Peter and Natasha

1. looks like a nearly completed house
(Comments)

That last photo you have added 15/15 looks so terrific, love those undulating walls, and the render looks much lighter than when it went on. The whole look is spectacular.

2. brief comments
(Comments)

The walls look fantastic, the bales are beautiful, great work Tarsh & Nicole! I LOVE seeing the progress online every day, yours has become my favourite blog by far. The roof is going to be amazing

3. ALright!!!
(Comments)

...ck! Did you see Grand Designs from Tuesday night? Totally brilliant, this couple made a house in France, walls constructed from car tyres and earth. Amazing and absolutely inspiring, over budget as al...

4. Catching up
(Comments)

...rames the whole thing; you can start to see its eventual shape and that's exciting! Next the roof, then walls and lock-up is not far away. We need to talk again about that house that was being knock...

5. Greetings from Scotsburn
(Comments)

...nderstanding complex 3-D forms. Our house at Scotsburn is taking shape. Slabs complete and rammed earth walls under way. We're anxiously checking that everything to be built in is included and in the...

6. waste slope
(Comments)

... overflow drains built in, our waste is more for the shower, but also the bath. With internal strawbale walls we have to take extra precautions not to have standing water get into the walls, as this ...

7. When you're hot, you're HOT!
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

..., and I distinctly remember seeing her enjoying being up there rendering away on the North/West external walls. We love visitors, and she was equally excited to see the house 2 years on, and really en...

8. Moving along
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... hadn't seen the house in 3 years, and it was fantastic to see how far it had come since we put the bale walls up. It has some beautiful shapes and angles (the roof particularly) and although we had D...

9. It's all relative
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ou point it at a surface - so we can compare the floor to the ceiling and the windows and the straw bale walls. Fantastic stuff. We are yet to use it systematically around the house, especially when t...

10. How we built/compressed our external staw bale walls
(Straw Bale House/Straw Bale House)

Over the years a few different methods of building straw bale walls have developed. Some use steel rods, some use wire netting/chicken wire over all the walls, and there are some other tried and tru

11. First Steps
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...acking, and Dean and Olga got stuck into applying some fabulous you beaut mineral silica to our rendered walls. This amazing stuff will ensure we don't receive any more scratches or bumps to our rende...

12. One room to go
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...hat we've been living in our house. Some of the tasks are large but they are few (ceiling, flooring, the walls are mostly taken care of!). We feel OK about spending a little time gardening now and jus...

13. Website and progress
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... trowel and did her thing. It all went well, we listened to the AFL grand final as we worked and did two walls. I kept going after this with some sponging. The next day I rendered the final wall...

14. Heaters and Cupboards
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ds.   This has involved rendering a little bit in the pantry and some larger expanses (walls) in the WIR and store-room. Now all we have to do is finish them off by preparing and th...

15. Winter is here
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...reroom has still not dried after over a week. We are pretty excited about the room being finished (ie walls being dry) so that we can set up Peter's tools properly in the end/storage bit of the roo...

16. Render window trampoline mushroom
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... rendering. For some reason the office is the most "interestingly shaped" room of the lot. The walls have very curious contours and one corner is an acute angle and so not easy to get a trow...

17. Rendering Bliss
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

We have been hanging out to get stuck into some more rendering on the outside walls. Uncharacteristically, we have been receiving lots of rain of late, and the second coat of render on the wall that

18. Making way
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ing weekend on 29th and 30th May, and we are looking forward to getting the trickier and more vulnerable walls sealed up with that magically good-looking final coat.  And we have also finalised w...

19. Work and living
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... nice, especially when we've constructed the shelter ourselves. Seeing the way the light falls on the walls at different times of the day and the way it changes from week to week is fantastic, now ...

20. On the path to completion
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... of quick satisfaction at the results. As I write this, Peter is finishing off the final sponging of the walls. We have finished the two larger walls of the room, and prepared some of the little spots...

21. Denial is a long river
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... and clerestory fascia and other stuff needs to be completed. We also have some sections of the external walls to be rendered with a second coat. If anyone fancies some rendering this weekend, your ...

22. Appreciation
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... couch/bed in our bedroom-to-be at the house, and it was bliss! It was lovely to lay back and admire the walls, the texture and colour in the room, looking out the window at our beautiful view and not...

23. New Year's Eaves
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...sets me up to do the ceilings, given that the house is now mostly sealed up at the tops of the walls. Once they have finished, we will finish the seal with some cob and the house will be one...

24. An excellent Sunday
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...epping the big window for installation while I got his mum to brush the loose sand from our final coated walls. Aygun got into final rendering a section of wall in the north entrance hall. With his...

25. Nesting
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... it all done.  Here is the list of the main things we need to get complete: * Rendering inside walls 3rd coat (hallway next to laundry to go) * Rendering outside walls 2nd coat (about 40...

