So now we must sell!

It is with great sadness that we have decided to sell our beautiful block of land.  Life has other plans for us and with our council approved plans we now have our beautiful 3rd child, and life has become very busy, too busy to build a house.  We have decided to make the sensible decision (new for us) to not overload our already loaded life and to let go of our dreams to build on our perfect block....sob sob :(

We have decided to put it on our facebook pages in order to see if there is anyone out there with a similar vision as us, to build on this block.  It is the most amazingly beautiful place to be, with 1 acre of beautifully established gardens and all it needs is a house, or not, maybe just a caravan :)

I have added some photos here that show off its beauty and many angles.  Maybe you live in cowra and are looking to build or maybe you live elsewhere and want a place to come and just chill out, either way we know this is a truely unique block, just 2 mins to the main street but feels totally secluded.  The neighbours are all lovely, yet the block is very private due to its established gardens.  In a great part of town with much sort after properties selling in the $500 000 - $600 000 price range.

Our kids get lost in the gardens, they love visiting all the fairies there and climbing and running.  We have made a very rubust set of swings, there is a beautiful chook house (see previous blogs), stone lined veggie patch and a lovely stone wall which borders the veggie garden and compost.  The stone comes directly from some huge bolders that where on the block when we first got there, and there are more around which are crying out to be split and made into something else, perhaps a beautiful fireplace in the new house, or a stone wall on the border of the block, pizza oven, just a few ideas we thought we would use them for.

I have put heaps of photos to try to give a good idea of the gardens and how unique this block is, some shots where taken in spring, some autumn, winter and summer.

Giant Swings

Hen House, currently being used as a cubby house, but ready for chickens

Rock wall round veggie garden

Veggie Garden

Other side of veggie garden and chook shed

Granite waiting to be split for fireplace :)

Entrance to more formal garden

Inside formal garden, wood chipped path for easy walking

Great climbing trees for the kids

shady pine trees

Path down to front of property

Looking towards the entrance to the property

fully fenced round the 1 acre

views of the valleys around

view out towards conimbla national park

Cherry bloosom tree lined driveway in Autumn last year, after the bloosoms have dropped

I took these next 2 this morning (3rd Sept 2015), the cherry bloosoms are in bloom and just beauitful, the smell is intoxicating!  This is looking up towards the property

This is looking down towards the road entrance

Some other spring shots

Wild flowers everywhere, in little hidden secret places

Views from formal garden

Views from the top of the block

 

Large established trees

Ariel shot of the land and neighbours

Ariel shot of tree lined drive and 1 acre block

I hope this reaches someone out there who can love this block like we have, and who acutally has the space in their life to build.  We have house plans approved and ready to go for a house that fits perfectly on this block, which we have here.  It is a 2 storey house to capture all the views surrounding the block, it is a 5 bedroom large house, it has atrium windows which look out onto the garden from both storeys.  We have the windows here as we already bought them.  We also had a granny flat designed that we thought we might do first to live in whilst we built, it was designed off the grid, composting toilet, solar panels etc.  So we have those designs here as well.  Or you might have your own house plans which could fit anywhere on the block too.  We have had it listed with an agent for $137 000 but have decided to drop the price by $10 000 so we can move forward and it is now priced at $127 000.

If anyone is interested in buying please contact Steve on 0402 706 318 and we can arrange a viewing of the property otherwise if you would prefer to go through an agent then we can also arrange that.

Thanks for looking at this and we also really appreciate you liking and sharing our blog so that we can spread the word and try to find the perfect people for our block.

Cheers

Liza and Steve

Coop update IV

Finally got around to getting some more of the coop done.

Also, I've got the compost bins turning. The right mix makes for some pretty hot stuff.

Problem signs

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

Here is the sign for the front of the chook house.

Today we also completed the two human access doors to the chook run and finished the dwarf stone wall around the base of the chook shed.

Watch out girls, the chooks are coming!

Hung and Dung.

Today I finally got around to hanging the gate that I made ages ago.

It looks great.

So I took a photo to share with you all but I didn't notice at the time (because I'm use to seeing it) the massive pile of horse dung.

Tomorrow's job, shift the horse poo and get a better shot of the gate.

By the way, that is no regular horse poo.

It's racehorse poo! So it'll no doubt be great compost. I am worried about our organic certification owning to the probability of the racehorse poo being laced with amphetamines and other racing contraband.  

Just imagine the tomatoes next year! 

That's not knife, this is a .... Rock

I posted the other day that I had successfully split my largest rock thus far. We'll guess what? Records are ment to be broken.

Two almost perfect splits. Nearly 900mm thick!

The power of the wedge just astounds me some times.

Building materials.

At the hundred and first blow

Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

This weekend, we picked up some new feathers and wedges, some that were professionally produced by trow and Holden. If your a long time reader of this blog you'll remember some of the earliest posts regarding feathers and wedges, that my father made for me.

well I'm here to say a big fat thank you to my dad for getting me of the ground and into breaking this stone. But, dang! Professionally produced equipment makes a hard task, just that little bit better.

Today I used the wedges for the first time on the largest stone I've attempted yet. And snick.... That great sound of a stone boulder cleaving in two.

Building consent!

Well it only took 11 months but we have finally received building consent from the shire. Here's a breakdown.

November 2012 - first viewed the block

December 2012 - exchanged contract of sale

February 2013 - settled the contract for sale, extended time was owing to the titles office stamping new division and modifying maps etc.

Engaged architect to help with council submission, Structual details and enviro entail impact statement. (More on this later. )

March through August 2013 - design, budget, change design, budget, throw out design, design, budget help!

August 2013 - submit final design to council.

October 2013 - approval!

Construction certificate is still pending waiting on engenieers details. Next week?

Below is the sunset from last night.

Smokey! Early start to the brushfire season this year.