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!