Stumped

23 - The Bathroom

2010-11-29T21:05:00.007+11:00

Right. The urge to write more words on this blog has found some fertile ground within which to take root. This ground is simply the chunk of spare time found between the children being put to bed and my overwhelming tiredness felt an hour or so afterwards demanding my immediate teeth cleaning, pyjama putting on, and hopping into bed kind of attention. Unfortunately this all puts an end to my waking, and arguably my most useful, state. My secret for stretching this magical free time out is an afternoon cup of tea taken at about 3. Considering my sensitivity to after lunch caffeine I need to take extra care with my tea bag dunks. Not too many, not too deep and not too long.

So with that aside now well aside let's talk bathroom.
When most people talk bathrooms they talk tiles. Before we started looking into things we would talk bathrooms and find that wood would soon pop up yet again and quickly build rapport with the topic at hand. It was like that with us. Wood's infectious impact on our consciousness ensured it was thought of first for most building and furnishing applications. We discovered though that its allure is wasted on the modern day bathroom tightly draped in a constricting fabric of council regulation. In short we wanted to keep the wooden floor of the new bathroom but discovered we could not. There are rules when constructing 'new' bathrooms and wooden floors do not get a look in. Especially if the shower water is proposed to fall down into an old claw foot bath and there is no glass screen in sight.

When I say new bathroom I do so because we moved ours from the middle of the house to the back deck where the laundry once was. Remember? Here it is covered in this post from a while back. The decking floorboards under this old laundry were previously moved closer together to decrease the roomy gaps between them. Anyway we thought this wooden floor could stay. Because our house was considered 'new' its wet areas are subject to the wet area rules of the day which means waterproofing the whole bathroom and tiling the floor and walls. Lots of tiles around the bath/shower and then a little everywhere else. We were gutted. No, make that grouted.

So our attention painfully turned to tiles. We were constantly slapped in the face by dull, dated, bland, careful, samey choices in the tile shops we visited. No matter what the shop, the tiles were the same. We started our search on the internet and found great examples of tiles and tiled bathrooms. The trouble was these were in other countries. We took downloaded photos along to shops whose people never came close to matching them. Our favourite photo pictured a floor tiled with small hexagonal white tiles sporting the occasional handful of similar black ones shaped in a sort of flower. The wall tiles we favoured in photo were a green colour and were not very big, maybe 150mm square. Then there was a thin black line of pencil tiles somewhere near the highest edge. Anyway, we wanted the tiles to look old, especially the floor, and didn't mind the look of grey grout to help emphasise this intent. As I said though, no one could come close to matching these pictures. The floor was do-able but hard to come by. The walls were off the charts hard. Apparently we missed the small for a wall, boldly-ish coloured, retro flavoured tile revival some 6-8 years ago and it seemed that currently a modern minimalist sandy looking bore fest was settling in for a long yawn in.
It seems, like most other things to do with houses these days, people are too scared to make statements with things like bathrooms, simply because they are worried about future sale-ability of their house. This fact is solely responsible for tile shops carrying 'careful' stock. Sure there are exceptions but these somehow feel careful too. Strange that tiled areas of your house are constrained by current fashion, which means that everyone is somewhat forced to choose from the same tiles. The shops do not cater for an unfashionable taste. If you want a certain bathroom you cannot have what your heart desires you can only have what everyone else heart desires or at least what they think their heart desires, no, what others' hearts desire. In the end it made me feel that if we were to find tiles we liked in one of the many tile shops around then we were obviously doing something wrong. The fact that we couldn't is comforting in hindsight.
Well all this was seriously depressing for a while there until we decided to embrace the house's style and vintage and see how it would have tiled its bathroom back in the 20s, had its original builder/owner had the money. We went to a shop in Brisbane's inner suburbs that specialises in bathrooms for older houses. We met the owner of the shop who carried very definite thoughts on what works in old bathrooms. She turned her nose up in all sorts of ways at anything other than authentic how it was done back thenness. “Sure you could do that if you wanted but it wasn’t how it was done back then” kind of retorts persistently swung back in our suggestions. By the end of an almost two hour visit to her small shop she had managed to insert a purist mentality into our submissive tiled out minds. We wanted to be like her when it came to tiles. We wanted to wear her air of opinionatedness and venture back into the soul destroying string of blando tile shops we had previously been to dropping ‘Tsk Tsks' over all we were shown. At the time I certainly felt liked I loved her.

She helped us decide on a collection of tiles for the bathroom. We ended up choosing white 'subway' style tiles for the walls. These were to be edged by a black border, contain a bottle green feature strip, and have some pencil lines in there too. The floor was to be black and white checkerboard look on an angle. We had reservations about all this. These tiles were not cheap and the look of the times dictated that we used more of them. They go up the wall about nipple height all the way around the bathroom, even in those areas that aren't anywhere near wall water.Despite the price we were relieved. It was like we were letting the house decide on something for a change. It was about time it pitched in with some suggestions, we were getting tired of making all the big decisions

Part of the process involved us explaining to the lady in the shop the layout of our bathroom. It is a small room with two French doors taking up three quarters of the bathroom wall that borders the deck. These are the way in and let in so much morning light one thinks one is showering outdoors. Working around these doors meant that the hand basin had nowhere else to go other than directly under the window. This basin position made the window look like a mirror. Not how it was it done in a long shot but a bloody nice idea we think. I would much prefer to look out over a secluded corner of the property instead of my unflattering collection of early morning teeth cleaning expressions.

So a few words on cost and DIY ease. Well I can't tile. Never tried but I know that I have no patience and that my eye for fine work is permanently shut so we decided to employ someone to do it. I did prepare the room though. I laid the villaboard stuff around the walls and floor. I screwed and glued it into the floor as someone said that nails can lift. I nailed and glued it to the walls. Tricky work when lining up holes for pipes and drains but satisfying overall. I was then going to apply the waterproofing to this work but found out that one has to carry a license to do such things. Plus we required this very someone to sign a form that had to be part of our council approval process to move in. The tiler was great and the end result is great. We just have to paint a bit here and there and finish placing some cover strips on the ceiling. There is no rush for this type of work though. Function first, trimming later.

By the way the bathroom didn't take two years to complete as the date on this post would suggest. I am just very late in writing about it. The next few posts will suffer the same misrepresentation I'm afraid. Things will catch up again soon after that though.

Missing Comments

2010-03-23T20:37:00.005+11:00

Lately I have been preparing some more posts to put up here and I noticed that all the past comments have gone missing. I have no idea why they went or where they went. Maybe they thought they could be of better use commenting on someone else's blog. If so I hope they return when they're done. Until then I offer my apologies to those whose comments are among them.

Ooh I just noticed that they are all back now. Strange. Weird blog business. Carry on.

Still Here

2009-09-25T20:41:00.002+10:00

Hello again all those interested in the hidden costs of restless houses and beyond. I am dropping a quick line to inform that I am still here despite the 6 month break in proceedings. There has been a lot of activity to update on. The arrival of a second daughter in April has distracted my attention from the demands of the conventions associated with blogging. I promise to be back soon with a series of interesting bits and pieces relating to the house and the things around it. Thanks for reading.

22 - Another Picture Break

2009-04-14T19:11:00.011+10:00

A friend of mine who sews things (her blog is mentioned off to the left... oh and here it is hopping through branches) recently came to stay with us and took some photos. I think you will agree that they are rather stunning.

Also about 5 weeks ago we moved into the house. The barn was driving us crazy and we wanted to be setup in the house before the new baby came along. The kitchen and bathroom have adequate temporary measures in place. When we get them done we will go for final council approval. Keep reading, those that still do, and I'll let you know what happens there.

The house now

Misty morning view from the breakfast nook window

All of us, just north of the house, with the barn in the background.

21 - The Solar Hot Water System

2009-04-12T17:09:00.025+10:00

While I am shamelessly plugging products with free abandon, I'd like to record my admiration for the Apricus evacuated tube solar hot water system we had installed some months ago. This thing is an absolute gem - so far. We got the 250 litre 20 tube system. We were used to living with a 50 litre electric system in the shed for the last three years. So 250 litres should be ample.

The style of laborious deliberation we have honed throughout this entire house experience was deployed when we were considering the solar hot water system. Hours of reading, questioning and misguided assumption fueled heated discussions with each other went into this decision and I think I can safely say that in the end we did the right thing.

To sum up this research in a few words, we went for the evacuated tube system because of its efficiency claims and its trouble free frost proof-ness. The flat panel systems that were frost free were potentially unsafe to roof collected water supplies such as ours. There is some additive in their that could leak if the unit was damaged in any way. One would have to isolate that part of the roof's water collection. We weren't prepared to do this. Now on to efficiency, I guess in the end all those diagrams on tube promotional material depicting arrows being emitted from the sun and hitting tubes at various angles won me over. Testimonials claiming the lack of need to turn on the water system's boosting despite 'grey days' also cheerfully chimed in until I was sold. We found a fairly local plumber who specialises in Apricus installation and it was up and going in half a day.

We have been using hot water in the house now for 6 weeks and so far I have not turned on the electric booster. It has been great. Over the last few weeks we have had a lot of rainy days with none or very little direct sun light. The water went down in temp to just warm enough for a shower on the third grey day. With winter coming along soon I am interested to see if this performance will change. Now, yes, perhaps I will stubbornly insist that we have cold showers before any boosting is done in this house, but I am still keen to find out if we will make it through.

The one downside to this system is cost. I thought before purchasing that we would be eligible for a raft of rebates that would take the pain out of the $3978 punch in the pocket. The installation cost was $800 and was perfect. We got RECS back of $989 which helped. So all up the system cost $3789. I thought we could get a further $1000 from the Federal Government and about $600 from the NSW state government because in theory we were upgrading an old system. It came with the house. However in many respects what we are doing here is considered a new house and does not attract certain upgrade rebates. Oh well. At least we still have the first home owners' grant up our sleeve.

