Things of Straw and Mud

Home-grown.

2012-01-26T03:11:00.000-08:00

I came home this afternoon with a serious case of the can't-be-bothereds and was quite tempted to suggest Vegemite on toast (since it's Australia Day) for dinner. But my mind wandered to the zucchini we've got in the garden which are rapidly turning into marrows and I felt a bit guilty for neglecting the home-grown vegies so I came up with this:

Shave the zucchini with a peeler.
Throw fistfuls of basil into the blender with plenty of tomatoes.
Slice leek (yep, they're still going).

Fry the leek in a large pan, add the tomato-pesto mix and the shaved zucchini.
Add cooked pasta, stir through & serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Aside from the pasta, this was a genuinely home-grown meal & I'm thankful for it. (And it was really quite yummy too, what a bonus!)

Who gets first bite of the cherry?

2011-12-12T19:37:00.000-08:00

This week's excitement at our place was focused on the orchard. Now, I know you're not meant to let the trees fruit in their first year but we really didn't notice this sneaky cherry growing down near the trunk of the tree until it was too late (or just right, one or the other!)

The first cherry on the lapin tree.

Cherry-grower's rapture.

Overall the fruit trees are looking good and hopefully we'll have some lovely fruit next year.

And in the flower/herb garden the gladiolus are flowering...

...so there's a bit of colour around the place.

And some snap dragons too.

We have lettuces and rocket in & going gang-busters thanks to Ed & Tracy who started these ones off in their aquaponics.

The tomatoes are being kept company by some more sunflowers (they make me happy).

There are tomatoes on the tomato plants compliments of Mr Sibbing.

And oka or New Zealand yam thanks to Phil & Kate (it's becoming a real communal thing this garden).

I was very excited to see the first corn coming up - I've never grown corn before & I LOVE it so I hope we get a decent crop.

I also have purple basil coming along but it's been slow going, I think it might need feeding.

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson from the beetroot seed thrown it too close together & have done the same with these iceberg lettuces. I'll have to prick them out & spread them around to other parts of the garden.

This grew all on it's own - my bet is on pumpkin.

The zucchini seedlings have flowers already.

We still have plenty of beetroot and this weekend I made beetroot chutney, a recipe of my own devising! :)

And I'm hoping the cantaloupe kick on soon, they're don't look entirely happy.

BUT... in all that, who does get the first bite of the cherry? We do!

And this week in gardening news...

2011-11-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

After the carrot saga, I thought it was time for a little bit of a success story (so you don’t all think I’m a complete vegie-gardening-failure).

The following pics are from our first harvest meal (so a bit before the carrots but I’ve been too lazy/distracted/busy to write the post about it.)

The first real "harvest"which included...

kohlrabi...

broccoli...

and kale.

I'd never eaten either kale or kohlrabi before so I asked google about it (as you do). The kale and broccoli were tossed around a hot wok with the crushed garlic to make some tasty wilted greens and I peeled the kohlrabi, sliced it thinly and seasoned it with oil, lemon juice and pepper.

The chef at work.

Dinner consisted [almost] entirely of produce from the garden, the only ring-ins were the cous cous and the toasted pine nuts. Even the sage and garlic were picked fresh:

Last year's garlic finally harvested (it was too sneaky for us last year but we got them this time)

Dinner's ready!

In more recent news I have flowers, including some beautiful dwarf sunflowers, the seeds of which were a present from the lovely Lois.

And the beetroot is doing well despite the seed being strewn in too thickly and Nic telling me they'll never grow like that and making me thin them severely:

We have tomatoes in and learning from the punnet planting of the last crops, we've planted seedlings in stages in the hope that we won't repeat the glut situation that we had with the kale:

And we have small but VERY delicious strawberries, which reminds me, I wrote a story about 'strawbs' while I was in Edinburgh last year...

So, have I convinced you that it all hasn't been a total loss? Come over for dinner, I'll show you how good kale and kohlrabi can be...

What IS that? ~ a vegie gardening failure

2011-10-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

Things had been going along quite nicely really, especially considering I don't particularly know what I'm doing but this week things went a bit pear-shaped (or is that "carrot-shaped"?)

