Peter and Natasha

1. Question about the Loo & Thanks
(Comments)

...ng time reader, first time poster how much I enjoy and value your site. I've been thinking about straw bale building for quite a few years and reading about your exploits and in particular the awesome...

2. thanks for the post
(Comments)

Thanks for the latest entry. After originally planning to be building all summer, our project has been waylaid but we are hoping to start in Febuary. Maybe March, gulp. We were hoping to get slab, fr

3. Thank you
(Comments)

...much for your encouraging words, we look forward to meeting you and having a good ol chin wag re straw bale building....

4. Congratulations
(Comments)

...g the fruits of your labour! Well done. Thankyou for sharing your journey online. As someone contemplating building their own strawbale home, it has been a really valuable resource for me....

5. Absolutely incredible
(Comments)

...e to me that you and Peter have pulled off this incredible task with absolutely no experience whatsoever at building.You are both an inspiration to me. As for the C of E- break a leg!...

6. Boxing, Bales and Gales
(Comments)

...t so hope they've left you in peace now. Wish we could be with you this weekend to lend a hand, but our own building is at a critical stage and we can't make the trip. We're looking forward to seeing ...

7. music
(Comments)

...ell I'm glad you asked bro. I have iTunes playlists called Build and Build Groove! Build has anything with building related words in the title, such as Michael Jackson-Off the Wall+Get on the Floor,...

8. Building percussion
(Comments)

...you how completely astonished and awe-struck I am that you're doing this yourselves with precisely no prior building experience. It just floors me. Being a DJ though, I have to ask... in years to come...

9. Building site residency
(Comments)

Don't worry about living in a building site Pete - we did it when you were in the incubation stage and the other two were at the toddler stage (fun, fun)and managed to survive. Actually it can be qui

10. Greetings from Scotsburn
(Comments)

...er us? Stayed with Ian & Sue after Xmas. How frustrating for you sorting out the roof. Have you thought of building a scale model? We have found models are very useful for understanding complex 3-D ...

11. Briefs
(Comments)

...rief blogs are greatly appreciated over on this cooler side of the Tasman. Keep up the good work and happy building....

12. Friendly spider
(Comments)

Maybe the spider was trying to thank you Peter, for providing shade via your mode of building, ie stumps and not slab. Perhaps it is just taking refuge in the portaloo until the house floor goes on fo

13. New Life
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... the public meetings to inform our local community. It's been pretty full on and we have re-prioritised our building time so I can concentrate on supporting the campaign against the mining. If you wou...

14. The longest time
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...and airports, he is in his element, and he is working with a great team, which he loves. Another benefit to building our own home, as Peter would never have had the confidence to apply for a job which...

15. Moving along
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ly) and although we had Dylan to look after, which was not easy given the weather conditions and being on a building site, we got stuck in. I know I have said this before, but we love rendering! Despi...

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

This building caper has had many silver linings - not the least of which has been the wonderful people we had met along the way. Ari was one of the first people we met. Ari now has a fabulous partne

17. Building Community
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ty we’re had rally around us to build our house is seeing friends begin and progress with their own building projects. We had a visit from Hans and Cath yesterday who are just hitting the acce...

18. The Hilux
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... div.WordSection1 Well before we started to build our house we bought our Hilux ute in anticipation of building someday. Buying a vehicle that had no room inside for luggage but plenty of room o...

19. No Experience Necessary
(Straw Bale House/Straw Bale House)

...ever except for a 4 day course she did with Brian Hodge from Anvill in 2006, a few years before we started building.  Having said that, we reckon there are few key ingredients to being a success...

20. 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

21. New Loo
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...e other day and the couple being interviewed at the end of the process said they would definitely recommend building a house (design/managing, not the physical building of it) though a more simpler ve...

22. Brewing
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...king about putting together some resources for others who are curious, considering or in the midst of owner-building a house, straw bale or otherwise. We are thinking that some of these resources will...

23. First Steps
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...e also lucky to have a visit from Ari (Peter got heaps of experience helping on her build before we started building) and Dean, along with their daughter Issy and friend from New York, Olga. We had a ...

24. Deck done
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

Finally a payoff for all the "more important" building tasks! I built the south deck!  It took me about four days to complete but I've been looking forward to it for ages so it hardly s

25. Performance
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... registered) or email us on peterandnatasha@gmail.com. But back to the magificent deck that Peter is building. It is one of his favourite jobs of the build, and he is revelling in it. It looks ...

