Peggy and Michael Build at Bend

The Great Wall of Bend

bendbuild — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:07:29 +0000

The Great Wall takes shape

Another 10 Ton

Now for a beer

Michael’s next big project is known around Bend as the ” Great Wall of Bend”. It’s a dry stone wall made from locally quarried granodiorite, and the end result is stunning if I do say so myself. In fact several Benders have commented on how beautiful it looks. This project began with a the naive assumption that with the help of a stonemason and some rocks stacked one on top of the other–hey presto in a little over a week we would have ourselves a wall-wrong! The first “Oh my God” moment was when the truck dumped 14 tons of misshapen rocks ranging in size from a footy (football) to a shopping trolley (cart). Then the fun began- hours upon hours of searching for “face” rocks- you know, the ones with suitable faces and top edges that slant back; the ones with obtuse, or was it acute sides that fit snugly beside its neighbour. Then the chiselling and grinding and hauling and lifting until finally at wits end you place the rock in its final (not always the case) resting position with an immense feeling of satisfaction and a sore back.

The next “Oh My God” moment was when Peggy was informed that the 7 ton of rock left sitting on our neighbours lot was not suitable as it was either too large or there were no face rocks to be found. The solution-just order another 10 tons! (Or the quarry owners solution “just wack them with a sledge hammer and they will break”). Thankfully we managed to find enough suitable rocks in the second load to complete the wall-only 2 weeks longer than budgeted for, and with about 10 ton of rock left piled on our neighbours lot. What to do with all that rock? Mmmm another wall perhaps…

We’re back

bendbuild — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 06:32:21 +0000

Due to popular demand we’re back on the blogosphere! Continuing on from the last blog you can see that the courtyard is beginning to take shape, with the footpath and paving completed. You may be wondering what the odd boat shaped concrete structure is-well we (Peggy and Michael) decided not to have a bathtub in our house without consulting Sierra… so the compromise is an outside bathtub. Well OK I’m stretching the truth a little; it will eventually become a water feature (Sierra and others are welcome to bath in it if they feel the need-I wouldn’t recommend it). The idea is to construct a waterfall that cascades over the cool cupboard vent (the porthole in the background) to aid in cooling.

Bathtub formwork

Anyone for a bath?

Now for the landscaping...

Current projects…

bendbuild — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:10:29 +0000

Currently have several projects on the go that include: paving our front entrance, putting in a concrete footpath to our courtyard entrance and partially paving the courtyard, and paving/landscaping our glasshouse. The first photo is the prep work for the courtyard path and paving. Firstly a trench was dug around the perimeter and ag drainage laid. Michael then had to wheelbarrow all 3 ton of crusher dust into courtyard after the truck driver stuffed up and dumped all of it near the front entry!! This then had to be compacted with a whacker packer. The other photos are of the landscaping in the glasshouse. Michael leveled and mortared the paver’s in place, then added the pebbles. The finishing touch was the handmade bamboo screen (cut from local bamboo) to screen the ugly hot water tank. Now we are planning the plantings-predominantly sub tropical fruits. The plants you can already see are paw paw and pineapple.

Watch your step

People in glasshouses...

Mayan temples

Bamboo screen

The Great Flood, 2011 style

bendbuild — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:32:26 +0000

If February 2010 was The Big One, then March 2011 was The Really Big One. It peaked twice, once just before daybreak, and again 6 hours later at high tide, and the second peak was 8.7 meters, which is higher than the ’71 flood on which our 1-in-a-100 floodline is marked (and all the houses at Bend are above the 1-in-100 line, and they were all fine in this flood, sadly unlike some other houses in Bega, which were inundated).

waterfront property, again

million dollar views

soggy

24 hours later-Sierra's well-watered veggie patch is bottom left

24 hours later-wattles bent, not broken??

24 hours later-dam's full!

water beats boulder

Bend as pot o' gold

3 days post flood

mending fences

all hands on deck

So, we may live here the rest of our lives and never see a flood so big again, or apparently, we may have one every year….

Front yard blitz

bendbuild — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:18:12 +0000

Had a few requests to update the blog-fair crack of the whip, can’t a guy who has just built a house sit back for a while and just watch the grass grow? Well unfortunately that too creates more work, as I am constantly battling the invasion of weeds and grass, in particular kikuyu. I had intended to include weekly updates with pictures of the grass invasion, but for some reason Peggy thought people may not be interested. So…instead I have done a front yard blitz to get the blog groupies off my back, and Peggy for that matter. So here is the latest completed project; a native garden including a rock water diversion channel. The creation of this involved covering the entire area in cardboard boxes and newspaper (theoretically to kill the kikuyu) and then laying out the rocks to define the diversion channel and front entry paths. This was then mulched with chipped eucalyptus to a depth of approx 100mm and then planted with a variety of native trees, shrubs, and grasses. Plants have been strategically placed to perform a particular function or niche; there is a flowering eucalyptus as a feature tree at the front, ground covers around borders, climbing vines along a fence, and shade tolerant plants close to the house.

Pergolas pergolas!

bendbuild — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 04:10:00 +0000

Last week Pete the carpenter and Michael built our pergolas-one on the watertank, and one in the courtyard. We’ll grow deciduous vines over both of them, to provide shade in the summer. The watertank pergola will probably have kiwi vines, and will be an outdoor sitting/eating spot, with passionfruit vines growing on the eastern wall of the shed.

