Breaking The Pipes

Those of you who know us (or more specifically, Tom) know that it's really difficult for us (ahem...him) to sit still for any length of time without some kind of major project.

While our Next House was being constructed, we were living with my mother (don't forget that this is immediately after returning from our honeymoon - yay for the newlyweds). With the prospect of his fabulous media room glittering on the horizon, Tom really struggled with the fact that our block was sitting there all dirty and disorganised, when we could be using the downtime to be starting on the landscaping. 

So, he arranged with the site supervisor to be able to get in and start some of the earthmoving etc in the backyard while the place was still under construction (only once all of the builder's outdoor work was finished of course), so we could get a headstart. This we (being Tom, myself and Allie of course) did gleefully, hiring the necessary equipment, and getting to work.

Doesn't she look like she's loving it!

Allie inspecting the positioning of the dirt, as always

The gradually-becoming-level backyard

The north side of the house, where our first retaining wall is holding up well

The front entrance

The area at the back of the garage. Laundry on the right.

The backyard again.

And then, disaster struck! We accidentally hit one of the tank water pipes that was running a little further into the backyard than we were expecting, causing breakage.

The injured pipe is the lower one. You can see the little scraps of white plastic next to it

So Tom switched from the heavy machinery to a shovel, and carefully unearthed the entire pipe, to assess the extent of the damage.

 

 

This marked the start of the deterioration of our relationship with our builder - totally our fault might I add - as they got incredibly frustrated at having to get the plumber back to replace that bit of pipe. Very fortunately for us, we actually got him to divert the pipe around the staircase that we were planning in the backyard, which in the end worked out better. Still, no-one was very happy at the time!

We did manage to progress a bit further with our backyard plans before the builder got completely fed up with us and ordered us not to enter the site until they had finished. It's hard to believe they have the power to do that when it's your house, but it's built into the contract!

Here's our earliest plan for the backyard steps.
 

Here's where the steps were to go (with timber marking their starting height, level with the alfresco concrete), before that pipe through the middle was re-routed.

And here's a wider shot of that area, once we'd started building a little baby retaining wall out of cement blocks to run parallel with the back of the house.

 

Here's the wall in its early stages, with my sexy legs in the background.

Another shot of the wall, a bit later on I think.
 

And the view from the alfresco area.

 

See here for the rest of the construction