26. Ticking things off
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...to enjoy the cooling southerly breeze. So after some down time and relaxing, this action on the house building front is feeling very rewarding and almost addictive (a familiar feeling from days ...

27. Twos
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ain without a care.   Not that we have much time for frolickery. In the last two days I've returned to building action. Being a rural location we get lots of flies, spiders and mosquitoes and tha...

28. Off the wagon
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... fallen off the wagon of late. No blogs and no new photos, but thankfully there has been some action on the building front, phew! Peter has been getting our recycled decking timber ready and stained, ...

29. Carried Away
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...e we are both off from work, and this time we have been designating as 'family time'. As a result, not much building has been happening. Now that the weather has been getting warmer, we have been...

30. Past the two-year mark
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

Time is a funny thing. In some ways it seems not long ago that we first set out on our house-building quest, full of enthusiasm and blind faith. In other ways it seems like a great deal of time has pa

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

... was unstoppable. What we have got from this website goes way beyond keeping our families up to date on our building adventures. It has introduced us to many wonderful people, all interested in strawb...

32. Opening our doors
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...uch knowledge from helping us build. I loved being able to hear them talk about their direct experiences of building, and in the process I was reminded of many things I had forgotten. It was qui...

33. All weather access
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

We started building in October 2008 and since that time we've been subject to the vagaries of the weather when trying to get on to the land by vehicle. At times this has meant taking on a little rally

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

...p on Sunday 12th September. We can’t wait to show people around the house and talk about sustainable building. For those who have not heard of this event, it's a great way to see what others h...

35. Chipping away
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...e I keep myself entertained and occupied with podcasts or music, I have numerous playlists specifically for building and a lot of podcasts to get through. After listening to science podcasts I feel li...

36. A holiday
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...l of his family on my side. So we've spent a wonderful 11 days away from the house with no way of doing any building. The only house related task we did was to have a good look with my parents at the ...

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

...nbsp; Brrrrr! We are thanking our lucky stars that we are not spending another very cold, very windy winter building outside. It's lovely to lay in bed at night snug and warm listening to the rain and...

38. 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

39. Making way
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...nto seedlings with much anticipation.  In the meantime we will continue to plan our next bit of building work, and enjoy the views!   ...

40. A big list and a special visit
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

I now know what people mean when they talk about losing momentum and interest in building when they move in. We have a list of things that need to be done, a lot of them fun but we haven't made a huge

41. Keeping perspective
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... is that Peter only has 2 more days of contracting work, and then we can get stuck into some organising and building work. In a way, I'm glad I find it annoying, otherwise we might get complacent and ...

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

We've been taking things a bit easier on the building front since we moved in about a month ago. But that doesn't mean we've been doing nothing. I've been lucky enough to get some work as so

43. Taking a breath
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... serious R & R and are looking forward to holding a workshop there for any one interested in straw bale building, as we are keen to keep sharing our knowledge. We are also having friends stay at o...

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

...l have quite a bit of work to do to get the house 'complete', my concern that we would find it hard to keep building had been sneaking out - from the back of my mind - to the front. Would we become sl...

45. Bliss at Possumtail Run
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

... Wellington in NZ, and it's been fantastic to share our new home with them. They were keen to get into some building, but the weather (and Peter's reluctance given the last few weeks of long hours' bu...

46. Certificate of Occupancy!
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

...ompleted by October, our permit cut-off date. Having said that, it's hard to imagine returning to full time building too soon. We're taking a short breather! ...

47. At least another day
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

...which has been my sawing and general mess making room. It was full of off-cuts and stuff from many weeks of building and took quite a lot of tidying up, as we had to sort everything that was still use...

48. Train keeps a-rolling
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

...- the house is certainly far from finished but absolutely liveable. So tomorrow (Monday) I will call up the building surveyors and request an inspection. I'm numb to the fact that we're actually at th...

49. Patience is a virtue
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

Sometimes we can't quite get ourselves out of the dark tunnel called "will this ever be over?". Just when we think it's in the bag, it's not. We realised that we were supposed to have our

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

I think we are in a state of denial! It's a long river too (the Nile that is). We are so so close now, our list of things to complete to get our C of O is quite short, even if some of them are time