We chose the Apricus over the Hills brand simply because it was cheaper and it came with a 20 tube sytem rather than 22. We have a lot of sun where we are and anything over 20 is really overkill. Apricus has wonderful after sales service with technicians on hand almost 24/7 to answer any questions or concerns. Fantastic.

Here it is on the roof

20 - The Composting Toilet

2009-04-09T20:56:00.004+10:00

Whoa that plumbing post was a bit dense on second read. Sorry for that. I will resist the urge to slice great chunks of detail from its girth in the hope that someone somewhere will find its intricacies useful at sometime. However, I will endeavour to rein in the ambitiousness of this post, as it could get out of hand considering the topic and my well established infatuation with it.

I have already talked about our purchase of the Nature–Loo composting toilet and my reasons for wanting one. I remember blabbing on about taking responsibility for one’s own poo and what not. All this is still relevant and I stand by it. I took longer than first anticipated to get around to the installation and I am taking much longer than expected to represent that experience here in writing. Nearly four months after the first long drop was heard ending with a thud I am now recounting the events leading up to it. I do apologise for the delay, but I have discovered that penning this blog’s paragraphs is a pass time that, though very enjoyable, cannot be forced. I am enticed to the keyboard by an unpredictable chain of events, moods and inclinations. All of which combine in similar but very different ways to produce the words you are reading now. Sigh. Now to put these to the best use I best be describing the toilet. Chop Chop … or more aptly… Drop Drop, let’s go.

Some posts back I outlined the beginnings of a transformation for the house’s bathroom. Remember. We moved the bathroom to the laundry off the back deck and are in the process of converting the room it left behind into a study or third bedroom. During this move we considered including the toilet in the new bathroom, but thought it best to give it its own space. This decision was mostly preference and practicality but a little bit was uncertainty. I had read about the no smell claims of the composting toilet but wasn’t going to bet the offensive odour free life that I mostly enjoy now on them. So a semi outdoor toilet in its own room seemed like a safe idea at the time. In hindsight this concern need not have been one, more on that in a bit.

The bits and pieces that arrived with the toilet are many. A lot of them are bits of conventional plumbing fittings that have been altered and fashioned into some toilet facilitating form. There are various size PVC pipe fittings with slits and holes and additions. These were not on any promotional material I perused before purchase. I guess if they were my thrifty, industrious, though clumsy mind would have conjured ways to build my own composting crapper for much less than the 2000 plus clams I parted with. Then again, mine would not have met certain standards and wouldn’t pass the final house inspection. Nature-Loo is approved in all, or nearly all, Australian States, I think. Anyway I got the bits, read the instruction booklet and set to work. There was nothing particularly special about the installation, it went smoothly enough. The hard part for me was the vent pipe. The high set nature of the back of the house meant that the 100mm pvc pipe was over 7 metres long. This was a tricky feat for a man who is new to plumbing and grossly deficient in local mates dishing out labour flavoured favours.

The basic set up is a pedestal attached to a chute. This chute is about three metres in our case. The chute leads to a chamber with a false bottom for liquids to drip through and leave via a flexible hose. This liquid can run into a mini gravel trench and then seep into the ground or, for us, be plumbed into the drain pipe leading to the grey water system. The solids are stored in the chamber until about 4-5-6 months when it is full. Then you swap the chamber for an empty one and leave the full one sit and compost for another 4-5-6 months. Then you empty it by burying the contents or spreading them somewhere as per your local council guidelines.

Both the in service and out of service chamber are plumbed in for excess liquids

Alright so the question on everyone’s nose upon hearing an intention on composting poo is usually, “but what about the smell?” Well there isn’t any. In fact it smells better than a normal flush toilet. You can go in straight after someone who is notorious for leaving an enduring toilet presence and smell absolutely nothing. This fact rests high on the solo shoulders of the small fan which sits in the base of the vent pipe. This fan draws air through the chamber and pushes it up the vent pipe beyond the roof line. At first my pipe was not long enough (ahem…) and every now and then we would be greeted by a fruity waft while sitting on the back deck. I added a metre and all is now fine. The manual states that the vent pipe should be 600mm above the highest point of the roof. At first I thought this was overkill. Later I found out that drafts and circular currents are produced when breezes hit obstacles like roofs. therefore, when talking toilet vent pipes, the smell can be pushed downwards. This must have happened to us. Considering the fan is run on electricity and it needs to be on all the time, blackouts could easily bring a whole new dimension to inconvenience. Without the fan smells can leave the pedestal and fill the toilet room and beyond. Keeping the toilet seat lid shut helps, so does having a good compost process and, in our case, having the toilet away from the main house.

The vent pipe

OOH OOH STOP THE GLOWING WORDS ON THEIR WAY TO THE PRESS.

While capturing my love for the composting toilet here with sentences, we have encountered a problem. Vinegar flies have taken over. They have been getting into the chamber and are now in great abundance. This should pose no real threat to the effectiveness of the toilet it’s just they fly out by the dozen when we open the toilet lid. Fortunately for us the toilet is outside the house. The manual offers a few suggestions but does not convey complete confidence in any one of them. I’ll keep trying a few things and keep posting. This slight inconvenience has taken a little sheen of my admiration of the Nature-Loo but, considering its ultra elevated position in my held esteem, it didn't move much.

19 - The Plumbing

2009-02-10T19:24:00.000+11:00

I don’t think mere words, no matter how eloquent or precise, could adequately convey the experience of getting all of the plumbing done for the house. I can only write about it now, so late in the game, because it is almost finally finished. Much of the time was burnt up in the search for a plumber that would take on the job after reading the waste treatment report outlining the intricacies involved with the grey water. For those new to my ramblings, the house’s waste system will consist of a dry composting toilet and a simple septic system for grey water. Only due to the unholy matrimony between our house site and council requirements, we could not have the septic leech field trench business near the house as it would have been too close to gullies (watercourses). There was one spot but upon closer investigation following a heap of rain we discovered it contained a spring. The alternative we decided upon was to have the water leave the septic tank via a sump pump and travel some 130 meters down a hill and up again to be connected to our existing trench that is attached to the septic that is attached to the shed that is what we now live in. This alternative suits us better in the end as we do not have to accommodate a large leech field near the house where we want to plant things and we don’t need to pay for new trenches and stuff to be dug.

So the details of all this were laid out in a rather wordy, numbery, and somewhat costly, report. We then gave this report to three different fairly local plumbers for quoting. Here’s where time started to slip away, slowly at first and then steadily increasing in both speed and intensity, much like an animated snowball. We didn’t think about this quoting process much before adhering to it as a logical course of action for people outside of town with a big job to pursue. Preparing a complex quote can be a lot of work for a busy plumber, and then there is no guarantee that their will be any money in it for them at the end. There are all sorts of bits and pieces to price. Many short weeks, awkward phone calls and empty promises went by and still no quote came in. We finally found out from one plumber that while he was pricing up some of the materials in a shop another plumber had a copy of our report and was doing the same. The second plumber said he was given the job from one of the other plumbers we had asked because he was too busy to take it on. Anyway it all ended in plumber distrust. The ones that were too busy were too busy and the one that would have done the job was put off after discovering that we had apparently asked every Tom, Dick and Harry with a pocket full of thread tape to submit a quote. This process of hearing nothing back went on for a few months. We were torn between demanding a response and potentially putting plumbers off by such a demand. In hindsight we should not have insisted on quotes for the septic system. The “I know a good plumber” in small towns is as good as a quote. We should have showed faith in any locally referred plumber who expressed an interest in taking on the job.

In the end we pursued a referral from our neighbour who knew a plumber through family links living on the Gold Coast, an hour’s drive away. He came in and had a look and said, despite not having done many septic hookups before he would take on the job. After seemingly offending the local plumbers we signed up our Gold Coast saviour. To help him out I started to source some of the materials he would need for the grey water system.

This decision sparked the second stage of snowballing time loss. It turns out this plumber was also rather busy and managed to spread the plumbing of the house, including the septic, over 3 months. There was about 8-9 days work in it. I guess in many regards this did not matter too much as we still had many little things to complete before we can move in. However, our anxiety grew as the time passed for we had a huge tank to fill and our rainy season was fast approaching without down, or storm, water pipes to welcome it. I am happy to say that the entire plumbing job is now almost finally finished as I write these words. There are just some fit off jobs to do after we make a kitchen and sort the bathroom out. We have a temporary hook up for the bathroom basin and the shower. I will discuss these with lashings of detail in a future post.

A Few Words on the Waste Treatment System
This is all completed now but not before a couple of minor complications. The first was the confusion over the tanks for the grey water system. The report stated that we needed two tanks that were both at least 1800 L. One was for the waste water to go into and then overflow into the second that will house a sump pump. At certain fullness the pump would come alive and pump water to the trenches I mentioned earlier. For our particular site these tanks needed to be plastic. I could only find a 1600L or a 3000L tank. I almost begged and pleaded with the consultant who wrote the report to allow me to use the 1600L size tank. “What’s 200 litres between friends?” I asked. He wouldn’t budge. His reasoning was that he had to allow a capacity determined by our potential household number of people, in case of pump failure. So if the pump breaks down we would have a few days to organise for it to be replaced before the second tank overflowed. Fair enough but we don’t use much water. I suspected that his figures were probably based on well washed folk on town water before restrictions. Anyway I was left with no choice but to buy two 3000L septic tanks. While we were over capitalising I figured I may as well get a baffle put in one, so I did. And remember all this was only for grey water. There will be no black water in the system because of the composting toilet. One consolation though is that if we ever sell the house and for some crazy reason the new owner does not want to use the composting toilet, then they will have the capacity to tackle their poo with a flush toilet and a septic tank system – boring.

