Day two - paint paint paint

Today was tough... it was hot, it was dusty, it was tiring. But we made a lot of progress.

First up, we focused on the walled vegie garden. Dad is arriving tomorrow with digger in tow to dig the trench for the wall foundation. Before he gets here we had to work out where exactly it was going to be positioned, and what shape.

In the end we decided to put it down near the orchard, slightly closer to the dam than originally envisaged. We choose that spot for a couple of reasons: 1) The land is flat there, so cut out the need for terracing; 2) By having it nearer the lake, the boathouse can also double as a place for having a relax while gardening; 3) We needed to get it out of the shade of the tree.

After trying a few alternatives, we settled on a size of 25m by 40m for the walled area. It sounds enormous, but we want space for a green/shade house, for a big potting and tool shed, for lots of compost bays, for some of the fruit trees that require more protection, etc.

Here's the layout we came up with, at least as a starter. The round thing in the middle is a fountain shaded with a big pergola (ala the one at Sissinghurst in the White Garden):



We used stakes to mark the corners, with the help of string and a measuring tape to get the lengths of each side. 90 degrees was worked out by eye, comparing it to the scrapbook shape! I'm sure it's out by a little but not enough to worry about. At the end, we used spraypaint to mark out the borders, to make it easy for Dad to dig in the tractor thingy.



At lunchtime we went into Maryborough to get some supplies (including hayfever tablets and a new hat for me). On the way back we drove past the house I spotted last time, with the glorious front verandah. Sadly it's in a worse state of repair, oh I really hope they fix it up.

I adore the square bay window on the diagonal and the lovely simple fretwork combined with fancy columns on the porch.



I also ADORE the ceiling... using light blue to mimic the sky. We planned to do this too but I was thinking about skimping and painting it straight onto the metal. Now I see this though I'm afraid we will somehow have to line it to give the effect of boards, even if not the real thing.



In the afternoon we laid out the new house, measuring the downstairs layout in situ, then marking with spraypaint so we could "walk around" the whole thing and get a feel for it:




In wandering round it we discovered that we want to stretch the house to make it a bit more spacious - especially in the library. But that will be the subject of tomorrow's email, as we're seeing Eric to discuss then.