The pergola in the courtyard will probably have grapevines, as well as something deciduous espaliered on the eastern side. For now we have some ‘coolaroo’ shadecloth preventing direct sun from hitting the glass of the sliding door and window during the summer.

After the pergolas were finished, Michael has spent the past few days making steps down from the house level to the watertank level, so that one day I can elegantly sweep down from the kitchen to the outdoor table with a homegrown frittata in one hand and some freshly baked bread in the other, and we can sit with our feet up under the kiwi vine and watch the chickens cavort beneath the fruit trees and…but, um, I digress…

Here are the steps as a work in progress…

And here’s the makings of that fritatta (plus an extremely restrained dessert), all harvested in our garden today.

2 months later…

bendbuild — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:46:03 +0000

OK, most of you have probably given up on me by now, but 2 months since my last post, something new has finally happened! Here are some pictures of the garden shed and attached clothesline which Michael has put up on the water tank, as well as our burgeoning garden. (In fact these pictures are several weeks old and the garden has grown considerably since, but that’s for another post…)

looking west across veggie patch

In the left distance you can see a neighbour’s house being built, and in the right distance, the neighbourhood house, which is now finished except for some inside details. The neighbourhood house is like a community hall, with a big gathering room, a basic kitchen, bathroom, toilet, communal laundry, and an office/guestroom.

Clothesline attached to shed with pumpkins, compost pile, leftover mudbricks for chook shed, and potatoes growing in background.

garden shed

The Grand Tour

bendbuild — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:49:20 +0000

In honour of my parents’ visit (and therefore an occasion of initial tidiness) we proudly present The Grand Tour….

coming in the front door

upstairs reading nook

master bedroom

Sierra's bedroom in its natural state

going back downstairs

going downstairs into hallway

hallway

toilet

bathroom

office (not totally unpacked yet!)

guestroom (now open for business!)

guestroom towards courtyard

loungeroom

looking north from loungeroom

dining/kitchen, greenhouse to north

kitchen

kitchen towards dining & hallway

Thanks for touring with us. See you next time!

The new normal

bendbuild — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:04:18 +0000

Greetings from our new & improved Life! And as always, thanks for being so persistant in sticking around when I am consistently lame about posting consistently.

So, a few weeks after we moved in, I said to Michael “Right, now we really need to get the garden going for spring”, to which he replied “Nope, too busy”. So Sierra and I set out to make a little veggie patch ourselves, in a temporary location out of the way of the rest of the work that will need to be done outside this year. After a little while observing Sierra and I pathetically scratching around in the dirt, my cunning plan worked and Michael stepped in to speed things along a bit. We’ve since planted a bunch of seeds and seedlings. The veggie patch is just outside the loungeroom sliding doors on the north side of the house, where eventually I’m planning a perennial flower and herb garden.

spreading our topsoil

creating the beds

Sierra & her friend Ruby water the veggies

raising seedlings from seed in the greenhouse

Meanwhile on the other side of the house (southern) the car now has its very own new space-the carport is finished.

"Miss Duncan Red Plover" (so named by Sierra when she was very young!) in her cosy new home

Apologies…and the reveal!

bendbuild — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:53:50 +0000

Huge apologies for taking so long to finally post the reveal! We didn’t get our broadband back for about ten days after the move/it took way longer to even semi-unpack than I expected/we got sick/hosted 2 days of Bend meetings this past weekend…these are my excuses. My stats show that many of you have been patiently checking back, and checking back, and—so thank you for your patience!

Bend meeting in our loungeroom

Bend gathering-from loungeroom thru dining to kitchen

It was so wonderful to have Bend folk gathering in our house this weekend-the fruition of a long-held dream and the result of years of much hard work of many different sorts by lots of people! We are terribly lucky…

And it’s WARM! (with no heating except the sun) This is my number one comment when people ask me how it is to live in the house–it is fantastic that these theories about thermal mass and insulation and an attached greenhouse actually work. I know those of you in the northern hemisphere might be a bit surprised that I’m so concerned about keeping warm here in the Australian winter, but it does get cold at night in Bega, and in our rented unit it would be around 10C/50 F in the mornings in the winter, with no heating other than a plug-in electric space heater, and it didn’t warm up well during the day.

So, it can down to -5 C/23F or colder here, but since we’ve moved in most nights have been around 0-5C/30-40F, and it’s consistantly been about 15-16C/60F first thing in the morning in the living areas of the house. During the day it’s mostly been a high around 16-18C/60-65F outside, and on sunny days it’s getting around 22C/72F in the house. W’ve been living here since 6 August (eg February if you’re upside down) and there was just one time-24 hours of cloud/rain-when we would have used our slow combustion wood heater if we’d had it installed (which we will before next winter). The downstairs guestbedroom and computer room are almost as warm as the loungeroom/dining/kitchen, and the 2 upstairs bedrooms and reading nook are also nice and cosy, as they get flooded with northern sun all day as well as getting the rising heat coming from the open stairwell. So we’re very very happy with the thermal perfomance of the house in the winter-stay tuned to see how we go in the summer.

We’re also delighted with the evacuated tube solar hot water system-it’s been boiling hot (almost literally) since we moved in, with no booster.

So I’ll try to keep posting about once a week for awhile yet, and post more pictures of the house, as well as the continuing building progress outside (carport, pergolas, landscaping etc) and some more about what it’s like to live in the house.