Building our Home

Looks like we are starting all over again.

We built a house in 2015 and sold it- for me it was meant to be the HOME that I had been WAITING FOR ALL MY LIFE, but, turns out, it wasn’t. There are many reasons for this. None of them are now applicable anymore. The sale was quick and profitable.

At the time of sale, we already were in possession of this parcel of land, which we acquired in April 2013. Situated at the edge of the edge of town, backing onto gold mined state forest, with a 3 bedroom cheapo but comfy residence, a massive horse stable/ shed and almost no vegetation.

Since then, we divided these 2.5 acres into 5 pieces:

the house on just under 800 sqm

the town house block on the road (530 sqm)

the stables block (3000 sqm)

and two blocks that were the horse paddock (3000 sqm each)

You can look at some pictures

here

The financial result was that we owned the stables block outright and had spare funds to build our STRAW BALE HOME. (After all, 3000 sqm is ‘SO ENOUGH’ as our good friend and weekend helper Teeka says.)

Four blocks were sold to lovely neighbours, who we have fairly regular get-togethers with, and who are also in the planning stages of building environmentally conscious homes.

Our intention was to have a cluster of eco homes all around us, and it looks like it’s happening! Our other aim was to grow food here, and with Ian’s creative and ‘musculous’ digging power, we have planted over 60 fruit and nut trees, extensive and wild vegetable gardens including chicken runs, watering and composting systems. We have converted parts of the stables into 2 separate but very basic living spaces comprising of one indoor (winter) and one outdoor (summer) kitchen. And the boys, Rowan [27] and Gabe [19] have experimented on building a tiny home.

Over the past two years, we have absolutely agonised about what and if we are building here, which meant that we had to completely review our relationship’s and business’ and individual life’s purpose(s)- lots of reading mind-expanding books to each other in bed, much time apart, counseling, growing up often physically and emotionally painfully, doing yoga together and apart, talking it through with friends and professionals like spiritual healers, orthobionomists, kinesiologists, TCM practitioners- for me a reconstructive peri menopausal transformation into a young crone and double OMA, thanks to my son Damian and his wife Renee. And so I’m feeling ready to co-create a house with my partner Ian that I can call my home.

On this blog site, I will attempt to recount some of the technical and personal details involving the build of a house that will last for a century (hopefully the house will last that long, not the building of it). A house that is built with a design and materials that we have thoughtfully selected within permaculture principles and our financial health in mind. This house will be warm in winter with minimal heating, cool in summer with minimal cooling, It will be a statement of quiet protest against the Australian building industry and its totally outdated regulations resulting in thousands of wasteful new houses each year. It will be a naturally breathing living house that will keep the many types of bugs and vermin outside. With its greenhouse, we plan to compensate for the short-comings of the local climate- too hot in mid summer for lettuce, too many frosts in winter for ….bananas. It will be my ZUHAUSE which I have lost too many years ago for too many reasons-this home will be SWEET.

Stay tuned. The foundations are under way.

 

Gratitude

I’m BACK !

I woke up this morning, a drizzly Sunday morning, the morning after watching a wonderful play by Shakespeare, performed by local talents including my stepson Gabe, and I thought, ‘it’s time to take up blogging again’. This morning, I have fire in my belly (and in my wood stove)  and I’m “sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad” . So dramatic ….but the life I’m living now is so changed, so different, I hardly recognise my dreams, my skin, or my lover and life companion. (more on all that in the next entry)

 

So I found this, my long lost blog site,  and lo and behold!,  there was a saved draft from December 2013 !!! As follows…..

 

 

Today, I made a vow.

I thought that it is about time to think about how little gratitude I have been feeling. So I’m jolting my memory- remembering the great things in my life. And I’m vowing to be grateful for at least one thing a day !

For a start, all I need to look at is my financial position. Compared to even two years ago, I’m blessed with access to a lot more financial resources, and I’m grateful for that. It’s a great feeling when you actually realise, that you are getting closer to some big goals in life ! What a wonderful mind we have- we have the amazing ability to choose what we want to be, how we want to live, and BANG, as long as we have passion for it, we can make it happen. Well, it doesn’t happen overnight (mostly), but we all know how fast a year or two go by and so while we are working passionately towards a goal, feeling fulfilled in the process, we get to savour what we’ve been aiming for. Two times lucky !

