Hello all - long time no blog, eh? Oh well, life does get away from one sometimes... Here are many pics for your viewing pleasure to compensate in some way for my online absence. Enjoy!

First up we have our lovely christmas tree - P and L enthusiastically trimmed one of our she-oak trees from the front garden. We placed it in a bucket of water which was weighted down with bricks and brought it inside. P also tied it to a hook on the ceiling for extra stability. You can see L brandishing the trusty measuring tape - to make sure it would fit!

Then we have a couple of gorgeous pressies we received in pride of place on our bathroom vanity - a guzmania plant and an eco soy candle. I'm trying to bring more green inside these days - it truly enlivens the space!

Our advent calendar was a hit with L. It was born partly of desperation - trying to ward off more questions about when Christmas was coming... we filled each envelope the night before with christmas themed stickers, stamps, small candles, little treats, decorations and ideas for christmas activities (such as viewing the shop windows in the city).

P has been working like a trojan over the last few months constructing two pergolas to shade and screen the house - one on the east side and one on the west next to the carport. We've had a bit of wood put aside from the house building which has come into its own for these projects.
I've been enjoying the eastern pergola especially (I can access it through the glass doors from my studio) and can quite happily sit at my blue table just smelling the sweet air and gazing at all the different shades of green...

The last two pictures are of my own private pizza chefs cooking up a storm in our kitchen. We all love 'real pizza' as L calls them. P starts the dough in the bread maker in the morning and then an hour or so before dinnertime they don their aprons and start clouding the air with flour and then there is much patting and pricking, tasting and rolling of dough. The mushroom pizza is especially tasty!

Rainy days - building towns and encounters with leeches...

After a few weeks of dust storms and very dry weather we have been blessed with a deluge - the garden is definitely loving it. Racking my brains for something to occupy L. on the rainy weekend I remembered he had some sidewalk chalk and wooden offcuts from our house building project. So we gathered them all up along with his toy cars and some playdough and set to making a model town on the back verandah. What resulted was a charming little village complete with wooden waterfall, cardboard bridge and playdough traffic lights. For trees we picked some weeds (the dominant form of vegetation in our backyard at the moment) and stuck them into some playdough. L had a great time driving his cars around and chalking in driveways and detours. We also set up a shop where he delivered flowers on the back of his toy truck which then became blooms on the trees for the gardens of the village.

Later that day we thought we'd take a chance in between showers to get out for a bushwalk. The bush was lovely and fragrant and green and dripping... and full of leeches. P seemed to be winning with the number of leeches that kept popping up on his shoes. I was smug in my apparent immunity at first but soon spied them trying to sneak past my shoelaces. Holding back my instinctual screeches I flicked them off with a handy stick - it took a few goes - they really do have powerful suction. I like to think of myself as a nature lover - but slugs and leeches give me the heebie-geebies every time.

Imagine my horror when I saw one on my trouser leg, inching closer to my foot, on the way home in the car. I started hyperventilating. I demanded that the car be stopped immediately. Another one flicked off firmly. Further on I swore I could feel them squirming around in my socks. Upon arrival at our house we all proceeded to strip off our shoes, socks and trousers. In fact I decided a shower was in order and a even more thorough search for the beasts. Thankfully I had none. P did have one that had made its way through his sock. L got away scot-free also or so we thought... until P noticed some blood on his foot during dinner. Sure enough an engorged leech was smooching away from the table. L was declared the winner in the leech contest (positive thinking on P's part) having had blood actually taken by a leech. I'm just thankful I'm not living in the age where blood-letting by leeches was considered to be the cure to all ills.

Small pockets of our garden are taking shape... Tucked in beside the house on the eastern side in a small courtyard area outside my studio is the vertical garden made from an old trampoline. The legs were removed from the old style rectangular trampoline and then we hung it from the fence. I then covered it with a bamboo screen in front and chicken wire behind and then poked the bromeliads (they don't need soil to grow) through slits in the trampoline and tied them with wire to the chicken wire behind.

Handyman P. attached the trampoline at one of the short ends to the fence - so it can swing out away from the fence at the other end. In the swung out position (and supported underneath by bricks) I had enough room to get in to plant it up and it can be swung out in the future to allow for ongoing maintenance. I also have to say a big thank you to our friends J & K who did a fantastic job helping to clear out the side passage, digging a trench for our cat run (that's another story - more on that in another post) and levelling the area and doing the ground work (sorry about the pun) for the vertical garden.