The septics with the drain from the house feeding into them

The trench containing the polypipe on its way to our current residence - the shed

I did get to stray from the report a little which granted me the rebellious fix I was looking for earlier. It suggested using 32mm pipe to carry the water to the trench. Considering the friction loss one gets when pumping up hill over a certain distance the man who sold me the sump and I thought 40 mm would be better. So this is what we used. Ahhhh. Also the report stated that this poly pipe should feed into the end of the existing slotted 90mm pipe running through the trench and be drilled with 5mm holes and capped off. It didn’t say how far up the slotted pipe the poly pipe should go. In the end I thought it best to run in just over half way, which is where the shed septic tank tees into it. My neighbour thought it best not to cap the poly pipe completely in case of blockages in the 5mm holes. Fair enough. But then I noticed during one of many test runs that there wasn’t enough resistance to push much water out of these holes. My solution was to reduce the outlet down to a quarter of its size. This gave more resistance and hence flow to the holes and was still large enough to dodge the likelihood of blockages. Sorry for all the details, done now though. The reason I took on this job was because the plumber had left it for ages and the exposed end of the septic pipe, plus the last few metres of open trench were getting all grassed over and annoying.

The Tank Hook Up
Our plumber saw fit to leave the hooking up of the water tank to the house gutters until last. When this was suggested before he began work I was cool with it, however, after the work started and the time between his visits spilled over from clocks to calendars to seasons, we were getting anxious. We already had to buy one load of water to stabilise the tank and help test the other plumbing work. Despite the gutting effect this had on the old wallet, it barely made a dent in the tank’s capacity. We did not want to do this again in a hurry. Turns out we didn’t have to. The plumber returned for 2 and half days work in fairly quick succession, well, quick when considering the pace he had already set for himself. The storm water hook up is now finished and as I type, no, madly tap at the keyboard with two fingers as if my hands have been replaced by woodpeckers, the tank is full. It has only been a few weeks. What joy. Thank you rain. It does not take much to fill a tank when all the down pipes are hooked up to it. In this case about 135mm.

All Up
The bill for the plumbing came in at rather full figured. After considering the things I bought such as the storm water pipe, the septic tanks, the sump pump, the pressure pump and the 140 metres of pressure pipe along with the excavation work to bury the septics, running the drain in and burying the pipe up the hill, the total cost for the plumbing was about $13 660. I am very happy with the work, I like to admire it.

18 - The Back Stairs

2008-11-16T19:39:00.000+11:00

One of the main things required for a recently moved house that has landed on high stumps is a set of stairs. We needed them to travel from the back deck down to the ground in the direction of the future kitchen gardens. This is required for many reasons but the most important being to facilitate those last minute dashes in the dark to collect parsley, basil, coriander, thyme, curry tree leaves or some other crucial addition to an already cooking meal. In keeping with the style of the house we wanted these back stairs to be made from wood. With everything else going on we hadn’t given a high priority to stairs until we got a phone call from one of the carpenters we tried to entice out here to work on the roof and the front verandah all those months ago. He fixed up a moved house down the road and so we were keen to have him look in on our little adventure, but alas, he was way too busy. His phone call, expressing his sort of availability had us scrambling for something for him to do, as most things were done and mostly by us. Then it hit us - stairs. We can’t build wooden stairs. They need to be straight and square and safe, all the things that my style of work doesn’t do well.

So stairs it was. He came along and asked us what we wanted. We went with elaborate. Rather than having the stairs running straight down from a platform attached to the deck we preferred them coming down from the deck and then hitting an independent platform and doing a right angle down to the ground. A little pricier this way but who’s counting? Oh the side of this blog has a running budget so I guess this blog is counting. Anyway, figure of speeches aside, we thought it would look and feel and work better so that is what we went with. The carpenter squeezed the job in over a few weeks, I think it took about 4 days work in the end. We love the result. We will paint them in the next few days. I think the pictures say a lot so I’ll stop writing except for the cost, which came in at around $5500. For the joy they are bound to bring I consider this very worth it.

17 - The Catch Up

2008-11-13T20:16:00.000+11:00

Alright time for a catch up. I have been awfully slack with updating this blog. There are a few reasons for this the main one is of course that I have been up to my eyes in house related activities for the last few months. Every weekend is filled up by filling the gaps left by dwindling finances and busy trades people on other jobs. We have been doing all sorts of things we would have previously preferred other more seemingly skilled people to tackle. Here is an update post or two or three that will hopefully and adequately bring my very patient, yet no doubt dwindling, audience up to speed with the goings on of the last 2 months or so.

The Roof and Tie-Downs

Following close behind the verandah work was that done with the roof. We finally found someone local who said they would do the elusive ‘tie downs’. These two words had done their best at keeping any excitement on our parts over the whole ‘we have just moved a nice house onto a nice property’ well under control. For months this concept of tie downs and exactly what they meant for us and our house consumed our thoughts and made for confusing and awkward conversations with a collection of carpenters, handymen, relatives and friends. We finally found someone who first knew what needed to be done to improve the wind rating of the roof, second could fit in such a job over a few weekends and third was a really nice person. He and his colleague started work. They discovered that the roof needed more then they first thought. It was old and required more batons and other supporting bits and pieces. Then they discovered that the house movers had not done the best of jobs in placing the roofing iron back on. It was all crooked and the ridge capping did not fit well. The end result was that they stayed for a week and fixed everything roof wise up. They strengthened and straightened the roof, replaced the ridge capping, and patched up the gutters. We were happy with the result and noticed a big difference. The cost was $4400 -hefty but necessary.

Vermin Proofing

Following the roof work the house was left with a number of gaps between the top of the external walls and the roof. There was about a 2 inch gap running along the north side of the house. The rest of the gaps here and there were due to missing or damaged weatherboards from the rough and ready house move. Some of these I located around the house and nailed them back into place. With others I found that I had to buy some replacement weather boards whose profile was similar to those on the house already. Anyway when this job was finally done we could begin on replacing the ceiling and insulating.

The Ceiling and Insulation

Well it looks like we finally found a use for plasterboard – the ceiling. I know, I know, what about my strong feelings? Well a few factors worked in together to enhance plasterboard’s election campaign. Firstly, when painted, it looks like the fibro sheeting that was removed from the ceiling in the first place. I kept all the cover strips that covered the joins in the fibro and we wanted to recreate the exact look. Secondly the plasterboard it is so cheap it hurts not to consider it, considering the diminishing pile of funds we have. We got enough for the entire house, delivered on site, for just under $800. And thirdly it will be quick to put up. Time has become an increasingly important element in this whole house business. The longer it seems to take the less we feel we have to spare.

It is a lot easier to install ceiling insulation as the ceiling goes in. Because of this we had to up our decision making speed on what to use. This was quite a process. We were just going to go with fiberglass bats because of the cost and light weight etc. Then we were turned off fiberglass as we were suspicious of its long term health affects and it’s itchy. Then we thought we’d get wool. Then we noticed that the wool was expensive. Then we also noticed that it had to have a large amount of polyester in it to keep its spring. Then we thought why not cut out the wool and just go with the polyester. Then we did just that. The product we chose was Green Stuf .

Alright back to the ceiling. I employed the services of a local handyman and hired a wind up lifty thing from a building hire place and went to work one weekend. Between the three of us we got the lot up. I’m glad we hired the plasterboard lift we would not have been able to do it otherwise considering the height of the ceilings, the size of the rooms, and the limited number of our limbs. The thing that burnt up the time was that we wanted to cover the joins in the cover strips we kept in the same patterns that were there before. To do this we had to cut every piece of plasterboard that went up, length ways. Now we are left with very little plastering work so I guess it evens out. As this goes to two finger type, we have not yet attempted to attach the recycled cornices or cover strips. More on that as it happens.

Moving and Separating the Toilet and the Bathroom

Before this though, we decided to move the bathroom to where the laundry was on the back deck. We were going to do this in a few years time but with the news of another baby on the way we thought we’d do it now. This will free up a room inside the house for activities such as sewing, office work and things like that. In about 8 years that room will probably become a child’s bedroom.

The laundry was large enough to split into a separate toilet and bathroom. We prefer that in a house. One need not poo where one bathes. Jan built an internal wall and we cut a hole out of the external wall with a circular saw to match a nice narrow secondhand door we purchased for $40. So now we have a bathroom and a toilet opening out onto the deck. It seems rather nice to leave the house momentarily, cross a small part of the deck and enter the bathroom or toilet room. The laundry had been lined in asbestos sheeting that was removed before the move. This made things easier as far as building walls and cutting into other walls goes.

The wall builder

The wall

We decided to line the walls of the bathroom and toilet with VJ paneling. It is about 9mm thick and 1200mm by 2400mm and cost about 55 clams each. We needed nine. The walls were insulated before the paneling went on and the whole thing is being done at the moment on free weekends along with tens of other projects. For these few walls we used fibreglass batts.

Meanwhile I removed all the floor and wall tiles in the old bathroom, which, turns out, was always a bathroom. This was an awful, awful job. With a demolition mallet in one hand, a crowbar in the other, and asbestos proof mask and suit on, in case the sheeting under the tiles warranted such armoury, I methodically bashed and bashed and peeled and broke my way through. I could hardly move my arms for the next week and, for the first time in my 32 years, felt I was getting old.

16 - The Putting Back Together of the Front Verandah

2008-08-24T19:03:00.001+10:00

After too many months of looking across at the house from our shed and seeing the missing part of the front verandah we were more than ready to rectify things. We first thought we would need help in this potentially awkward job so tentatively searched for carpenters and the like to step up. We quickly discovered that it is almost impossible to organise someone to help out with such things. Everyone is so damn busy. After a substantial period of time, characterised by the silent lack of returned phone calls, we again took matters into our own, unskilled, bruised, reluctant yet thrifty, hands. We began to sort through the pile of debris that was once the missing part of the front verandah. Some of the pieces of wood that we now wanted to use were not thought of that way when they were disassembled. As a result they were cut incorrectly and in odd places ensuring that their patching up would provide quite the quandary.

As it turned out this fact was not the only challenge. In my haste to dismantle the verandah, I failed to number any pieces of decking, joist, bearer, roofing iron, fascia and the rest. This would have saved a lot of time in the putting back together stage – a lot of time. Over its lifetime the materials that went together to make the verandah and its associated roof had bonded to become a new single entity that transcended inconsequential sole considerations such as square-ness. Many of the individual pieces of wood were twisted, warped and/or bent. So they sort of had to go back in the same place from which they came. Matching up paint lines and nail holes shed a tiny amount of light on our slow stabs in the dark at working out where everything used to be.

