youngy73

i new id seen one somewhere. its even better the second time you see it

Bix da Boss

Nice to see the windows in Richard! Looking good m8!

Dont work too hard

youngy73

cheers gill. we are both working every hour god sends us at the moment. its starting to get there. the pool is getting dug tomorrow (hopefully, i didnt ring to confirm).there seems to be a few followers of this thread but not many posters.

Ozzidoc

I'm sending you some cyber luck for the pool-digging

Vicky88

I'm a follower rather than a poster. I am loving seeing this construction and learning so much. I don't say much because I don't have anything useful to add.

youngy73

the cyber luck must of worked as it was clay all the way. the pool was dug today. it has ended up looking a little bit like mickey mouse. we have gone for a circular plunge pool at 2 metres deep and just over 4 metres in diameter. we have 3 good size seating areas in the pool which are outside the 4 metre diameter.we will have a waterfall which will cascade down the hill through rocks and will hopefully end up looking like a little swimming hole. there will also be lots of small rocks inset into the rim of the pool which the water will just cover(the rim is 500mm wide). this is to try and enhance the waterhole feel. it will be covered in black pebbletex with blue and green glass through it. it will be freshwater with a sand filter and have an l.e.d (green) light. we have also put spa jets at the bottom of the waterfall to froth the water. i will build two decks to access the pool. the first will be from the main patio and only be a metre or so wide. the second will be from where the pool bathroom door is and this will be a sun baking deck. the older guy with the beard is gaz and he would be one of the best pool builders in north qld. you just have to look at his face when hes in the excavator to know that he loves what does. we gave him a sketch of what we wanted. he added a few bits and we are just letting him get on with it. ive seen loads of his work. from formal, freeform to the cairns lagoon.so far its been the easiest thing to organise in the house. we just gave him some cash and let him roll with it.
we also used all the dirt from the dig to start and level up the dirt around the house. paul the bobcat guy did a good job of this too. it will be steeled up and concreted this week then left to cure for a couple of weeks before gaz comes back and in his words " plays about with the rocks". we are also having a kreepy krawley to keep it clean.
the brief for the planting around the pool is "jungle". really thick dense planting of palms (lipsticks, foxtails, rednecks,raphis,licualas), gingers, heliconias, tree ferns, crotons, cordylines etc. i have over 250 pots in the yrd ready to be planted. they wont go far but its a good start. total pool cost is $32000 ish. plus another $6000 for a glass pool fence around the patio.
the garden is the one thing im really looking forward to doing but its times like these when its a pity we are so far from home because photos will never do it justice and i would really like my grandad to see it. have a look at the photos and see what you think.

youngy73

some more photos of ther pool and some of the local wild life. a pretty faced wallaby and a eastern dwarf tree frog. we also have seen 4 good sized carpet pythons and we get a lot of rainbow honeyheaters (a particular beautiful looking bird).

youngy73

ooh, weve nearly had 10,000 hits. wow.

youngy73

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=530406

i posted this a while ago. i built this deck around our last pool. i am the 12th post on this thread. the sunbaking deck will be similar to this one.

youngy73

just thought i would add a few photos of the last deck i build and our garden. the photos are about a year it was all planted and everything was propagated. the only thing we bought was the palms.

youngy73

here we go, i hope. sorry there not reduced.

wannabauzzienurse

give us a look then.....oh there they are, very nice

Sally Simpson

Me too! Except I am not learning much as it is mostly over my head!

It's looking really good Youngy

youngy73

the gyprocking is starting this week and the rest of the windows arrive on weds. we are getting a couple of doors installed today so the house will be lockable so we shouldnt have too much more theft from the site.
here are a couple of photos of the steel going in for the pool. the pool is now officially mickey mouse. also a photo of some pavers we had made for the front courtyard.
when they pour an aggregate driveway the concreters always allow a b it extra concrete. better to have to much than not enough as you can never get it looking the same if it comes from a different batch and as we had over 120 sqm of drive we new we would have extra so we knocked together a couple of frames 1000mm x 500mm x 100mm put in some reo and used the excess aggregate to make some pavers for the courtyard. they are bloody heavy and i started looking at how we will position them. the courtyard garden will have pebbles dressed around the pavers with agarves and other succulents and a grass tree.
there also another wildlife shot. its a redback ( a big one too) we found at the edge of the driveway.

Sally Simpson

Great progress on the pool Wish I hadn't enlarged the pic of the spider though