I reckon the vertical garden could do with another planting session at some stage - maybe some birds nest ferns or old man's beard trailing down for a lusher rainforest look. I didn't have to buy any of the plants - my mother generously supplied them all from her garden - except for the two succulents in the ground beneath the vertical garden which have been in pots for years and have survived two house moves.

The masks I've had for years and am glad to have finally found a special place for them. The top sun face mask is from Bali from an old friend who brought it back from her travels. The other two are from my sister S and I think are African. I'll be keeping my eye out for more prospective vertical garden inhabitants when I next visit the op shops. The mirror is a present from my mother. I spray varnished the masks and the mirror to protect them from the weather. This seems to be working mostly - except for the lower mask which has developed some form of mouldy measles... which tie in quite nicely with the surrounding spotty plants!

We've also planted four grape vines which will have eating grapes and eventually grow over a trellis/pergola and shade the house on hot summer mornings. Until they grow we will use shade cloth for this purpose - I hope this will make my studio more usable during those hot January days!

Our house has been marvellously warm during the winter - we have sun streaming straight in from windows at the top of the roof as well as from our bank of glass windows and doors across the width of the living room and two northern rooms. The solar heating on the roof also warms the tiled floor so we have been really toasty. The challenge is to protect the house from the summer heat. I did find January particularly hard last time 'round. On a couple of occasions you would have found me locked in my studio sitting in front of the blasts of air from our mobile air conditioner trying to stay cool!

In time for summer P is also planning a pergola next to the car port on the western side - to stop the blaring afternoon sun hitting the house. He will be able to use leftover wood from our fence construction. This will be planted with vines and maybe screen with bamboo. I would like to plant some medium sized trees in the side passage along the carport as well - for privacy as well as shade.

The bones of our mandala fruit and vegie garden have been laid out. P. and L. have planted six fruit trees making a large circle which marks the circumference of the garden. Inside that will be smaller circles of vegie patches and a dome shaped mobile chicken run will rotate around the garden one day, doing the jobs of clearing, turning over and fertilising. The 'first' of our fruit trees (they have been planted in fruiting order) - a peach - has got flowers. Even L was excited as he told me 'You know, Mummy, what that means, don't you... it means there will be fruit!".

In front of the house I have put a few herbs - not sure how they will go as they are not getting much sun right now. I've also put a few natives mixed in with perennials for colour. The general colour theme is purple and yellow - to match the golden rubinia and the purple tibouchina over the fence in S.'s yard. The kangaroo paws are yellow, the callistemon is mauve, there is purple hardenbergia as well as orange pig-face succulents and marigolds and pansies for an extra colour injection and in memory of my green-thumb English grandmother who passed away in July. She loved being out in the garden, digging and planting and there was always a splash of colour in amongst her vegetables and fruit trees. If I can be half as productive and creative as she was in her garden I will be happy. I found some kid's gardening gloves so L. has been helping me plant the flowers and loves watering them with his own L-sized blue watering can.

I really do need to find something to go on either side of the front entrance, as Mum keeps telling me. At the moment I have two medium size pot plants - succulents (like a giant leaved jade plant) which are a bit sad really. We might need to have something hanging on the wall as the floor pots can be hazardous for children dashing in and out of the house (as well as being hazardous to the pots themselves!). Hanging pots will also be more visible from the approach to the house - the current pots are mostly hidden by the raised driveway/turning area in front of the house. I'd love to find some old metal containers to use as pots - go the recycled look I say! The plants will have to be hardy and manage without much light as they would be under the eaves on the south side of the house (for those in the northern hemisphere: this equals no direct light).

Hello everyone - no we haven't vanished off the face of the earth... we've just been busy adjusting to the new abode. I'm finally ready to blog again and have some nice pics to show you - it just wasn't up to scratch until now!

We moved in to the new eco-house last November - with very generous help from family and friends. P and I still have a long list of jobs that need doing to make the place the way we envision it, but it is very liveable and we've settled in well.

On our list are big things like get more built-in storage, build pergolas and screen the east and west sides of the house (it was rather warm in summer) and do some major landscaping outside. The other things on the list are smaller and more manageable - like getting a letterbox, making curtains for all the windows and painting the movable wall/door to the study.

Anyway - here are some photos so you can see what I'm going on about:

Top photo - this is the front of house as you come down the driveway. The garden you can see belongs to S. We need to do some tidying up along the edges of the driveway as you might have guessed!