So the story with the carrots is this. I planted them from seedlings (something my father-in-law has since told me isn't really a very good idea) and I put in both orange and red varieties. The orange carrots never seemed to be particularly happy but the red ones were going gang-busters. At the time, I thought this was a testament to using heritage varieties rather than more highly cultivated ones and I had delusions of eating huge, yummy, red carrots. Apparently, the heritage variety was simply better at capitalising on the fact that they had all been planted in soil that had too much nutrient and wasn't sandy enough. (So, by the way, were the parsnip.) And yes, if I hadn't planted it, I wouldn't know what it was either - unrecognisable!

Anyway, the red carrots looked like they were growing well (from the top) but underneath they were going just a little bit nuts and then this week we got our first insect attack - aphids. Which left the lovely green tops looking like this:

So, today I pulled up the red carrots that I thought would be great:

Hmmmm...

And the orange carrots that I was sure would be a failure:

Better but even some of them were a bit on the kooky side...

Hmmm...

Anyway, I've learnt something for next time. More garlic spray, more ladybugs, less soil, more sand.

First blossom, first shoots

2011-08-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

Our Orchard. It might not look like much from a distance as in the picture below:

But if you look a bit more closely, the orchard is actually doing something already:

I noticed the first signs of life on one of the plums...

Buds...

Blossom...

And even the first green shoots.

One of the apricots is giving it a red-hot go...

With leaf shoots waiting in the wings.

The other plum is the most noticeable...

Shoots...

Blossom...

More shoots...

And more blossom!

As I said, it's not exactly knock-you-down amazing but we're pretty happy to see the growth.

So far we've put in:

a couple of apricots, "Trevatt";

plums, "Japanese Mariposa" & "Japanese Narrabeen";

apples "Pink Lady" & "Fuji";

cherries, "Stella" and "Lapins";

a pear, "Beurre Bosc";

a nashi, "Nijisseiki";

and down the hill a bit further where it (hopefully) won't wreak any havoc, a mulberry, "Hick's Fancy".

We also have two more apples to go in. They're an unknown heritage variety and are grafts taken from trees planted by Jan van Koesveld (my first Australian ancestor).

So, in the coming years look forward to getting sick receiving homemade jam as birthday and Xmas gifts! At this point I'll refer you to my other blog & a jammy poem I wrote a while ago now, perhaps it was prescience! :)

Cheers,

Deb

Helpful Dog

2011-07-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

And the helpful dog assists with mulching the vegie seedlings by making sure that bale of straw doesn't get away.

"It's OK, Deb, I'm on it!"

I just hope that I haven't made the vegie garden more enticing to her by now lining it with what she seems to think is her bedding material - it was already a tasty place full of mushroom mulch and compost, now it's a good place to have a nap as well!

The Vegie Patch - Entry 1

2011-07-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

There were a few things I didn’t want to do in establishing our vegie patch, but I’ve gone & done them anyway. Here are my confessions:

1. 1. I wanted to ‘create’ soil rather than bring anything in but we just don’t produce enough scraps to create the mountain of compost that’s needed to do this plus not having decent soil was really putting off the rest of the project. We had a load of sandy loam with mushroom mulch delivered – the new pup thought mushroom mulch was delicious (she has a strange palette, she feels the same way about rabbit and kangaroo poo, if she keeps this up, we’ll never have to feed her!)

2. 2. I wanted to start all my seeds myself and not buy seedlings. I especially didn’t want to buy crappy seedlings from a crappy place like the supermarket or a big hardware chain and I managed that part of the deal. In terms of starting the seeds myself, at this time of year it requires somewhere warm to get things going. We have sheets of polycarbonate that are the roof of the old bathroom at the shack that I want to use to build my version of a glasshouse but not having anything sorted about where I would put my ‘polycarbonate house’ was delaying things as well. So, I finally went seedling shopping at Bendigo Wholefoods. The folk there were super friendly and helpful – a great source of advice and information as well as seedlings.

3. 3. I was going to work an hour a day in the garden and not ‘wreck myself’ over it. Well, with seedlings waiting to go in… you can see where this is going, can’t you?

So, I’ve finally started the vegie gardens. So far we have planted:

Garlic (actually this was missed when digging up last year's crop so it doesn't really count!)

Carrots (orange & purple)

Onions (brown & red)

Leeks (I counted 113 - I'm assuming a high attrition rate!)

Parsnip

Cauliflower

Broccoli (two varieties)

Kale

and Kohlrabi.