These posts are very heavy

Another issue emerged early on when we found that the bearers did not quite fit as well as they should have on the fresh new stumps that stood there waiting for them. We had to bolt a strong bracket to the top of the stump which increased its footprint on the bearer. This seemed to work rather well at the time. Let’s hope it keeps on working.

Jan's dad and I

Jan’s parents came to stay in their caravan on the property. Her father helped us out with the verandah while her mother took on baby minding duties. The three of us took about five full days to fumble our way through the issue raised above plus many more. Parts of the finished product are not quite square, a fact delaying the reinstallation of the wooden louvres seen above on the title of this blog. We are still thinking things through there. Though, all in all we are thrilled to bits to have finished this rather unique part of the house. And, as suspected it looks wonderful here. One day soon it will provide a nice viewing platform to the kitchen gardens that will sprawl out from the house to the north.

Finally the house is back to the way it was pre move - at least from the outside and from a distance anyway

15 - The Other Progress

2008-07-29T13:34:00.000+10:00

Over the last month or so we have been busy with house related things, well as busy as we can be while trying to entertain a 16 month old daughter.

Asbestosy Nail Removal
When the asbestos sheeting ceiling lining was removed by the slap dash asbestos removers they left behind most of the nails that held the stuff up many of which still sporting little chunks of asbestos. Nails were not included in the quote. We missed that upon perusal. So a few weeks ago we suited up in beanies, gloves, spray bottles and asbestos dust masks and removed every single nail. This was a somewhat satisfying 4 hour job, though regrettable considering its very existence was due to our oversight. Oh well. You learn from such things. The nails would have had to come out anyway for the new ceiling lining.

Composting Toilet
Finally after years and years of longing we bought a waterless composting toilet. We decided to go with Nature-Loo because I had heard good things about them. I loved the idea of not using valuable water to flush a toilet, especially when that water is from a tank or dam. I still love the water saving characteristic of composting toilets, however, with the flush toilet in the shed we use dam water from a permanently overflowing spring fed dam. This fact somewhat removed the potency from my toilet water saving needs. Though, of course, it still feels great saving water – no matter what that water’s perceived quality or quantity. In addition to this reasoning there has emerged another. Our current septic system attached to the shed is an older style tank and trench system. It has worked fine for the three years or so we have been here permanently. When discussing waste treatment systems with the relevant consultant designing our new system for the house, we decided to go with a similar system by the house to deal with grey water. Because we were including a composting toilet, we found out that we can minimise our trench space significantly by not using it for black (poo) water. This was good news, especially after discovering that the suggested trench site had a spring under it and would not have worked as a trench site for very long at all. The solution to this was to pump the grey water from tanks attached to the house over to the existing shed trench some 120 meters away. Considering the water is only grey, this existing trench would not even need to be extended. Less money all round. No need for more trenches just a tank or two, 120 metres worth of 1-2 inch polypipe and a sump pump. Oh and a composting toilet.

We were always going to incorporate a composting toilet into whatever waste treatment system we decided upon for the house. In many ways this early decision strongly dictated what we should do for the rest of the waste water system. Deciding to take responsibility for one’s own poo is very liberating. It means that you do not have to pay ongoing costs for some other process to do the job for you. It is crazy when you think about it. Those other processes are things like the Biolytix system which recycles waste water so it can be used again in certain household applications. Sounds like a great idea and of course it is in the dry times many people face now. The problem for me with these is the ongoing regular maintenance costs involved. I won’t wear this. And don’t have to because we will only have grey water to deal with.

For those without town sewage connection and a strong aversion to the idea of a waterless toilet, I guess you need to ask yourself how much this aversion is going to cost me. Maybe try and get over it. Your pocket would surely appreciate it.

Anyway, we bought the Nature Loo ‘Classic 1000’ with two chambers. I will probably install it myself in the coming weeks. Watch this blog for the fun and games that is bound to bring. I will also discuss the grey water system more when it arrives.

Water Tank
As you are well aware by now dear reader, we rely on tank and dam water here on the property. We currently have a 23700 Litre (5000Gal) tank at the moment attached to the shed. It has been great. We decided we would leave this attached and purchase another bigger tank for the house. This is what we did. It is a 34000 Litre (7500Gal) tank and after being delivered and resting on its side for a couple of weeks was moved into place by my neighbour with the diggers.

Tank, baby and I

We placed this monster of a tank on the south east of the house. It is only a metre away and dug into the slope enough so that its inlet is low enough to have down pipes from the gutters run down the house under the floor and across into the tank. Currently we have underground pipes going from the shed and back up into the tank some 15 metres away. I don’t really like this method as the water sits in the pipes underground in between rain and I can never be bothered ‘bleeding’ these pipes as often as I should.

Tank in final resting place

Electricity
This was pretty straight forward and probably does not require a paragraph but seeing as I am in the business of providing paragraphs, here it is. We first thought we would have to run electrical wires overhead from the shed to the house as there is a wet gully between them. Before getting a quote for this, I talked to my neighbour who assured me that it was easier and cheaper to go under the gully. I didn’t think such a thing would be allowed. It is and so that is what we did. The metre box remained on the shed and 130 metres of conduit covered cable was dug some 60 cm underground. Where it crossed the gully floor we had a small spring fed pond dug and crossing made for a nice leisurely path from house to shed. So the electricity is now hooked up. We will wait until the ceiling is in to have lights. This means we can have a crack at putting the missing half of the front deck and its associated roof together.

14 - The Crookedness

2008-07-04T19:40:00.000+10:00

Well it has now been a little over three months since the house arrival. The movers had officially finished with the house about four weeks ago. They managed to stretch 5-6 days worth of work over two months. This is not because they work incredibly slow but rather that they are very busy and got tied up with other jobs after the stumpers had finished off here. At the moment the house looks very worse for wear, no make that worse for move. It looked great for wear. Built in 1926 and still looking wonderful, then we came along and roughed it all up by moving it. Sigh. I do remember someone telling us early on that the appearance of a freshly moved house conjures a little nervous shock in the new owners. This has happened with us. The house looks like it was thrown by a tornado. I half expected to see striped stockinged witch legs sticking out from under it, only the whole thing is off the ground on stumps of varying heights and thus the witch would be safe, you get what I mean though.

After the official “we have finished” cry following the day’s work they returned for after the stumpers pulled stumps as it were, the movers left. We thought “great we can start fixing things up”. To our dismay we noticed that the front of the house looked a bit crooked. The two posts holding up the roof of the front verandah, seen under the title atop of this blog, both went left, rhombus style. Jan, my partner now has a name, took photos of the offending crookedness and sent them to the wife of, and admin arm for, the house mover. About a week and half later he came out to have a look. He wasn’t around when his workers ‘finished off’. To our relief he was agreed that it wasn’t acceptable. We were half expecting an answer similar to “Well these things happen when you move a house, luck of the draw really,… good luck with it and good day sir”.

The crooked front end and baby.

He returned the next day and had discovered that the front of the house was twisted slightly in the opposite direction to that of the back. This needed work. Also there were some significant support pieces missing from the roof trusses. He worked on things for a day and now the house looks finished, as far as our contract with him goes. We are happy with the result though a little peeved at the time it took to achieve it. So all up we have waited quite while for the house to be at the stage it is now, which is not as far as I had envisioned before the process started. Nevertheless we have made some progress in other areas which I shall outline very soon.

13 - Stumped

2008-05-18T08:41:00.002+10:00

I think it is high time that this blog revealed its title track. Here it is.

After a week or so of the house arriving we hadn’t heard anything from the stumpers who were due to work on the stumps. We started to question the assertion from the house movers that they would let the stumpers know of the house’s new found need for permanent stumps. We contacted the stumpers. They didn’t know of the house’s arrival and made arrangements to come out.

We used the time alone with the house to tie ourselves in knots over all sorts of things which we lacked the practical know how of. One of these was a timing issue with the tie downs. These securely attach the roof to the walls and the walls to the floor and the floor to the stumps. On an old house like ours the tie downs were not done and need to be retrofitted before we can receive final approval. We heard that the roof needed to be removed to do the tie down work so the ideal time would be between the roof being temporarily attached and permanently attached. We took this information under our wing and flew off trying to organise someone to do the work. We found this hard. Carpenters and other home improvements people gave us a range of differing impressions into the extent they understood what tie downs were or if we needed to remove all the weatherboards to have them done. We started to melt down a little. Hearing of our growing anguish a friend’s son said he would look at it. We gave him the engineers report only to have him return it to us a few days later suggesting that he would need to drill rods the height of the house down through the struts in the walls all the way around the house at about fifty centimetre intervals. This couldn’t be right. The engineers had told us that it wouldn’t be too hard. In the end our friend’s son politely turned down the job stating it would take too long and be too expensive. Back to square one.

The head stumper was quite a character. When referring to the house’s pending fate, he exclaimed that he’d “get this bitch up on legs”. Strangely from this we knew we were in good hands. We asked him about tie downs, as we knew he was also an engineer. He was great about it all and immediately allayed our fears. He explained that only the top and bottom two weatherboards will have to be removed and a few extra screws and maybe a little bracing be used to fix the internal studs to various things. He also said he would show anyone we got to do the work exactly what was required and he would sign off on the work done ready for approval. This was great news. Now all we had to do was find someone.

The actual stumping didn’t take very long. All the holes were drilled into the ground on the first day. On the second day the concrete was poured and the stumps hung from the house while the concrete dried around them. The next day the stumps were detached from the house and stood strong in their concrete shoes about 50 cm below the house which was still floating above on the temporary stumps. The house movers returned a few days later and lowered the house down onto the steel stumps and joined the house back together again. About a week or so later the stumpers returned and attached some bracing and securely attached each stump to the house. The house movers still have to come back and finish attaching the roof, tidy up the guttering and eaves and remove the makeshift form work propping up the internal ceiling supports.

