Changes in 'my part' of our suburb...

My suburb is on the 'northside' of Brisbane and was a semi rural area up until the Second World war. After that war ended, huge tracts of grazing land were developed into housing estates including a large public housing area. There was still lots of bushland left especially on the northern side of the suburb. DH and I live in a house typical of the 1950s. A weatherboard house with a tiled roof nestled in a good sized yard. These 2 photos were a real estate agent's photos which make our backyard look bigger than it is...

The back yard

Then like many Brisbane suburbs the blocks of units started appearing. Often houses were demolished to make way for the units but some of them were built on vacant land near the main roads. But these developments were no where near our part of the suburb. Things are changing...

The photos of the activity in the block in which I live are all taken within a few minutes walk of my house...

One morning in May I noticed that there were 3 cement trucks lined up waiting to deliver cement to a building site a minutes walk to the east. 

We've got quite used to seeing those big pouring  shutes reaching up high into the sky, spewing out tonnes of wet concrete mix. 

A 30 second walk from this building site brings me to Ashmore st which runs into our street. This street is difficult to drive down recently as there are big trucks of all different types reversing into the sites. There are 3 building sites in this street alone. Then there is the vehicles of all the trademen which are parked in any spare space...even as far up the street as our place. 

 One development in Ashmore street which replaces 3 houses

The other side of Ashmore st where 4 homes have been demolished

More Ashford St views

Then, if I go out our back gate and walk south for 1 minute, this is what I find...yes another development built on the site of just 1 house...now there are 5 houses there.

In our back street

Now if I walk down the hill and follow the road to the street that is parallel to our street, in just under 3 minutes I reach another building site. The photo below shows 3 new houses. On the right-hand end of the photo ,you can see an older house. The large block that that house sat on was subdivided and the backyard sold off. On the block next door was a little postwar cottage. The cottage was demolished and the land divided into 2 smaller blocks. So where there used to be 2 houses, there are now 4. 

3 new houses, round the corner and down the hill from us in Griffith St

Lastly a photo from the state library collection. The photo shows Griffith St in the 1920s...

Maybe photos of 'our type' of housing will be soon in the state library collections too as they may soon be part of history too perhaps.

The new roof for the veranda...

One of the problems with our old side veranda was the leaking roof and the fact there was no guttering and the water poured over the side. The previous builder recycled the roof of a previous structure which is great but after last summer's heavy rains, we were a bit fed up. With the refurbished veranda we decided to get a product that was 3 layers in one...roofing iron, insulation and lining. A friend had mentioned it to me so DH and I discussed its use with the builder. He was enthusiastic about it but pointed out it was more expensive than a regular roof but he said we'd recoup that extra in less painting needed as the lining has a shiny off white gloss finish. We obviously decided to go with the 3 in one product.

The roof arrived on the back of a truck and after a lot of manoeuvring the men got it off the truck and on to the front lawn. There it sat for a few days while Russell our builder finished off other sections. Because of the possibility of storms at this time of year he left the old roof on as long as possible. He removed it Monday of this week and then on Tuesday a plumber and Russell's son came to put on the new roof and guttering.

Parts of the old roof and uprights that held up the roof

By lunch time the roof was on.