Of course there are set-backs, sometimes a few too many. Sometimes we need to change direction, slightly or dramatically, and we need to listen to the signs all around us. Another blessing !

But the more I look at the magical side of life, consciousness, the brilliant people around me, the adoration of my sweet lil dogs, the massive 4 cm growth  (in one day) that my baby tomato plants in the garden achieved, music, humour, – the list is endless, the more I feel that life is a magical forest in which I get to be a unicorn. If I want to.

Blessings all around !   🙂

Subdivision Heaven

Hi,

Might as well keep on telling the rest of the story 🙂

Thank you for those who actually visited my blog, I feel honoured. Of course I welcome any feed back or questions .

About our new project- 10 000 sqm with a 3 bed house and massive storage shed :

Plans to subdivide into 3 lots as a Stage 1 are being assessed by council as we speak. We are going to sell the existing house with a minor renovation and also sell one of the building blocks (500 sqm) . We are keeping the shed and about 9000 sqm.

Stage 2 may never happen, as sewerage connections could amount to over $100 000 and take more than 12 months, because of the discontinued railway track, which is in between our back block and the sewer point. Of course none of that is a surprise to us -we had all that checked out before we signed up to buy it. That’s called DUE DILIGENCE ! Stage 1 however makes enough profit to warrant the purchase ! (over $60 000 plus mortgage free shed and 9000 sqm)

The house and large land next door is for sale, and if we bought it, we could share/halve subdivision costs for Stage 2 – and that would make it even more attractive. We have not yet decided on that.

That would mean we could have up to 10 blocks for sale, given that we want to keep up the good old country tradition of quarter acre blocks.  (The start of an eco village???) The road, which would be the access to all those blocks, would have to be upgraded at our cost, to cope with the increased traffic.

So far, we have planted over 40  fruit trees and many more other trees, put extensive vegie gardens and also ornamentals in. The big paddock was deep ripped, using a Yeoman’s plough to counteract the compacting of the soil by horses from the previous owner. That was ONE way of renovating the land. A soil test revealed that it was suitable for extensive cropping, especially fruit and nut varieties after applying the right amount of gypsum.

We are only 5 mins walk away from a  primary school, post office, shop and pub, and sports facilities. What a great place to live! Blocks will sell like hot cakes ! Orders taken now 🙂

The Good Things !

Today, as promised, I’m going to go into the positives about my last project ( which I classified as a ‘big learning curve’). I also see it as one of the ways I have managed to sabotage myself along the long way, but once you’ve read the list below, you’ll think “…what is she talking about….???”!

We (my partner and I) both realized  that a very ‘normal’, straight suburban house built from brick veneer could actually provide a very energy efficient, green living experience. Of course the added benefit came from having windows in the north that let light and sun into the house in the winter, so that

• No heating would be needed during the day. A massive saving !
• We had a solar hot water service with a gas booster, but during November through to April or so, we never used any gas to boost our hot water needs.
• We had solar panels installed and used only about a quarter of what we generated over a period of 9 months.
• We had beautiful rain water from our tank so that we never needed any of the town’s water.
• Two seasons of apples from the extensive orchard down the back, and apricots, plums, a few nectarines
• Being only 2 km out of  the town centre, we could  and would cycle often
• We inherited a vegie garden with quite a bit of food to eat
• We had fun having chooks for a while and feeding the donkey next door
• at one stage we had an outside bathtub with a fire pit under for hours of soaking in the hot rainwater, decorated with homegrown rose petals
• my darling dogs had almost 4000 sqm to run around in all day long

Also, we lined the 6 x 6 m tin shed with 40ml straw board and added a huge window to the north. We put a bathroom and kitchenette in it and so created a great living space for myself away from the boys in the house ! I called it the Boudoir. I sewed bright red curtains for it. The wood stove was also a big bonus in my shelter for the cold nights.

Finally, we created out of all that 2  building blocks and a very livable, energy efficient house to live in that was fully renovated and had small orchards in the front and back yards. We sold all 3 items to people we know in the community and so created a micro-community !

All in all, it was a great experience in regards to approaching a sustainable way of living. The main driver for the direction of this project was my partner Ian, to whom this article is dedicated  with much gratitude.

From an investor’s point of view…well, I’ll talk about the figures another time.

(I have been trying to upload 2 photos but to no avail…..Ok I give up. It might let me tomorrow..)