So, we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers!

New house, new dog

2011-06-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

Everyone, we'd like to you meet Nashira, our new (and apparently quite photogenic) puppy. She's a staghound x bull arab and is likely to be the size of a small horse one day!

Movement

2011-05-23T02:35:00.000-07:00

The night before we moved I made sure the camera was left out so that we could catch the big move 'on film' so to speak. As it turned out, the first chance I had to pick up the camera was at the end of the day but at least I managed to capture the momentous occasion of installing the dishwasher. Nic had even "packed" the dirty dishes instead of washing them Friday night so that he would be able to wash them in the new dishwasher! So here it is...

Like a kid on Christmas morning!

My dad appreciates the importance of the moment and helps get the divine kitchen appliance into place.

At the end of the day we were all weary and had earned a rest...

Entertaining for the first time in our new lounge room.

A toast to the new house.

I think I'm pretty happy about it or something!

Others had to make do with whatever bed they could manage. Not one to settle for second best, Gem decided to make herself comfortable on an old piece of velvet that had been used as packing/tarp...

Sunday morning the clouds were threatening & we had a bit of rain but we didn't mind. We managed to move everything in on the Saturday which was sunny and beautiful...

There's a pot of gold somewhere down near the dam.

Black clouds but sun on our trees.

Some great pics by Bronte.

Alister got his priorities straight by making sure the dogs had cosy beds...

One of the packing boxes for shelter...

And some foam for padding.

Gem chose to sleep on the doormat instead... there's just no pleasing some dogs!

Lid was sprung cleaning windows (even though she'd said it's the one job she wouldn't do)...

...but we have the photographic evidence!

We're very happy to finally be able to call our place in Lady's Pass, "home".

Cheers!

xXx

We're IN!

2011-05-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

Last night we spent our first night in OUR NEW STRAWBALE HOUSE and it was awesome!

We'll continue to post general house & garden stuff that's going on around here but for now we'd just like to extend an enormous THANK YOU to Rhonda, Brian, Lid, Alister, Bronte, Narelle, Diago, Bohdi, Amaia and Melinda. You guys are amazing and we really appreciate your help. Thanks also to all the other people who offered help, vans and general support not only on the moving day but also throughout this hugely drawn out building project.

Ta.
:)

Deb
(from the lounge room of our house)

The good oil, as promised...

2011-05-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in the last post that I would add pictures, as soon as possible, of the floors when they were oiled. We had Robert from Anro Floorcare come all the way from Bayswater to do the job for us.

I'll try for a series of pics if I can then there'll be some sundry others at the end.

The floor in construction...

...the floor before sanding...

...the floor after sanding and...

...TADA! The finished pretty, pretty floor!

Same deal really but looking back the other way - BEFORE and

AFTER!

The stairs have been oiled as well...

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's a nifty two-in-one before and after shot of the slate in the process of being oiled.

The oiled floorboards, steps and slate

The kitchen bench has been re-sanded and re-oiled by Robert too.

The spare room.

Our room...

...with green plaster walls...

...and yellow baled walls.

The stairs (again).

The study...

...the other wall of the study.

And kitchen bits.

End of raving about floors.

A few more bits & pieces

2011-05-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

OK, we're really getting to the pointy end of this house building project now (well, we'd better be since we move in this weekend!) so here are a few more pics of the most recent bits and pieces that are going on.

The lounge/dining/kitchen was cleared of builder's stuff in preparation for the floor sanding.

The floor has been sanded.

Another view of the sanded floor, the colours are coming up really beautifully & I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's oiled (I'll post more pics when the oiling is done.)

Here's Mick, the floor-sander dude.

The basin has been refitted (they originally fitted it hard up against the wall when it's designed to be free-standing - just another example of them buggering things up because they failed to ask what we wanted and made an assumption instead. Anyway, it was able to be moved fairly painlessly so now it's in the right place!)

The toilet is in.

The stairs are now finished - there may already be a pic of these but the top riser has only just been finished so I thought I'd include a pic of them as well. I'll add another when they've been sealed too as I'm sure they'll look pretty special.

These are the wire thingies on the study balcony (the ones they were fitting as I was leaving two posts ago.)

The gas cooktops are in & connected - they look crooked in this picture because they ARE but they're not as crooked as they look!