12 - The Move - Day 3

2008-04-12T14:55:00.001+10:00

The real day 3 was rained out. On the next day, the mover men returned to put the roof up and temporarily tack the tin sheets on. They put them on properly after the house has been lowered down on to the permanent stumps because there is usually a bit of movement in that process.

Just after the roof was finished it poured rain. Here is a picture of the finished for now product taken the next morning.

The house is very high at the moment as there needs to be room underneath for the stumpers to get their hole digger things in. We would like the house to end up nearly a metre lower than it is in this picture. The stumpers are due to come in the next week or so.

11 - The Move - Day 2

2008-04-12T13:59:00.002+10:00

On the start of Day 2 the first half waited patiently for its opposite.

The larger second half arrived about 830 am.

Obviously this second piece's placement is a lock trickier than the first. If they go too far down the slope and past the first piece then lots is lost. The truck is way too heavy to move back up the hill at all while the house is still on the back. Fortunately the trailer is amazing. It moves every which way as it lines the pieces up together. This whole process really impressed me. I watched on both days in awe of the speed, skill and ease with which 5 guys worked on the house. I had never seen a house being delivered before and I couldn't believe they got the thing exactly where we wanted it. Unbelievable. .

10 - The Move - Day 1

2008-04-12T13:25:00.000+10:00

The movers started to prepare the house on Thursday the 3^rd of April. By the Friday afternoon it was cut in half, roof collapsed, on trailers and ready to travel. It then stayed put like this for the weekend. We traveled up to visit friends and check it out.

Just before 8am the next Monday the first half of the house arrived.

The truck had some difffculty getting back out again. My neighbour had to help with both his tractor and digger. It only just worked.

We got to know the first half overnight.

9 - The Hold Up

2008-04-11T18:51:00.000+10:00

Before too long it dawned upon us that April would be arriving soon ready to move a house and we still had not received the go ahead from the council. We had a call from them enquiring about the waste treatment report accompanying our application. In the report we had stated that we would like a waterless composting toilet and a grey water system similar to a normal septic system. This was fine. They just wanted to see the spot where the septic application area (trenches) was going. Since the report was prepared we have had over 820mm of rain falling in just 2 months. All of sudden we discovered a spring right where the application areas was to be. The council man noticed this swallowing his boots as I pointed out the area in question. He said we would need to choose another area. The report would need an amendment done by the mob who prepared it. Fine. I rang the guy and he came back out to choose another spot.

We decided we would pump the grey water over to the existing application area we use now for the shed. We were happy with this because it will be cheaper and not close to the house. He went back to write the report and send it on both to the council and us at the same time. We politely stressed the need for a little haste with all this. We should have dropped the politely because he didn’t apply the haste. He sat on the report for two weeks despite two reminders. This made it impossible for us to receive a formal approval from the council before our deadline. We were starting to worry. The planning consultant we commissioned to smooth this kind of thing over was no help. Not sure what we paid him for now, perhaps the ink in his pen as he filled out our application.

We were concerned for a few reasons. Firstly the movers were booked in for the second week of April. They are very busy people. If we did not take this booking we would have to wait about another month. They required council approval to start work on the house a few days before the move. Secondly we thought the house had to be moved from the block by early April or, as you may remember dear reader, we would be hit with a further $10 000.

Turns out we didn’t need to worry. We had layers of cushioning step up under pressure. Firstly the house now did not have to be off the block until the end of the year. Developers are slow like that. We rang the council and discovered that they had the required amended report and everything was set to go. It would take a few weeks to be formally approved but they pretty much gave us verbal approval. We passed this on to the movers. That was good enough for them. Full steam ahead, no…full noxious carbon monoxide ahead, no…behind. Either way, let’s go.

8 - The Preparation

2008-04-09T21:01:00.002+10:00

Once the development application was done and the major contracts with the removers and the stumpers sewn up, we had about two months to wait and prepare. The house was vacated a lot sooner than we were told it would be. We were under the impression it wouldn’t be until a few weeks before the move in April. It wasn’t. The house had been emptied of people and things just before Christmas, which means we could do things there, like take the photos you see around these words.

Asbestos Removal
The first thing to do was to have the asbestos fibre sheeted ceilings throughout the house removed. The Tweed Shire Council will not allow any asbestos product to enter its boundaries. Fair enough. We got a couple of quotes. They were between $2500 and $3000 - licensed asbestos people charge big money. We went with the cheapest. Because the asbestos sheets were mostly on the inside of the house, their removal would hopefully not leave the impression that the place was being taken apart or something. We were a little concerned about leaving the house unattended for 4-5 months in the city. We feared looters or squatters or arsonists or historians or wood fanciers or claw foot bath fanciers or nice deck fanciers or pretty much everyone else in the world would somehow notice the house was empty and strike.

The ceilings have a lot of decorative wood attached to them in different patterns for each room. We asked for this to be kept if possible as some of it may be able to be used for the same purpose afterwards.

The job was done. However, in our desire to go with the cheapest quote, we failed to notice that ‘nail removal’ was not mentioned. As a result they weren’t. The other company had stated they would remove them, but the one we went with did not. So in many areas there is a ten cent shape worth of asbestos sheeting surrounding the nails. We will have to bear this in mind when working on the house later. The total cost was $2750. Substantial - though not too bad.

All the wood was left in piles in the room it was removed from. There was a lot of it and some of it had split. If we do not use it for the ceilings then I’m sure it will be used for something else one day.

The Removal of Part of the Front Verandah
In New South Wales they have a rule which stipulates that houses traveling on trucks can be no wider than five and half metres. In Queensland it’s eight metres. Damn. The cut for our house will look the best if it is done under the skirting board along the edge of the lounge/dining room. This leaves about one and half metres of left hand side front verandah sticking out over the NSW width limit. Damn. We thought that perhaps the removers could dog leg the cut a bit to incorporate the verandah better. They weren’t prepared to. Damn. In the contract with them it states that the one and half metres would be cut off and left behind. Hoover Dam.

The verandah section in question here is a little tricky. It has its own piece of peeked roofing perpendicular to the main entrance peek.

We first thought we would need to hire someone to take the section apart and then travel two hours down here later on to put it back together. Finding someone to do this in the current busy building climate would turn out to be near impossible. After ringing a few people, we decided the person taking it apart does not have to be the same person who puts it back together again. It is not that complicated. We could take it apart, hire a truck, move it in bits, store it until after the house is all put back together and then get someone to work on it, or maybe I'll give it a crack.

A friend of mine in Brisbane, who does a bit of cabinet making and has a lot of tools and things, agreed to help pull the section apart. He would charge me for his time but at a very cheap rate. So I took a few days off work and went to work.

We had to remove a lot more than just one and half metres because we did not want to cut the nice balustrades, or the great silky oak fixed shade louvres, in half. The dismantling was not too bad. The two 200mm by 200mm hard wood posts were very heavy and tested our sheer strength and endurance. We passed but only just. The process introduced me to a new favourite tool, the single handed demolition hammer (insert growl sound here).

In the end the cost for the verandah removal was about $695. Twelve hours of my friend’s help was $300. It was $250 to hire the truck and the rest was eaten up in extra tools and things.

Placement

One of the largest issues leading up to the move for us was where exactly to move the house to. Our 15 acre block has lots of undulating hills. Together they sort of make up a basic bowl shape with a dam at the bottom resembling the few spoonfuls of milk left after cereal. The shed we live in now sits on top of the hill that mostly faces south. There is a small part of it that travels down the north from the shed to the boundary. This is where we grow food at the moment. The hill we chose for the house mainly faces east. It runs down from the road and west boundary. This hill was chosen because it feels like the middle of the property, it has great views of Wollumbin (Mt Warning) and it has gullies on either side that add both north and south aspects for growing various things. The hill choice was easy. We would face the back deck towards the east to soak up both the thawing morning sun and the great view. This leaves the living areas of the house facing the north, which is ideal.

We want to surround the house with veggie gardens, fruit trees, chooks and some ornamental trees and shrubs. Because of this we decided to place the house more to the south side of the hill as it opens up the north side to grow more things on.

We figure that one day we may want to build a room under the house. Thinking ahead is rather handy for this because houses are heavy. Before the house arrives we thought we would get my neighbour, who owns diggers and things, to cut into the hill a tad. It would just be enough to open up the space under the back deck and maybe one day we could build in a room there. I wasn’t keen on the house looking really high from the ground.

All these considerations proved a little hard to make room for. We got back in the site surveyors so they could peg out ‘solar north’ (about 12 degrees off magnetic) for one side of the house. This gave us a starting point. The pegs suited the sun but not quite the view. We compromised by swinging the house site slightly back towards the south. I read on the home technical manual site (link to the left) that variations in site orientation were alright for passive solar orientation as long these fell within a 15 degree difference. We made sure of this, swinging the house pegs about 10 degrees back.

7 - The Process Begun

2008-03-22T15:44:00.001+11:00

Where do I begin in unpacking this mixed bag of fun and adventure? Well the first thing we had to do before paying the rest of the deposit on the house was to get a building inspection done. This involves an ex builder, now inspector, walking around the house and kicking its tyres - so to speak. For this we paid 260 clams. He said the place looks fine now but who knows what it may be like after being cut in half and moved? Cheers for that. Along with this we also had a pest inspection done by the same company, it cost $240 and revealed no unwanted guests or things that eat houses.

The house has to be moved from its current site by early April 2008. If it isn’t we will be slogged with a further $10 000 to have it first moved to a yard and then on to our place. This cost is probably represented in the ticket price of the houses you see for sale in removal house lots around South East Queensland. It may be cheaper to have it moved just once from its original site. This was never confirmed but does make sense. Drake have a policy guaranteeing the cost of the house be returned in the event that one’s council application does not get approved. Such a policy offers some comfort because they demand the money for the house pretty much upfront. This process doesn’t wash with many lenders who demand a house on land before committing any of their money. As I have said early, we had to change financial institutions for this project and nab’s late settlement date forced us to temporarily borrow the money for the house from generous parents. All up it took nearly two months to acquire the loan. If readers considering buying a house for relocation take one thing from my words, take sorting out the finance way before you get excited about available houses oh and maybe to use the greeting “What-Ho” more in social situations.