Next photo - the back of the house faces north and solar tubes on the roof catch all that lovely sun in winter and heat our tiled floors. You can see the huge water tank in the shadows on the right of the photo - this can hold 22,000 litres of water. We use it for washing clothes, flushing toilets and watering the garden.

Then we have the main living area, looking from the front entrance. The study doors with the green stripe can fold back to enlarge the living space. I'm dreaming up a mural for these - the green paper stripe was put up as decoration for L's 4th birthday party - it's growing on me! I think the mural will feature green in some way...

The next photo is of the living room looking back towards the front entrance. The 'watermelon' wall is a heat sink that gets the sun in winter and helps to warm the space. The feathery pendant lights are by Tord Boontje and are called 'Icarus' . We bought these before the house was built and designed around them. Behind the watermelon wall is the main bathroom and separate laundry. There is an internal window in the watermelon wall which lets light in from the clerestory windows at the top of the roof into the bathroom. At the highest point the ceilings are 5 m - so we were able to create an attic for storage above the laundry.

Two views into the kitchen - all constructed from recycled wood by our hero Peter Veevers who is based in the Blue Mountains (1.5 hrs from Sydney). We all designed it very carefully with lots of drawers and counter space and it is working out very well! I have had to learn to be very careful carrying jars and glasses in the kitchen - the first few weeks saw many breakages. As soon as something falls and touches the floor (porcelain tiles) it shatters!

We are in love with our cabinet maker. I think that title doesn't do him justice - he is an artist - and passionate with it. He uses reclaimed and recycled wood to make custom made furniture and in our case - kitchens and vanities. He is very thoughtful and considerate in his design work and is open to ideas, with some discussion and the tempering of fantasy with practical realities. Here is some of his handiwork. We've been told the stories of the wood and where it all came from. I can point out to you the Tasmanian blackwood (forming the drawer handles) that once graced the halls of a guesthouse in Leura, the ex-work station laminated board on the bottom of the drawers comes from Katoomba Centrelink offices and the white shelving from Leura chemist - he's based in the Blue Mountains you see. My pull out tea towel hanger once served as a tie hanger in some gentleman's wardrobe. The kitchen is just about finished - we just need to bring in the fridge and the dishwasher (yes I've succumbed - my fears assuaged by the argument that it can be more efficient in water use than hand washing) and then he can fix everything in place. And the breakfast bar needs some sort of paint treatment - am still mulling over that one. You'll notice our 'watermelon' feature wall which is in the centre of the open living area.

Our hot water system is now in place - I just wish I knew what all those knobs are for...! The big red one looks like an old fashioned fire alarm. Not sure if I'll cover it up - it is all quite intriguing. The cistern takes up more than a third of the laundry - it will give us solar hot water all year round, heat the natural (no chemicals) pool in summer and our tiled floor in winter so the large capacity is a must.

The last month has seen us experimenting with making our own paint, falling off ladders, being nearly crushed by falling scaffolding, crying over spilt milk and pondering over how green we really are... not to mention suffering from the end of winter run of lurgies.

We had decided to paint the house inside ourselves - you see our budget was dwindling very fast and as we'd painted our flat in Glebe - how hard could it be - right? Well, we purchase many litres of eco-friendly wood stain (translucent white) for the pine ceiling boards, hired some scaffolding (our ceilings rise to 5 metres in height), enlisted the help of unsuspecting family and friends and set to the task. As we attempted to erect the scaffolding for the first time, P. copped it full on the nose and was speechless for some time afterwards! We had almost finished the entire ceiling space and I was working alone at night, with nothing but the stereo and floodlight for company. I was at the top of the ladder, at the apex of our ceiling, trying to apply masking tape before painting the corners. I gave a tug on the tape, the ladder wobbled, then the bottom fell out of the world. 'This is it' I thought as I plunged. As if from outside myself I watched and waited for an eternity until with a clang and a thud I landed upside down on the ladder which had slid backwards and come to rest on the kitchen bench (newly installed thank god) with my leg caught between the ladder and the bench. I hyperventilated for a while, moved my leg out from under the ladder, moved it around and then limped up to the other house where I was promptly ordered to lie down and put my leg up. I was very lucky to have only a few bruises and no broken bones for my troubles.

After that (and a bout of bronchitis to boot), my mum convinced us (along with the offer of a small loan) to hire a professional to finish the job. I must say I am rather relieved to say we followed her advice. I have been up the ladder again since - but not quite as high - and very slowly. And now I put a couple of cement bags at the bottom to stop the sliding...

