Jaffles in the Sunshine

Whilst currently we live in a rental, the block is really home.  Coming back to the block always feels like coming home.  It seems to soothe the soul just being there.  The weekend just been saw glorious winter weather up at the block.  Cold mornings giving way to beautiful sunshine.  Great weather to spend the days working on a myriad of jobs.

Saturday started with the customary bacon and egg fry up over our open fire BBQ.  We have done some work on the BBQ welding the plate to a pole that fits over another pole in the ground that allows us to rotate the plate off the fire once we have finished cooking.  The set up around the van now is a great area to sit with a coffee and some breakfast and enjoy the warmth of the fire.  The boys then disappeared playing at being geologists and super heroes, no wifi needed!

Brett's Mum came for a visit Saturday morning much to the delight of the boys who haven't seen her for a few weeks.  I think Nanna quite enjoyed sitting by the fire regaling us with stories of her trip to China.  I know we sure did.  Before we knew it it was lunch time and time to try out the jaffle maker in the fire.  Mmmmm toasty ham and cheese cooked in the coals, does it get any better?!

After Nanna left it was time to get stuck in and do some work.  One of the important jobs for the weekend was to relocate the chook pen.  This involved one on each corner, picking it up and manhandling it to a new spot.  By cleaning up inside the house and nesting boxes and scraping up where the pen had been we got a good wheelbarrow load of chook poo for the compost bin.  The girls get to have a new grassy spot that is inside and enclosed / fenced area so we can let them out occasionally to forage without worrying about foxes and they are easy to round up when it's time to leave.

Then it was time for a general clean up and a bit of burning off to start getting the property ready for next summer and the ever present threat of bushfire.  Because of some local by law we are only able to do this on Saturdays (No burning on a Sunday)  which will make it difficult to get the property properly fire safe before next summer as there are only so many fine Saturdays over Winter and the block hasn't been touched in years hence the amount of fuel reduction required.  We have finally cleared out the brown shed ready to move it next weekend.  So with a deep sigh we closed the gate until next weekend.

The Plans go to Council

A big step forward today with the plans being submitted to the planning department of the council and the owner builder application being submitted to the Builders Registration Board.

The day started with a trip to the city to submit the owner builder application.  For some reason I had butterfly's in my stomach as I found the Builders Registration Building.  The process of submitting the application was a bit of an anticlimax and five minutes later I was back in the car and heading for the council and getting more anxious.  I don't know why I was getting worked up over submitting the plans to council.  Maybe it was the culmination of so much work to get to this point and the fear that things might get rejected.  Irrational really as it will take weeks to be actually looked at in detail.

Soon enough I was at the council and ready to go in.  Once again the process was pretty simple and over in 10 minutes.  The lady from planning looked everything over and was impressed with the detail.  She suggested 6-8 weeks turnaround, calculated the required fee and after paying I was out of there.

So where to next?

Soil testing
Engineering drawings
Energy efficiency

Then once planning approval is granted and if the builders registration board grants our owner builder license then we submit the detailed plans to the building department of council for building approval. When that is returned then we can finally start.

The Journey Begins

On Valentines Day 2014 we took possession of our beautiful five acre rocky slope in the hills of Perth.  We bought the block for the fabulous view across the tree tops and over the valley.
As we sat on our block with a glass of wine watching the sunset, we reflected on how we came to be here; so to the back story! 

                                          Ceremonial Fitting of the Letter Box

Ever since before we were married we wanted a good amount of land to call our own.  It was sparked by our love of growing our own food and enjoying peace and quiet.  I think we secretly harbor dreams of living off grid.  Since then we have owned 4 houses, built one and one granny flat varying in land size up to half an acre.  We have also sporned three boys, which does ruin the peace and quiet and Nan has also come to live with us.  After many discussions we decided it was finally time to live the dream and put our house up for sale.  Then it didn't sell and we took it off the market.  We thought it mustn't be the right time, BUT then we had a letter from a family who had seen our house on the internet some time before and asked if we were still interested in selling.  Long story short, they came to have a look and bought it.  We were then in a panic as we hadn't looked at blocks in months, but a quick look and we found our dream block.  Sure it could be flatter and have a few less rocks but the outlook is beautiful.  The owners accepted our first offer and it all fell into place quickly and easily. It was meant to be.

We had hoped to live on the block in a shed while we were building but the council have recently stopped people doing this so we only had a couple of weeks to work out where to live.  We rented Nan a unit and moved a borrowed caravan to a friend's back yard with the three boys in the annex.  It was hot, dirty and hard.  Then it was cold, muddy and hard.  After being broken into and having a mountain bike stolen we gave up and moved all of us to a rental.  Yes it is a bit squishy but running water and toilets are amazing.  

So what stage are we at now with building?  We have cleared the weeds, put in a driveway that can be used by all cars, not just four wheel drives, the bush fire attack level assessment has been done and the plans are at the final drafting stage and should go in to council this week fingers crossed.  We will also be putting in the owner builder application in this week.  We have to apply for special consideration from the builders registration board as we owner built 6 years ago and you normally have to wait seven years between applications.  Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

                                         Building the Driveway