After paying for the house we started gathering all the necessary reports required to accompany our Council Development Application. Because we had a deadline of April we felt a slight sense of urgency around this back in November. We assumed, perhaps wrongly, that we would need the help of a planning consultant to put the application together and sort out any issues with it throughout the approval process. We were a little nervous about the whole deal, and felt like we had to get it right from the start to minimise delays. So we hooked up with a consultant and started gathering the reports he advised were required to accompany our application. In hindsight we probably could have put the application together ourselves and saved about $1000 in consultancy fees, but as I say, back then we were a little anxious.

The reports we required were a soil test, a structural engineer’s report of the house, a contour survey of the house site, an on site waste treatment design report and a floor plan and elevation drawing of the house. We set about setting these up. They all got done but they took a bit longer than I would have liked, falling over into the new year. The cost of each is listed in the “Money Spent” section. We saved on the floor plan because my partner drew it up herself and the elevation drawings could be substituted for photos of the house.

The application was lodged in early January. Part of the cost was a $1400 bond for moving the house via the council’s roads. This will be returned if no road signs and things are damaged by the trucks on the way.

Apparently, the house will be sawn in half by the house movers, taken down in the middle of the night and placed on temporary stumps exactly on its proposed site. The stumps will be quite a lot higher than the permanent ones will be. The house movers then depart as the stumpers come in and match up the new steel stumps to the house and put them all in place. Then the house movers return and lower the house down to rest on the new stumps. At some point in all this they also join the house back together again.

The House Movers
Following the purchase of the house, Drake referred us to a separate house moving company. The first step in making things happen was to find out if the house could be moved to our block. This simply involved a quick reconnaissance mission to ensure the route was acceptable for moving half a house - twice. It was. We were relieved, remembering we only got the house in the first place because walk in deposit man owned a hard to get to block of land.

We booked the house move in for the end of March or early April 2008. This was really the only time they could fit us in, and it happened to suit our deadline, but only just. All we had to do before then was to sign the contract they sent us. Easier said then done. It contained the odd strange clause, some of which we were not prepared to swallow. We just took to it with a pen and made a few changes, such as completely deleting the clause stating that we were responsible for removing and reinstating overhead wires along the truck’s journey. We nervously sent the contract, laden with scribbles and ruled lines, back to them and were pleasantly surprised that they accepted all of the changes. It was as if the contract was the same standard document that they have been pulling out and dusting off for years. They seemed to recognise this fact and were quite prepared to update things. This was a wonderful relief because since receiving the first contract we grew a bit dubious about the house movers. After the contract changes were made, and many silly questions patiently answered, our faith was completely returned, with interest.

A Picture Break

2008-03-12T22:51:00.000+11:00

The site for the house, looking to the east.

Looking at the house site hill from the north

Looking to the north from the house site back over to the shed we live in now

6 - The Blog

2008-03-05T22:51:00.001+11:00

Reading back over the story so far it becomes slightly apparent to my occasionally self deprecating slant that it is a tad opinionated. There are a few almost pompous assertions regarding, say, the wonders of wood, the gloriousness of separate kitchens, the difficultness of kit home company employees, and just how shit hot we must be for scoring a house that matches everything we wanted. With this in mind I feel a qualifier or two needs to be thrown in here.

Before I started writing this blog I knew that we had decided upon the house, it is to be moved in another month from today. This fact may have unconsciously played a heavy hand in editing the telling of the tale. When given the opportunity I think we all have a tendency to become happier with our current lot. Certain aspects of it tend to be held in higher and higher regard as time goes by. We get used to things. For us in the beginning, we really did not know exactly what we wanted in a house. I remember us wanting all sorts of things such as half the house buried in a hill with grass and meadow flowers growing on the roof, walls of glass taking in every view, a completely outdoor kitchen, a tree or two growing up through the middle of the house, and a series of separate buildings for each room with a courtyard linking them. There were so many things that we wanted to incorporate into one house that in many ways we were paralysed. It was kind of like the hundreds of salivating shoppers pushing through the door of a Boxing Day Myer stocktake sale and all getting stuck.

Deciding to relocate a house provided much needed relief. We could focus our interest on one style of house and make it work, intellectually, for our purposes. All the other ‘dream’ houses would remain as such. Our limited budget and circumstances have dictated a housing direction that we have fortunately become very accustomed to and that accustomedness provides the optimistic thread holding this blog together.

So all the elements that I have passed critical judgment over such as plasterboard, aluminium framed windows, carpet and the rest are not really to my taste but if pushed, I could make them work for me. The most important thing is achieving the correct house orientation and including other power saving devices and features. Air conditioning is a big hate of mine and I make no apologies for that. It is unnecessary, when accompanied by good house design, especially for the climate we enjoy here. If I was in the tropical north things would be different, but we chose to be in this climate so our heating and cooling requirements would be minimal.

5 - The House

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As I have already mentioned, the house is in great condition. It has housed only two owners since it was built in 1926 by a man for his wife. Fifteen years ago it had enjoyed some restoration and renovation work. One of the results of this was the bathroom being relocated from its original position on the back deck to one of the three bedrooms. This gave the house only two bedrooms and a large but lovely bathroom. The old deck bathroom became a large laundry and storage area.

The Kitchen
When seeing the above layout, some friends of ours suggested knocking out the wall between the kitchen and lounge or at least cutting a large opening in it. This got me thinking. I like the idea of the separate kitchen. There has been quite a push lately in house design circles to open everything up. The dining area is merged with lounge, media, entertainment and what not and over to one side, as if on stage, is the kitchen ensconced in island bench. Perhaps the thinking is that the cook or dish washer can stay part of the party as they quietly toil away piping up occasionally with witty observations in tune with the topics at hand. For all other times those in the kitchen can talk with family as they watch TV in the other corner or watch it themselves or simply discuss various matters of everyone’s busy day as the evening meal is prepared. I guess all this is a nice idea. Here comes the ‘however’ subtly signposted by the ‘I guess’. However, I kind of think you lose the purpose and function of rooms this way. A separate kitchen complete with an area for dining is a very nice thing. It is the kitchen – the place for creating meals, storing food, sprouting sprouts, rising bread, learning about flavours, imparting a sense of interest and passion within children and lots of messy experimentation. To be able to sit right there and eat in the place that the food was prepared, with the leftovers bubbling away on the stove at arms reach, the smells of dozens of herbs and spices wafting around and the sights of jars and jars of dried beans and the like, gives a nice understanding of the origin of the meal and contributes to the richness of its eating.

So the fact that the small kitchen in this house has a little dining nook, with a view to the prospective veggie gardens, is perfect for us.The walls will act as vertical storage, like a library of culinary delights. The kitchen benches will need some work as they are fairly minimal. The previous owners had a large rustic looking stand alone bench in the middle and a cupboard on the back wall. We are hoping to simply have a bench and cook top on that wall and no bench in the middle, the room is too small.

The Living Room
Having a separate small living room works for us too. It will become the centre of the house and a place for relaxing, talking, reading, playing and creating. The name ‘living’ sums these activities up nicely as there is an active element to them. We will have to place the computer somewhere in this room though there will be no television. I have recently welcomed a new TV free chapter in my life. Not that it made up a large part before but it was there and it didn’t feel right. Its absence is producing things during a time usually devoted to passive consumption. This blog is an example, so to the collection of hand made clothes worn daily by my daughter at the hands of my partner’s busy hands.

The Bedrooms
There are two and this is fine for now. Should the need arise to fill a third we will move the bathroom back to its original location and convert the space it was in back in to a bedroom. The one issue with bedrooms in an old house is the lack of inbuilt cupboards. We will have to come up with solutions to this. For us it will probably be a combination of old stand-alone wardrobes and maybe some clothes racks hanging from the roof at eye level.

The Bathroom
This will be half in the laundry, marked 'toilet', and half in the house as in the design. The claw foot bath that comes with the house will stay where it is for the time being. However, we are going to install a composting toilet in the laundry which will probably become a bathroom in the future. Having the composting toilet out there will make it easier to get in under it to replace the full chambers. Also it seems nicer to get down to that sort of business away from the more delicate living areas of the house. Flushing toilets have brought the whole affair closer and even into people’s bedrooms. When you think about it, this is a bit weird. It has not been decided at this stage but we will probably get the toilet from Nature-Loo. There will be more on that later when I write of our on-site waste treatment systems.

Orientation

The house is nearly perfectly orientated to suit the need for passive solar design for our site. The house has a longer east west axis and is narrow enough to benefit from cross flow breezes. The verandas at each end of the house will act as a buffer keeping the sun from hitting the house. Of course, bedroom 1 will cop it from the west in the afternoon, however we plan to plant some trees over that side of the house and perhaps insulate the wall. The large windows in the living room will benefit from northern sun and the area just outside these will work as a sun trap in the cooler months where we can grow things that aren't keen on getting cold.

4 - The Decision

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For the next few months we kept an eye out for removal houses via a number of companies. A list of some of these can be seen to the left of these words and, as time goes by, above left. All the while we became quite used to the idea of moving a house. It seemed like the ultimate gesture in recycling. The fact that no more new materials would be extracted from an already depleted planet just to house me and mine, sits well on the mind. Of course, there would be resources used, such as petrol to move the house, but these would have been needed no matter what we built. It also feels nice knowing that someone’s unwanted house would be given a new life here with us. We just needed to find one that fit in the budget, suited our site’s orientation for passive solar considerations and wasn’t too rough on the eye. While we were looking we kept on crunching the numbers for the SALA Smart house option. Despite our best efforts at belt tightening we could not squeeze the SALA costs below $170 000 and that was only allowing $20 000 for building and no waste treatment set up, kitchen or carport. We also kept on entertaining the idea of other kits, despite our growing displeasure with their company.

