The Alternative Lifestyle Site

Transition Projects #3: The House (part 4)

When owner building, the time can seem to simultaneously drag and absolutely speed by. By regular building standards we are taking quite a long time to build our home however this is not an off the shelf house, a breeding box as a friend of mine sarcastically puts it, it is custom made by us, for us and for the planet we all inhabit. So that takes care of the time dragging component but what about the time speeding by? Well, we look back at the end of each month and sometimes marvel at what we’ve managed to accomplish, there are some things that just make such a big impact. Despite beavering away each weekend (and during the longer summer evenings) we can sometimes feel as though no progress has been made. Then, as if by magic, one day something big happens and we marvel at the fact that WE are building a house and it’s beginning to actually look like a house!

To put things into context, neither myself nor my loving partner had ever constructed anything of great consequence. I’d managed to pull together a chook house (looked more like a shanty lean too) and we used to joke that Graham couldn’t even put up a shelf (well, only half joke really) and now we stand back with a nice glass of local red wine in our hands and smile with satisfaction and sometimes surprise at what we’ve managed to create so far.

The difference between our building style and speed was brought home to us recently when we had the roof put on. In our state you are not permitted to put your own roof on (don’t get me started on Industry Lobby Groups) so we engaged a local man to do that for us. During that process we also decided to engage some people to put up the framing for the roof as it was quite tricky and we wanted to get the bales covered before the weather got any worse, rain wise that is. What a LEAP! They were so organised, so fast, so confident. At the end of just a few days we had a roof on!

Now it looks like a real house! We’ve got a lot of prep work to do now to get it ready for its first coat of render but we know that it’s all going to make a big job a lot easier if we can get that done before the render team turn up. So it’s all stops out now to pin the straps to the bales to limit movement (and render cracking), filling up all the gaps in the bales with straw and cob, covering the straps with mud before the render goes on (as the nylon strapping doesn’t like lime apparently) and then hitting the walls with the whipper snipper (brush cutter) so tidy up all the loose ends! Noisy job but fun in a weird power tool kinda way

You know you’ve lost your marbles when this kind of thing is the highlight of your month – I’m looking forward to getting my life back.I got so excited about having a roof on that I made a little video, might as well share it with you – however I’m still struggling with the software…. hmmm, time for a mac?!

I’ll let you know when I finally get to post the video – hopefully not too long. Bye for now.