpaulin is still covering the back doors as they were replaced, and the new ones have not yet been painted.

All clean and shiny

The scaffolding came down last weekend (but is still on site - scattered around the house).  We are so happy with the final result - it's so nice to have our house back like it was pre-earthquake (well, the outside at least).

On a sunny day the glare makes it kind of difficult to actually look at. And we couldn't be happier about the window sills - glad we took the time to make them nice and crisp.

They are a small detail, but make all the difference when you are looking up at the house.