And then it happened. A newly acquired house notification email popped up from Drake Homes. At first we did not give the “ATTO” much more than a passing glance. I’m not sure why. That night though I studied it closer discovering that it was designed perfectly for our chosen house site. Our view of Wollumbin (Mt Warning) is to the east. This house had a great back covered verandah facing that very direction. We wanted the living areas with their larger windows facing the north, for our cool winter mornings. They did. We wanted bedrooms on the South. Check. We wanted a house with a longer east west axis then north south. Mate.

As an added bonus the house looked like it was in great shape. It had some very nice features including everything we wanted from the beginning. The cost of the house was posted as being between 75-100K delivered and stumped. That seemed reasonable considering its apparent good condition. We were getting excited. We contacted Drake stating our interest. The next step was to see inside it. The house still contained its current owners in its original location in the Brisbane suburb of Nundah. The land that it stood on had been sold to developers. So too had that of the two houses next door. In keeping with the unfortunate nature of modern life, a large block of units was being built with the hope of devouring large numbers of young upwardly mobiles.

Organising an inspection proved quite a feat. The owners were busy people and insisted on being there when Drake showed anyone through. We called Drake nearly everyday for the next week. No joy. They could not get in contact with the owners. The last call we made to Drake about an inspection delivered the news that the house had been sold un-inspected by a man who walked in that afternoon with a deposit. It had only been for sale less than a week and no one had seen in it. We were gutted.

We learnt from Drake afterwards that this kind of thing happened in the world of removal houses. People know what they want, they have the money ready, and they pounce. Bugger. We weren’t any of those things. We weren't really sure what we wanted, we didn’t know if we had the money or if it was ready, and we aren’t ones who pouncing comes naturally to. Apparently it was a cut throat industry. We decided to sharpen our cut throat’n knives.

We started preparing ourselves for the next ‘perfect house’, not that anything could replace the ATTO. I enquired about the likelihood of my current bank, nab, loaning us money for a removal house. They wouldn’t. It’s too risky. We discovered that a lot of banks will only lend money after the house has arrived. The salesman at Drake gave me the number of a mortgage broker who he knew had helped people in the past. I rang Otto Dargan from Transportable Home Finance in Sydney and a beautiful working relationship was forged. He understood the situation, and considering the equity in the land would cover everything anyway, said it would be a snap. He suggested a GE loan would be best for us and went ahead with preparing the paperwork.

For the next ten days we forlornly dragged our feet on our way back to the ol’ drawing board. Just as we got there and tried picking up the house search again, I received a phone call. It was the Drake salesman informing me that the man with the walk in deposit had discovered that the house could not physically be moved to his block and as a result it was back on the books and available for us if we were still interested. We were. He had a lot more people waiting in the wings but thought he’d offer it to us first. I hung up the phone and looked across at my partner with the wonderful realisation that I possessed the one piece of news that would bring back the sheer joy and happiness she had when we first realised we wanted that house. I wasted no time in delivering the news. What a wonderful moment. We traveled straight up to the Drake office and paid a deposit for a house we had not seen. The understanding was that we would try and have an inspection that weekend and if the house was not to our liking we could withdraw our interest and deposit.
That weekend we went to Brisbane to look through the house with the Drake salesman. We were greeted by one of the owners, a friendly man who went about his business after showing us in. My partner and I gingerly entered the house and followed the Drake salesman around. He hadn’t seen in it either, only his colleague had. After seeing one of the bedrooms and the bathroom we had a moment to ourselves in the kitchen. I’ll never forget my partner’s face. We looked across at each other mouthing profanities as a way of conveying our excitement at what we were seeing. We couldn’t believe it. The Drake salesman had seen a lot of houses and was amazed at the great condition this one was in. An overwhelming sense of good fortune had fallen upon us. Even though we were buying this house, and it would cost a substantial amount of money, it felt like we had won it.

3 - The Housing Options We Considered

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I guess by simply looking up at the title and explanation of this blog, there is no real mystery shrouding the outcome of the following deliberations. Nevertheless, let’s press on in the spirit to which we have become accustomed.

Own Design and Owner Build
The first option we considered was one that I had always assumed would be the only way to go when it came to building a house for the land here. It was, of course, to design our own house featuring all the little quirks we desire along with all the energy saving features we had learnt about over the years. It would be unique. We would gather recycled materials and do a lot of the building works ourselves.

So what happened with this idea? A few things did, none of which were more persuasive than the other, just awfully influential en masse. Firstly there didn’t seem to be that much in the way of savings to be had. Having a unique one off design can be expensive. Not sure how expensive but I was told it was substantial. Then there are still the services such as plumbing and electricity to be completed by other people. Of course the plan is that these costs could be offset by doing some building work ourselves. This got me thinking. Building one’s own house is a lovely thing to do and something I greatly admire for many reasons, however, I do not have the interest, inclination, patience, time or skill to do it. A large adventurous part of me wishes I did, a smaller practical part knows I’d struggle, and a tiny self care part, thinking of the longevity of my fingers, limbs and relationship, strictly forbids it.

Building a house and learning as you go takes a lot of time. I couldn’t really take this time out of a paying day job because at the moment we need the money. Doing bits and pieces here and there on weekends and the like would stretch the whole thing out beyond any realm of acceptability. We did not want the building of the house to become our entire lives, having to constantly field questions on its progress from everyone we know for the next 5 years. We have a child to raise, trees to plant and food to grow.

Kit Homes
We spent many months looking into kit homes. At first glance, from a distance, we were wooed by the prices and seduced by the promise of time savings. When we got closer, warts and alls started emerging. Here is a collection of what we discovered.

SALA Homes
This was the first company we took a passing interest in about two years ago. They make 5 star energy rating houses which incorporate a number of nifty features and building materials that reduce the house's overall impact on the planet. After a brief look at their designs we ignorantly deduced that their houses were a bit too modest for our needs. We also grossly underestimated the costs involved in actually building the house, assuming that the overall finished house price would not be that much more than the quoted material price for the kit. We thought we could easily afford much more than what they had on offer, how much more was a figure we didn’t know at that stage because we had not done any sums. Anyway, for the next year or so we shelved the house plans to make mental room for other things. After this time we returned to the SALA idea. They had more designs available and after sitting down with a pencil we mapped out how one would work for our specific site. We liked the four bedroom SALA Green and were becoming increasingly excited about it. The costs seemed reasonable on paper, $165000 for the kit, remember though dear reader that we had not really ironed out the detail in our budget.
We went on a tour of an estate that has some SALA display homes. This was very encouraging, we arranged a meeting with the SALA team in Brisbane and talked over the changes we had in mind for their plan. They were very easy to work with and open to new ideas and suggestions. They even encourage changes as long as they do not detract from the overall efficiency of the house. Everything seemed right. But it wasn’t. Someone mentioned a safe guesstimate monetary figure when working out the cost of the fully built house – “add about 80% of the kit materials figure to that very figure”. The world spun around me. Further spoken words after those corkers blurred together into a long continual throat song sounding note. I was in a brief shock. I felt like a fraud, sat there talking turkey with people who thought I knew more about turkeys, like how many hooves they have on the ends of their opposable tails. Arrghhhh. We politely wrapped things up, threw on some niceties, and exited the office.

Following this revelation we were quite disappointed. It was made worse by the fact that we first saw the SALA option as a cheap one. In fairness to SALA their safe percentage figure included the complete building of the house and further allocation for driveways, water tanks, extra solar panels, on site sewage management and the like. We would need all these things, it’s just we wanted to do it for a lot cheaper than $300 000 – at that stage we knew this was way over even our fantasy budget figure. Despite this setback we were so impressed with the SALA staff we went home and worked on working with another cheaper, smaller, simpler plan, the 4 bedroom SMART. Here is a blog, documenting the building of a modified SALA Green House.

Other Kits
During this time we also looked at a range of other kit homes for comparison hoping that something cheaper would emerge. We wanted to find out if the SALA’s vented wall system, high pitched roofs and other passive climate control features were worth the extra cost. Now of course this is hard to gauge when you’re talking houses, they are not available for test lives on your specific site. I guess we started trying to make educated assumptions about the significance such features would have for us and if their impact would be substantially noticed. Additionally though, SALA does use sustainable materials, where ever possible. They also come with very functional louver windows, wooden French doors high ceilings and 12mm Ecoply lined walls as standard, turns out they share our distaste for plasterboard. All these are nice features and things we would perhaps try and incorporate in other kit homes.

The first place we enquired at was Valley Kit Homes . They were situated about an hour’s drive from us so after looking into a few of their plans via their website we made an appointment to see them and ask questions. We arrived to meet our host, and after briefly looking around the display stage set style interior layout boasting the company’s finest in fittings, we reclined across from a desk cluttered in photos of houses and grandchildren. Our host seemed nice enough to begin with and listened with a pained smile as we fumbled through the delivery of an introduction to our situation and some of our preferences for the designs. She responded obligingly showing us some real life pictures of finished houses. These were not to our taste and as we started to unpack our questions of alterations to the designs and incorporation of things like high ceilings and wooden wall linings and window frames, her answers became increasingly shorter in both length and tone. It is as if the more questions we asked the more she did not want to secure our business. We did get out of her that most of the things we enquired about were doable but were “very expensive”. She did not give the impression that she represented a company that was progressive in its concern for the preservation of the natural environment, good style, flexibility or plain common courtesy. Maybe she has come across our flakey type before who ask lots of questions and don’t come back. Maybe it is her job to filter out our kind. Maybe she personally loves all the things we wanted to change and was deeply offended by our insensitive remarks. Or maybe she was keen on nipping down to the shops in her lunch break to return a pair of slacks she was going to wear to a friend’s 60th that weekend. Who knows? On the way out we were guided via another display, a wall of external cladding options that were mostly fake wood grained imprinted Hardiplank which I’m sure it is not without its function and charm in certain situations, hopefully though, not ours. We did not speak of Valley Kit Homes again.