We'd been experimenting with making our own milk paint (made with skim milk, hydrated lime and chalk) and applied the test batch to the laundry walls. I was quite pleased with the end result - authentically rustic

However the painter soon dampened our enthusiasm. Upon doing the rubbing test he pronounced it unfit to coat the walls and that it would melt off the walls once the dryer was turned on. Very reluctantly, and with much persuading on P's part, I have washed my hands of all the spilt milk. I am now racking my brains to think of what use to put 25 kilos of chalk to - any ideas?

Green-ness - how to measure it...? Actually our conundrum was somewhat more mundane in nature. We wanted a green coloured wall in our bedroom - a feature wall if you will. It is actually one of the two rendered brick walls in the house which will act as heat sinks in winter when the sun shines straight on them - for this reason it needs to be a darkish colour to absorb the maximum amount of heat. We chose a colour called 'Celuce' which looked demure enough - but really popped once it was on the wall. I thought I might just be able to live with it - but P took one look and shook his head. So it was back to Bunnings to check out the colour charts and we settled on 'Green coconut' (a nice complement to 'Watermelon' on the other feature wall). L and I had a go at painting a patch with the new sample pot and we all declared it the right green for us.

Here are some pics of how it is all shaping up. We're thinking we might be able to move in - in about about a month... touch wood!

Yes - things are happening - just don't get a chance to update this blog much. Here are a few pics of the house as it stands - we're getting there...!

First up is the view from the back yard.

Then we have a close up of the verandah and then the living area inside.

=-)

I had to ring P this morning to check he had survived this morning's climb. Yes - every time it rains (just when the tarps are extra slick and slippery) he gets the ladder out, scales the tarp-covered roof and empties the pockets of water that collect there between the wood battens. He's worried the water will get beetween the tarps sheets onto the roof and warp the wood again - which would be a disaster. I just wish someone else would do it. He's decided to test the sand which has been delivered for our external mortared brick walls and made a dash to Bunnings last night to procure the required thickness of plywood to use as a drying base for the mixed mortar. He also wants to get 2 mover's trolleys (a board on wheels) to transfer the sliding doors and windows (complete with glass) from the carport (where they are in danger of being damaged) down to the building site. This would involve building a temporary ramp from the end of the driveway down to the slab over what is a rough and muddy patch of ground. I think he wants me to help him... I can just see a runaway window hurtling down the hill only to stop with a great splintering crash at the piles of mudbricks sitting neatly on the driveway.

All this activity on P's part is filling the hours while we wait for the electrician to complete his work. The contracted electrician hasn't been responding to calls (apparently the poor man has a new baby and there have been complications) so we've had a replacement semi-retired guy come in who had to attend a funeral last week and hasn't returned since - too much whisky at the wake..? As you can see, it is a life or death situation... ! And of course the builders can't continue their work until the electrician is finished. So the roof remains tarped and the frame is festooned with unconnected wires and we pray that the good weather holds out long enough for some sort of progress to be made.

I'm busying myself with plans for L's party this Sunday. The theme, after some negotiation (he wanted dinosaurs to begin with) is lions and tigers. He has some suitable furry outfits with tails to wear - so that's covered. I've started on the cake decorations and now I'm wracking my brain trying to think of some themed party bags that don't actually contain lollies - yes, I'm taking a stand. There is too much sugar at parties these days! So I'm trying to minimise the levels of glucose by combining the sugar with cake and serving fructose in the form of fruit instead. There will be more savoury snacks than sweet overall. We're having the party in the park which should work well - lots of space and climbing equipment for the little ones, and an oval right next door for the bigger kids. Also, I don't have to worry about tidying up!

I had a go at making some liquid hand soap - not too hard: take a bar of soap, soak it in a bucket of water overnight (I had to grate the soap - it didn't dissolve as quickly as it should have), mix it up, add a few squirts of sorbolene and a few drops of essential oil (I used lavender). I estimate I made about 6 litres of the stuff. Then I had to find bottles to store it in! I rescued some from the recycling bin. I found 2 litre washed milk cartons to be just the thing. We will be able to reuse the pump dispensers we've already got from the supermarket. The idea for all this came from the Simple Savings website which has some very good ideas I must say. I'm all for saving a bit of money - it's good for your wallet, requires a little creativity and lateral thinking and helps the environment too!

By the way - I have to apologise for not including my sketch of the sunken garden plans last blog - I'm sure you were all very disappointed. Here they are then... The sketches on the left are side on views, the ones on the right are aerial plans.
We could have a vote for which one you all like best - what do you think?