26. Revealing Walls
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ay morning, and before long we were getting stuck into the third and final coat of render on our inside walls.  We had almost forgotten to do some test renders, but thankfully the hot w...

27. Another big dose of generosity
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ere well earned, and most of the work was done inside out of the sun, as we were working on the internal walls.  I am now officially on 'light duties' and despite being 30 weeks pregnant, and bei...

28. A proper day off
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...lly sprinkle swear words in there too, you'll get the vibe. In some part of my brain I thought doing the walls would be a good fun week or two but of course, nothing is so easy in this owner building ...

29. Unfinished business
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... the plaster board on in the wet areas I've been able to stuff the other side with straw and finish more walls, such as the the en suite / master bedroom wall. The list of walls still requiring attent...

30. Catch up
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...re left of plaster boarding to complete the basic installation which is necessary to give us one side of walls which need wire and stuffing on the other side. Then of course they need rendering. We ar...

31. Rendering with the stars
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ts and of course, Natasha and myself. There was still a lot to be finished before render could go on the walls all around. Brad and Mark rolled in with their equipment after 8am and began to set ...

32. Countdown
(Blog/Walls and Render)

It feels like a mega-countdown. Tomorrow is our last day for cleaning up, finishing walls and getting our plastic down on the floor (to save clean up time after rendering). We've both been surpr

33. Exstrawdinary
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...he next exstrawdinary thing is Natasha. 24 weeks pregnant and up a ladder fixing wire netting on to stud walls. I'm sure it's not recommended behaviour for this stage of pregnancy but try and stop her...

34. Reality Check
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ike the circular saw, but have discovered that I am a bit of a gun with the staple gun, and we got a few walls prepared with the chicken wire stapled on to some walls, ready to be stuffed. The gun is ...

35. Many hands make fun work
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...get some big jobs done, with the maximum of fun. So next weekend we will hopefully get the bulk of the walls done, and then the next weekend, get into the long awaited rendering! We have been...

36. Down to the wire
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...or wireless, where to position the lights? What sort of lights, controlled from where in the room? Which walls will not be rendered, where will the oven, fridge, dishwasher go? It's all stuff that I'v...

37. Tank you
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...s finished and that we can harvest any rainfall that comes our way now.After a fun start to our internal walls we had to put the brakes on so that we can get the electrical work done. Any work we do w...

38. Let the stuffing begin!
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ors. Whilst I had some rest at home this morning, Alan and Peter started getting ready to stuff internal walls. After a trip to the shops to get the right gauge staple gun, we were in business. Alan a...

39. Roof 1, Toilet 0
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ek. It's hard to sleep when I don't know whether the roof is going to withstand the wind and whether any walls will still be standing when I get out to the build in the morning. On a night when we had...

40. Roof on, except when it's not
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...use completely covered we've been able to turn our attention to other things. Such as finishing the bale walls at least up to intermediate boxing height.The parade of storms has knocked over a wall or...

41. Bad poetry
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...e rain makes for a change But lately the wind is always the same It stops for a laugh then blows down my walls Is wind the bad wolf I tried to ignore? ...

42. More roof and more rain
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ns. Shortly this will all be done and we can bridge the gap to the ring beams and we'll have full height walls. Then on to the internal Kram walls. All under cover, no off days due to wind or rain. Lu...

43. Big steps down a long road
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...he majority of the north section of roof done and suddenly there is shelter for our straw bale piles and walls. What a huge step. I have been working towards getting the roof on for so long that it's ...

44. A great day
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ide of the roof is almost done. I arrived after lunch to build some of the remaining external straw bale walls, and was very excited to see their progress! We are thanking our lucky stars that Tim and...

45. Anyway the wind blows
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...finition to the roof line, it keeps on getting better every time we add things. With the roof on and the walls up the shape will be fully revealed. ...

46. Long Way There
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...der (maybe they had a nasty altercation in a previous life-time). Yesterday and today I have been fixing walls (taking bits off the end as they are hanging over a bit), building new ones, and compress...

47. Specifications of the house
(Straw Bale House/Straw Bale House)

... posts 2 x 90x45 and 2 red iron bark feature posts, beams 190x45 & 290x45   Internal walls: * Timber stud walls with chicken wire on both sides (straw stuffed inside and rendere...

48. Couldn't fascia before
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

After the excitement of getting a good chunk of our straw bale walls up over the weekend it was back to thinking about other things such as getting the roof on. Well actually from Monday to Wednesday

49. The Love of Straw
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...t company, great food, great weather (thank you Lynda for all your praying!) lots of love and straw bale walls to boot! The most satisfying part of the whole weekend for me was watching the crews wor...

50. Straw Bales
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...tops us getting a roof on.  But it gets even more exciting.Today is the day we start putting up our walls! We had a day of help from Cam and Leora yesterday getting the bottom boxing ready, it's ...