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This weekend marked the official completion of the balcony. Peter, Christine and Jayne have put a huge amount of effort in over the last five months and they are justifiably very proud of the result. They’ve lifted, painted, nailed, sawed, measured, balanced, hammered, oiled and puttied their way to a sensational 2.5m wide x 18m long merbau-deck balcony with a retro late 80s balustrade that will still be solid in 2030. (And me? I was chief designer so can take some credit for the final outcome but not as much as the real workers.)

It’s hard to believe that I first ripped up the boards in August 2006 and we’ve only just finished it now, but there you go.

Here are a few more photos … the entire set from start to finish is on our Picasa page.

Me removing the filthy green mesh - (a) to annoy the possum and (b) so we could paint the beams to tidy things up a bit

Halfway through painting the beams. We’re completely removing the red from the house and going with a single colour. It looks much calmer one colour, strangely enough

I fixed up the garden lights around the bricked area this weekend

Looking out from the kitchen window. It’ll be sensational when we have some pots, plants and furniture out there

Peter cut two angles on each end of each slat for the steps - one at 45 and again at 25 to match the pitch of the steps. He mucked it up a few times, he reckons!

Already it looks like it’s been there forever - It blends in with the house perfectly. We were close to installing a stainless steel wire / timber posts balustrade but I’m very pleased we decided to be faithful to the house’s 80s heritage and go retro.

Last night we celebrated with a superb homecooked beef and mushroom pot pie and Peter even cracked one of his good bottles of wine to mark the occasion - a 1992 Penfolds bin 407 Cab Sav.

So that’s it. Project finished. Hooray.