Spur Wing Shed House

We have added more earth to the shelf to make room for the garden railway. Steep slope planted to grass seed to bind soil and covered in hessian to prevent erosian. Soil has been added to rear gardens behind shed and house. Some natives and herbs planted. Sprinklers added to upper middle and lower garden as well as shelf rim, which you can see in some of these photos. Wood has arrived ready for framing, which is yet to commence.

The first four skylights are being installed at the rear of the house. Two fixed, and two vented. The vented ones are powered by a remote control, and have a solar charged battery and motor. Tiny watches me watching a band of showers approach. She soon scurries for cover when a little thunder rumbles...

We had a heap of rain these last couple of weeks. Some 110 mm or so in all. The countryside is verdant, the air is cooler, the sun is out. Favourite time of year. The big excavator was brought back for one last job. That is to build out the shelf further to make room for John's magnificent garden railway! Search for "big sky rail steamup April 2024" for a youtube video of it. This is the very same railway from the house near Gunnedah I stayed at. See the blog entry from last May. They sold their lovely house, but had nowhere to put the railway, so I offered up the space. I wanted to build one anyway, but John's was pre-designed for a tennis court. Unfortunately the space I had was not the right shape, so we scavanged for some more dirt around the various build sites nearby and brought it back and dumped it over the edge and pack it down. Now with a steeper slope we are in a race against time to get it covered in grass to stabilise the slope. The pile of stones ...

The house itself has not moved forward for quite a while as I had not yet found a builder to erect the frames. Thanks to my project manager Paul a builder, Peter, an old contact of his, has been found and he will start in a few weeks, all being well. Meanwhile we are in the midst of a couple of jobs to improve the landscape around the house. I don't think I have mentioned in this blog, but a garden railway is being planned for the southern area just beyond the house deck!! You may recall a blog entry from May last year where I stayed at the rural homestead of my friends, John and Jan, to look after their dogs. John had built a wonderful railway on the old tennis court. (Search "big sky rail steamup youtube".) Unbeknownst to me (and them) at the time, they sold their idyllic rural abode late last year and moved to a house in Tamworth. Their new place has no room to reconstruct their garden railway, so I offered the space for it at my new house. The only problem was th...