Stay tuned for a post about "the merits of being an owner builder versus paying somebody who's meant to know what they're doing" - this is bound to be a fairly bitchy and long post so I'll warn you if you're not interested in the negative bits. I feel we've been very patient (possibly too patient!) throughout this whole process but I can feel the need to vent coming on now that we're at the end. That aside, it's all VERY EXCITING and I can't wait for the first night in our house, the first lighting of the wood stove, the first coffee made on my crooked cooktop, the first morning reading in my window seat, the first story I write on the study balcony in the sun, the first load of dishes through the dishwasher.... well, you get the idea!

The last 'few' tomatoes...

2011-05-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

OK, house news is a little thin on the ground owing to the fact that I only posted something the other day so I thought I might regale you with a vegie garden story.

Last night we had quite a frost, so today when I was out at the house I decided it was a good time to pick the last "few" tomatoes as the frost will have done in the plants. I even brought along a little basket to put them in and grabbed some scissors that I keep in the glove box to cut them. Once I had filled the basket AND the tea towel I'd originally lined it with, I decided I might just duck back to the rental house, grab a bigger basket and my secateurs (the scissors were giving me a blister).

I ended up with 287 tomatoes of varying sized and shades weighing nearly 13kg (that's more than 28lb for mates in the USA or old folk!) The best part of the tomato story is that I didn't even plant them, all of the plants self-seeded from last year's tomatoes - manna from Mother Earth!

So, now I need you to forward any good Green Tomato recipes that you know to debwain(at)gmail.com, failing that I might have to fry them and open my own Whistle Stop Cafe.
Deb :)

PS The latest house news is that Nic is busy spraying paint around with a sprayer we've hired for the day and when I left with my booty of tomatoes, the builders were putting up the wire 'railings' (for want of a better word) on the upstairs balcony (well, two of them were and the other one was leaning on the top rail and watching...)

Closer and closer...

2011-05-07T03:12:00.000-07:00

The last bits and pieces are coming together at the house. Here are some pics of the latest developments:

The splash-back has been tiled and the rangehood has been fitted.

The tiles continue around the curved bench.

The wood-fired stove is in place and is just waiting for the flue to be plumbed up...

... and the stove again.

Here's a closer look at the tiles.

The kitchen sink is in and so is the tap.

The shelving is nearly finished in the pantry (just the edging needs to be put on)

The laundry sink is now in.

A little tricky to see but the shower screen is in and the slate is on the floor & walls too.

The electrical work is done & is all connected.

The steps from the kitchen/dining down to the bedroom & bathroom are in.

The minirib cladding is on the external laundry wall.

And the colour is on the external strawbale walls...

... things are getting very close now.

Now we're cookin'!

2011-03-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Well we might not actually be cooking just yet but we've got bits of a kitchen together so I guess that's a start.

There was a request for more photos so, be warned, multiple pictures of our amazing kitchen and other bits and pieces that have eventuated in the past week below...

The front doors have been oiled and the frame is up for the little triangle verandah and decking at the entrance.

More front door action.

The trifold kitchen door, through which you can (sorta) see bits of our kitchen.

Bits of our kitchen!!

These are the only straight cupboard doors and drawers in the place (poor kitchen manufacturer). This is the bench that will have the sink in it and the dishwasher to the left in that hole.

And now so you can see the benchtop.

The spunky curved drawers in the bench at the mudbrick wall.

Me being pretty damn pleased about aforementioned spunky drawers

(and toasting them with an ale.)

Excitement from a different angle.

Nic has sanded and oiled that old timber post on the right as well & although it's not as stunning in this pic, the red coming through is awesome in the flesh (or should that be 'in the bark'?)

This is the small section of bench to the left of the woodfired oven (which we haven't yet made our final decision about - still debating the merits of a couple of brands - any and all help/suggestions are welcome!)

We were trying to get a short of the whole shebang but it proved a bit too 3D to get into a photo.

Now we've gone upstairs into the storage space off the library/study where you can see the thingamajig for the solar mounted on the wall.

(And all our Livos paint stacked there 'in storage')

We have nearly a whole deck upstairs - perfect place to enjoy an ale...

...and contemplate life in general.

Look! Do you know what that is? Yep, it's a water tank but the fun part is that it now has those nifty pipes leading to it so that if we get more rain (and I promise I'm NOT wishing it upon anybody up here right now) it will at least go into our tanks.