Another nearly local company is Affordable Steel Kit Homes. They pride themselves on their steel, easy to put together, framed houses. Their designs seemed to hold more potential for us than Valley Kit Homes did. We were sent their information pack, complete with a rather odd promotional DVD containing a collection of their recent appearances on various home shows that we had never heard of. This is not saying much though as we are not ones to watch such programs. I went along one afternoon to their offices and chatted with one of their youthful polo-shirted team members who had a tendency to smile smugly after each of his confident assertions. He was a nice enough chap, though naïve to some of the finer concerns I had about things like passive solar design and the inclusion of recycled materials. I came away from the meeting with a wary feeling. Not something you want from such encounters. The one thing I did take on board from the meeting with ASK was that it prompted me to do an online Owner Builder Course through Access Building Education. We figured it couldn’t hurt to have it ready incase we decide to go ahead with the kit option. Even if we didn’t do any building then at least we could save money on overseeing the project. It cost $155 and was rather informative.

When comparing all three meetings, our experience with the SALA people won hands down in making us feel understood in our desire to feel understood regarding the elements we feel are important to include in our future house. They were literally unreal. This fact, coupled with their overall philosophy and inclusions such as solar panels prompted us to decided that we would go with SALA after slightly rearranging the internal layout of their 4 bedroom SMART House. We would make it three bedrooms and with a larger living area.

We did look at a lot of Kit Home companies during this time and followed some up with detailed enquiries. This list includes some of them.

Agnes Water Kit Homes
Classic Queenslanders
EHabitat
Gateway Manufacture
Ecohut
Smart Shax
Sustainable

As we started to crunch the numbers on the SALA home, we became increasingly concerned about the costs. Because of this we kept looking around.

Project Homes
Our neighbour had a project home built a few years ago. It seemed rather cheap for what she got and, due to its orientation, was rather cool in summer and warm in winter. We could not help then to at least investigate the possibility of building one here. We found a number of companies with a number of designs. This is as far as we got. We shook ourselves out of what was an irrational moment of poor judgment. Project homes represent everything we do not want in a house or in our lives. We actually felt rather ashamed of even considering such a thing, however fleeting. The biggest issue for us is the companies’ seemingly complete lack of concern for sustainability. They appear to build these houses unecessarily large these days, with air conditioning in mind, featuring things like rooms tucked away without cross air flow, small or no eaves and large windows all the way round the house.

We’ve always only wanted a small house. Anything too big is rather pointless and somewhat embarrassing, especially considering that we moved out here to be ‘out’ here. Not inside all the time. Media rooms, powder rooms, activity rooms, games rooms, and the myriad of other useless extra rooms they often include in such houses hold no appeal for us whatsoever. I read somewhere once that paying off big houses is like renting out a heap of rooms in a hotel everyday and not using them. It is sheer waste poorly disguised as decadence. We could not live with ourselves living in a place like that. For us these kinds of project homes serve as monuments to everything that is environmentally and morally wrong with the planet, from the materials that make them to the energy they consume after they're built.

Relocatable Homes
My partner had always wanted to move an old house onto our block. It made sense. Old Queenslanders have all the features that we wanted in a house and we have enjoyed renting them for the last ten years or so. The only thing though was that we had heard that they can be quite expensive once they're moved and restored. So it is with some trepadation that we started searching house removal sales companies' collection of current stock. We found Drake Removal Homes, south of Brisbane, and decided to go along to their yard to see some houses in the flesh, errr... wood. We met one of the salesmen and as we left the office to walk around the houses, he reminded us to use our imagination. We looked at few places that we had already seen photos of on the website. They were different up close. They required a lot of "imagination", only thing is imagination costs money in this context. The old wooden houses we looked at would require major work to replace decking, roofing and all sorts of other odd bits and pieces. We discussed the removal process with the salesman on the way out and left him our details for email updates of new stock. We would need a house that did not require much work for this option to be viable for us.

2 - The Budget

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Apparently the most important first step in deciding upon a housing option for a patch of land is to ascertain how much money one can legally acquire for the pleasure. We did not really do this, preferring to jump right into dreaming up, discussing, and looking at plans. In keeping with my unwritten desire to ensure this written piece is readable, I will outline the budget details here rather than clumsily unpacking them over the course of proceedings as was the case in real life. Right, so towards the beginning the only thing we knew about the budget was that we would like it to be small enough to pay off its borrowed component (all of it) with one modest income or two half modest incomes. There are a few reasons for this. We do not want to be stretched thinly across a large debt, we are not keen on having a child care centre raise our child(ren) and a small loan is better, in so many ways, than a big loan, no matter what the hell it’s for. The actual figure would need to incorporate what we owed on the land already – $70 000. After factoring in my sole income of around $50 000, it seemed we would be eligible to borrow about $220 000. This leaves $150 000 for the house and everything that goes with it, like water tanks, waste systems, and solar panels. For the first few months of house planning I sort of forgot about the $70 000 already owing on the land, grossly overestimating our confidence when talking with potential contractors.

1 - The Back Story

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Since purchasing a 15 acre block of land in the beautiful Tweed Valley in northern New South Wales (Australia) some five and half years ago my mind has seemed to constantly be entertaining thoughts of what type of house to build here. No “Owner Builder’ magazine crossing my path was left unopened, no related website was left unclicked, no picture of anything habitat design related was left unscrutinised and no new approach to ‘green housing’ was left unconsidered. Two years ago my partner and I moved onto the block and into the barn shaped tin shed that was already here. As we busied ourselves with making the shed livable, the pressure eased on the house front. That is until our daughter was born ten months ago. Suddenly we realised that it would be nice to have a house before she was walking about.

Our housing requirements are humble and reflect the very reason we moved from the city to take up residence here. We wanted the house to be as sustainable as possible and so it would need to incorporate passive solar design and solar power, and of course, by virtue of our lack of town water, on site rain water collection and waste management. We hate the idea of having a house that requires air conditioning so ours won’t. We will utilise the cooling breezes with properly placed windows and minimise the heating effects of the sun by house orientation, insulation and eaves.

So as one can see the basic plans were simple. However, due to the fact that my partner and I have strong opinions on what we like in houses, other preferences would need to be factored into this basic outline. These come in varying degrees of ‘must have’ and could be reluctantly compromised upon if pushed. Because they each require an explanation, they have one below.

The site chosen for the house

High Ceilings
My partner and I spent most of our twenties not knowing of each other. We lived separately with ex-loves or in share house arrangements in a collection of rented inner city Brisbane houses. Whether they were workers’ cottages or larger Queenslanders they all had one rather impressionable feature in common – high ceilings. Being in a room whose ceiling height is often double your own is quite a nice thing and not easily forgotten, especially when you are considering committing yourself to purchasing a house that will take you a large portion of your working life to pay for. You kind of want ‘nice things’ in it. Of course there is the added benefit of high ceilings making the house cooler so their inclusion in any building project for us is almost a given.

No Plasterboard Internal Linings
I really do not like plasterboard internal wall linings. As children we were warned against marking their clinical finish when our lives got too close. “Mind the wall you’ll damage it/mark it/ruin the entire house’s resale value” – as if it were some canary in a cage gauging the well maintained history of a house to a would be buyer. I have always thought it odd that the internal walls of a house needed to be taken care of in this way. Life is way too short to curb exaggerated limb movements, contain inquisitive grubby hands or to always keep outdoor sports strictly outdoors. Houses are for living not minding. Bear in mind that perhaps my particular experiences may not be that common, however, for me they formed a strong foundation with which further plasterboard negatives could rest.

Again, like high ceilings, once an alternative to plasterboard was experienced my aversion grew. Older wooden houses sporting V J tongue and groove lined walls provided a secure comforting back drop to the dizzying jumble that was my twenties. Walls and ceilings that you could put nails and screws in held up all sorts of heavy junk. Disco balls, push bikes, retro pod like recliners, complex clothes racks, big stereo speakers and countless chunky framed pictures were all supported by these wonderful neat planks of wood. Their durability easily absorbed many an overbalanced house party reveler, bouncing them back into the throws of the dance (loungeroom) floor within the blink of an eye.

Wooden lined walls have a certain substance and feel to them. There is a real richness and depth to their presence. Plasterboard lining gives me the complete opposite sensation – one of temporary brittleness, sort of like living in a chalk cell or a flimsy stage set.

Plasterboard is used so extensively because it is cheap, money wise, to produce. However, I have recently discovered that this production carries high inherent energy costs making it not a very sustainable option for the discerning home builder.

Wooden Windows
Another important consideration in the house is window frames. Not a lot of options here in the way of materials used but fortunately we love wooden framed windows. We do not like aluminum framed windows. I have never understood their widespread inclusion in brick veneer houses when they look so bad with brick. Bricks give a solid earthy feel to a house, while aluminum windows detract from this effect with a look of flimsy fabrication. For me wooden framed windows suit so many applications in building. Their styles are endless.

The trouble can be that they are expensive. To overcome this we hope to include some recycled wooden windows with the added benefit of them often being more interesting.

Wooden Floors
People buy carpet. They carefully select the colour and texture they want, running their hands over the sample piece, perhaps even rubbing their cheek against its softness. They then pay a substantial amount of money for it, take it home, put it on the floor – the one place where it is next to impossible to take care of, and then walk on it. An endless cycle of precautions, cleaning, fussing, cursing and resenting seemingly trivial actions of family members begins. An un-winnable war against gravity is waged. I can’t see why people bother when there are other options?

Hard surfaced floor coverings are the only ones worth considering for me. Wood looks the best. So wood it is. Slate comes in a very close second and should the house be built on a concrete slab, would probably be the pick.

"I'm gonna surround myself in wood! Wood Jerry! Wood!" (Kramer)

So there it is, a few basic requirements complimented by a few taste requirements. Meeting all these should not be too hard…should it? Next step is to nut out a budget, decide on a style and building technique, consider size requirements and think about a floor plan.