See!

Benches are also installed in the brewery (aka 'laundry').

Nic planning the set up of the brewing kit?

(Or trying to decide if Lid will come and do our washing since we have such a nice laundry?)

Finally, the fuse box (in Nic's WIR) is connected so now we can get the solar installed.

Lots has been happening around here and we're pretty pleased about it. Feel free to drop in and see the progress for yourself if you're around sometime.

Cheers,

Deb & Nic

Choices, choices, choices...

2011-02-19T23:53:00.000-08:00

The cornice has been hung in most of the rooms now and the fun stuff has started.

We've selected and purchased the dishwasher.... TA DA!

(On the left you can see the bag of lime we've bought to start playing around with limewash and the Livos tints that we'll be adding to it to produce our wall colours)

So, now the fun really begins - choosing the colour palette:

We're looking forward to kitchen installation sometime in the next couple of weeks (or so... maybe...)

Gettin' plastered!

2011-02-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

From the outside the house doesn't look much different although we do now have gutters. But inside has become a little more structured with the installation of plaster. There aren't many plaster walls in the house but it has made a big difference to see them become solid rather than just framing.

The ceilings are also now plastered and that has given us a new perspective on how the rooms really look. (Apologies for the pictures taken with my phone and in poor light during the heavy rain we had recently.)

The bed alcove and cupboard in the guest room

Nic breaking the cardinal rule and being in MY walk in robe!

The library/study upstairs (the doorway behind Nic leads to roof space storage)

That's all for now.

Love,

Deb & Nic

That floored me!

2010-12-14T20:35:00.000-08:00

We went to have a look at the house and found that not only did we have fully glazed windows but we also have some floor. We took the opportunity to have a little dance on it!

Some floorish bits.

The floorish mess.

Here are the developing vegie gardens for whoever I promised this photo to.

Plumbing and windows and doors, oh, my!

2010-12-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

At times this project does feel as if we're following the yellow brick road only to find that at the end of it is just a little, old dude with some dodgy special effects but unlike Dorothy's 'lions and tiger and bears' this post isn't about anything scary. I know I keep promising that it will start looking like a real house soon, well windows and doors should help in that respect.

window seat in the loungeroom.

bedroom window

big window/door in the loungeroom

frame for the trifold door from the kitchen

window seat again - it's mine!

As for the plumbing part of the post, the plumbers have been back to do the 'rough in' hence the pipes you can see here:

Unfortunately, we do not yet have gutters... you know those things that are so helpful for catching all this water that keeps falling out of the sky and directing it into our tanks!

More Mud and Baby Birds

2010-10-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

I had thought I’d post more frequently now that there are things to see going on at the house. We’re always excited to see whatever new bit of render has gone on when we drop in but unfortunately, in photos, there isn’t much to show. All mud just looks like mud.

The morning sun coming through our bedroom window.

So far the lounge and our bedroom are done both inside & out. The bathroom is taking shape with a first coat inside and the spare room has its initial inside coat too.

The first coat of render inside the bathroom.

Both the bathroom and the spare bedroom have their final coats outside so this end of the house is starting to look pretty good.

The spare room - final coat outside

Here’s the actual interesting bit. We had to do something about the curved wall in the kitchen. Initially it was meant to only go up to stair level so its height would step up following the height of the stairs to the study BUT that created problems for how we would attach the ceiling above the stairs (I don’t think of these practical things when I come up with my design brilliance… it’s up to somebody else to make it work. I should have been an architect!) To solve this problem we decided to make the wall the full height all the way around but to allow light into the stairwell we’ve done this…

I wasn’t keen on the idea at first but I came around & now that it’s in, I think it looks better than my original idea.

This is an arty shot of our curved wall from above :) Do you feel dizzy?

This is still our favourite view – from the big window in the study:

The Grey Shrike-thrush who has nested in the shack before has come back now that it's a bit quieter without us around. Look, baby birds!

Of Mud and Pardalotes

2010-09-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

Things are progressing at the house, we now have more mud on the lounge room walls both inside and outside.

Some locals seem to think the house is liveable as it is. Recently we had swallows build a nest in the storage room under the stairs, they have since moved out but left their renovations behind:

Now, it seems that the muddy walls have become too tempting for a pair of striated pardalotes! They have found a weak point in the first coat of render in the spare room (I suppose they think they're house guests). So, now we'll have to wait until the young are out of the nest before that wall can be completed, luckily that doesn't take very long.

Like a pig in MUD!

2010-09-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the three little pigs references just don't get old, do they?

There has been some strange things going on around here: water has been falling out of the sky (I believe they call it 'rain') AND there has been some progress on our house.

A first coat of render has been started. See for yourself:

Mud-making equipment

Mud-spraying person

Mud-sprayed wall

Mostly mud-sprayed house

Just in case you weren't sick of it yet, close-up mud!

And here's evidence of the falling water stuff, a very full dam:

I'm sure there'll be more muddy posts to follow....
:)

Baled up

2010-07-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

The strawbale stacking is progressing and we've been able to get a better feel of what the rooms will be like and what the views out of various windows will be.

This is from inside the loungeroom & shows the dining area and the front door opening in the middle:

Inside looking back into the loungeroom:

This is the loungeroom end of the house, today they were working on the framing for the bales to sit over the big window:

And here we have the main bedroom and upstairs study. The bales have been stacked into the second storey wall and they've started to frame up the upstairs deck outside the study:

The whole front of the house. The black plastic is to keep the bales as dry as possible:

All visitors are more than welcome just give us a call.

Cheers,

Deb & Nic

Other things we like...

2010-07-08T19:59:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of showing my parents and grandparents around our building site. I think everyone enjoyed seeing the progress first-hand rather than from pics on the blog.

The laying of the bales is continuing; yesterday the builders were working on the walls to both bedrooms. They've tied down the bales for the lounge room wall and have framed up and baled the windows in the lounge and the bedrooms as well. Unfortunately, this doesn't look very different in photos to the ones I've already put up so I thought I'd share some of our flora instead.

Blossom on the ironbark

Goodenia

Running postman - Kennedia

Not sure what this is - any ideas?

Chocolate Lilly

Onion Orchid

Paper daisy

Sun Orchid

And the trick one - it's a picture of the Cassinia (curry scrub) really! :)

Posting bale!

2010-07-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

The house is now really starting to take shape. The bales are being stacked and tightened in preparation for the render.

The western end of the house (lounge room) is up to ceiling height:

There has also been work done on the wall of the spare bedroom:

This is the window seat in the lounge room:

Nic is standing in the doorway of the trifold door into the kitchen (the brown blur in the bottom left is Luna who has made a racetrack of the space underneath the house!)

All of this sounds like wonderful news but let's not get too carried away. Nic spoke to the builder last week and the latest guess is that we won't be in the house until November. This is unfortunate since I had planned on having a house warming to coincide with the Heathcote Wine & Food Festival over the 1st weekend in October. BUT trying the glass-half-full perspective, the silver lining is that we will still be in the Wright Street house for this year's event and it is staggering distance from the show grounds where the Wine & Food is to be found... so, wine, anyone?

:)
Cheers,
Deb xXx

Ex-straw-dinary

2010-06-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Last night on the way home from work we drove out to the house site and in the failing light of the day (mostly lit by headlights) discovered a delivery of STRAW! That’s right, our walls have arrived and we could barely contain our excitement. In fact, I was so thrilled I sent blurry and underexposed photos of straw bales in text messages to my mum and my sisters – I figured they’d know what it was even if you couldn’t really tell from the photo.

Today the builders say the will start baling “very soon” and maybe I’ll even have a go myself. The next few weekends would be a good time if you’d like to come up and see construction in progress. Everyone is welcome.

You can see the final roof construction now too:

Roof!

2010-05-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

I know some of you (OK, I mean 'me') thought it would never happen... the roof has started going on.

It should start looking like a real house sometime soon :)

Cheers,

Deb & Nic

Elec-trickery

2010-05-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Well, there has been some progress. There is now evidence of a visit from an electrician and the frame is all but finished. With a bit of luck there will be a roof to show you all soon-ish! We've chosen paint & colourbond colours for the gutters and the facia.

The frame from the back

The frame at the front

The wiring...

three little pigs

2010-02-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

Here we were thinking that we were the first little pig, building a house out of straw but this looks more like the second pig's house of sticks:

And we challenge you to make sense of this jigsaw puzzle!

We have roof framing on the go:

And this is the view from our upstairs study/library:

Cheers!

the good, the bad and the mudbrick

2009-12-06T00:29:00.000-08:00

The mudbricks arrived and have started going up. Carpentry has been delayed a little by an injury sustained to our chippy when his circular saw kicked up off the slab and into his leg. He's OK (if you call a big V-shaped cut in his shin, OK) but won't be back until next year.

Nic has been able to help out since CVGT decided to give him a little rest... Here are some of the latest photos.

Cheers,
Deb & Nic

Stumps? Check!

2009-10-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

The stumps are all in. Today the carpenter started on the subfloor framing and the bricklayers started on the external brick wall. Trusses were delivered today and tomorrow, the mudbricks are coming for the curved walls in the stairway & passage. We talked to a stonemason who said he could probably get around to our job about half way through next year, so I think I'll be talk to a few others...

Things are actually happening, it's getting exciting.

Cheers,

Deb & Nic

The Cut

2009-09-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Here are the before and after pictures of our house site (I appreciate that dirt isn't very exciting to anybody else but you all said you wanted to be kept informed!)

Cheers,
Deb & Nic

Ready, set, GO!

2009-09-02T16:13:00.001-07:00

Ta DA!

Well, after a few more hiccups (nothing like building hold ups to keep your blood boiling on these chilly Winter days) this morning they finally 'turned the first sod'. I know it's been a long time coming but I don't think I've ever been so excited about a hole in the ground!

BUILDING PERMIT...finally :)

2009-08-29T02:30:00.000-07:00

On Monday we received our building permit in the mail. The builder has been out and checked out the levels with the concreter & with any luck they're coming back next week to actually make the cut for the stairwell foundations and the carport.

More news soon (fingers crossed)

soon.....?

2009-08-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

OK, I know we've said, "soon" and "next week" before so I don't blame you if you're reluctant to believe the hype BUT we are under the impression that our building permit will be signed off tomorrow and the concreter will be out to assess whether or not he can manage the cut himself this week.

On the vegie garden front, we have cut down one ring from the silo and are in the process of positioning it so it's level. Then I can start filling it with compost.

Pics when there is something to take photos of...

Cheers,

Deb

Visitor

2009-06-11T03:49:00.001-07:00

OK, so there's still not much going on here in the way of building but we did have an interesting visitor yesterday....

Vegie Garden Edging

2009-04-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

In our travels around the area we spotted a couple of old silos that were just sitting around being unloved and would be perfect circular garden edging for the vegie patches when cut down.

We managed to get them home on the trailer...

... now we will just need to cut them into rings and we will have the edges, then the hard work will start :)

April Update

2009-04-06T03:26:00.001-07:00

No building permit yet, but it is very close. In around a week we hope.

We have appointed a builder, an experienced straw bale builder who lives fairly locally. He is well on the way to organising the permit and seems keen to start.

The existing bridge has been spruced up with a new deck of 2nd hand redgum sleepers to replace the treated pine. This will allow most trucks access, and larger trucks can still use the older track through our dry creek. The driveway has been reformed as well and top dressed with road base for all weather use. It will need regrading after the building is complete and all truck traffic has finished.

We have placed the water tanks in position with a bit of help from a mate at the CFA, Roger, who pushed them into place with his tractor. 3 thousand gallons of water delivered to start the builder off. Let's hope he starts using it soon!

Cheers,

Deb & Nic

First House blog

2009-04-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

OK, so here we are.

We plan for this blog to cover our adventure into the strawbale construction of our new home. This way we can keep you all updated on what is (and isn't) happening on the building front.We are currently talking to a couple of builders and waiting on quotes. In the meantime we have had a driveway graded in (much less bumpy than the old track through the bush) and the site for our 2 tanks has been levelled.
Tanks are due to arrive tomorrow.

Pics to follow.

Cheers,
Deb

Starting again

2009-04-06T03:17:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

No news on our house blog has not meant that nothing has been happening (nothing MUCH has been happening but not nothing) I've just been having some issues with the 'thoughts.com' blog so I've moved house to here.

Hopefully things will run a little smoother and it isn't an omen for the building project itself! :)

I'll transfer over our old message and start from scratch here and try to be a bit more forthcoming with information on a regular basis. You can also 'follow' this blog (I think you may have to login with a google account of some kind to do so, not sure.)

Cheers,
Deb & Nic