Peter and Natasha

1. Batsman
(Comments)

Good to hear the flooring is imminent.

2. Straw home
(Comments)

What kind of floors do you use for a straw home? I'd probably be uncomfortable in a straw home that was made of concrete. I'd have to have some [url=https://www.floorstoyourhome.com/discount-laminate-

3. Kitchen delight
(Comments)

...out your ute being stuck in the mud. What a change since those days clearing out stump holes and getting floor bearers on. It has been a remarkable achievement and we hope you can get in for Christmas...

4. getting plastered
(Comments)

... the plastered bathroom wall, makes it look like the inside of a nearly-finished house!! The bale on the floor in front of the plaster adds to the incongruous charm too. Keep the blog posts coming, th...

5. Thar She Blows.
(Comments)

...orse It makes the new fixed roofing go Next door - it's such a curse. The straw bales tumble to the floor The ladder can't be used And Peter grumbles more and more It's not what he'd have choo...

6. music
(Comments)

... has anything with building related words in the title, such as Michael Jackson-Off the Wall+Get on the Floor, ACDC-High Voltage(for the electrician), Beatles-Norwegian Wood, MC Hammer, Ami Stewart-K...

7. Building percussion
(Comments)

...d 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, what music will be reminding y...

8. Tradie's
(Comments)

... lesson Peter maybe yor have to ask tradie to go around the holes or he may end up in it.Re Horsham and flooring it turned out not suitable for salvage but we are looking at a school in Marybourgh ne...

9. Go the Kiwis!
(Comments)

...ll work and no play makes Pete a dull boy - or so they say. I hope you are successful in resolving your flooring and underfloor insulation without holding up the build at all....

10. good idea
(Comments)

yes trine, a good matress is a must on a timber floor! the tent is pretty airy without the top layer, we're hoping to sleep inside tonight.

11. Friendly spider
(Comments)

...de of building, ie stumps and not slab. Perhaps it is just taking refuge in the portaloo until the house floor goes on for more permanent shelter. Good try with the sleeping in tent last night. It ...

12. Matt Noyes
(Comments)

The wooden floor vs carpet vs tiled is as old as the vegemite vs marmite debate. Here's my 5c worth. I think wood looks nice BUT it's not very thermally efficient (which I know matters to you) and i

13. Looks amazing!
(Comments)

Hi guys - I just checked out the floor plan - how amazing!!! Very clever layout!!! I can't wait to take my first step inside!!! Lots of love Joey xox

14. Hot water at last
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... taps. Brilliant, absolutely brialliant! In other news, we have put down the first coat of our new flooring in some parts of the house, and this coming Sunday will see a second coat go on - yay!...

15. Goodbye yellow tongue
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...e state and winds that blew me off the joists and damaged my knee, we were laying down the yellow tongue flooring. That has been the floor we've lived with since March 2010 when we moved in and it's l...

16. New Life
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...' out of the house, enabling our office and studio to function as they were designed, getting our proper floor put down, and getting the bathroom completed (we have a fully functional ensuite). ...

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

...dget from my work, that tells you the temperature when you 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 u...

18. Our Fabulous Composting Toilets
(Straw Bale House/Straw Bale House)

... on stumps lilke ours. The model we are using is the Classic750. It needs 750mm clearance underneath the floor to be able to be used. For full details check out www.ecoflo.net.au.  Now for ...

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

...apping and 'boxing'. Our photos will help explain......first of all, we laid bottom boxing on the floor, putting the polyester strapping underneath the boxing as shown right. Then we fill...

20. From the land of more door
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...the soil that came from the digging of the trench. Trench complete. I have to cut a hole in the bathroom floor to take the waste chute so I went out and bought a plunge router. I don't really get exci...

21. Deck done
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... the things that makes it so enjoyable, selecting the timber to use(thatnks to Ray from Classic Recycled Floors for supplying us with more great material). So I still need to do the small section arou...

22. Performance
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...asi oak hardwood from our legendary friend Ray Barton who has a recycled timber business called Recycled Floors in Dandenong.  I simply would not work in the kind of heat we experienced to...

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

...ver 6 months that 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 gardeni...

24. Pantry order at last
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

... pantry has been set up. One offcast piece of kitchen shelving, a TV trolley and a bunch of boxes on the floor. More storage than most places I've lived in but not very Zen. So yesterday Steven and Ca...

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

... destructive but that will ultimately lengthen the lifespan of the windows and prevent any damage to the floor, joists and bearers. It involves packing the windows up off the floor, which I ...

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

...reas and yesterday Aygun and John did a brilliant job of rendering and finishing off the base of the sub-floor. All the little details seem to take a lot of time when it comes down to it, but we think...

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

... to approve the installation of the composting toilet; we are getting our wet areas properly sealed; sub-floor is being finished off by our fabulous contractor Alan; and clerestory fascia and other st...

28. Bog blog
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...roductive. I lined up a wonderful day of tasks for myself, the first of which was to lay the lino on the floor so that I could install the toilet.It's easily the most pressing thing that I have to do ...

29. The joy of windows
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... today with the help of Aygun. Before getting to install anything today we went on a big clean up of the floor. Mostly render, which in a large quantity is very heavy and straw which is everywhere of ...

30. Composting toilet
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ent some of the morning removing all of the render (heavy stuff), plastic drop sheets and straw from the floor in the ensuite. Then I proceeded to do the same in our bedroom. Thanks to Ricks' start at...

31. Nesting
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ough and toilet, solar hot water * Hang doors * Install verandah lining * Put in lino on wet area floors * Plumbing final fit off * Electrical and lighting * Ensure area from sub-floor to...

32. Getting closer
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...Natasha's dad Terry who helped with a good amount of rendering and also did some work on the exterior subfloor area.  Then on Thursday and Friday I had a couple of days away from the build, worki...

33. Ongoing heat
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ot that we've had one yet) seems to bring the temperature down. So we've been sleeping downstairs on the floor. It's still warm down there, but 5 degrees can make all the difference. So it's a catch 2...

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

...ng the few remaining door heads left inside, and Logan was jack of all trades, mixing cob, attaching sub-floor sheeting with Peter, and smoothing over the render on the tops of the external walls. ...

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

...ring weekend, there will more to do than just the rendering. I'm still working on the outside of the sub-floor, in fact I've not devoted nearly enough time to it but with an extra hand or two it's qui...

36. Catch up
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...second coat goes on. But wherever we are will be fine.  Today I worked on preparing the exterior subfloor area for render, which means providing a surface to attach cement sheeting to which will ...

37. Countdown
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...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 surprised at how many wall...

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

... Judith who are also straw bale owner-builders. The last time they saw the house we didn't even have the floor on, so it was great to get their perspective on how far we had come. And then there...

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

...acked earth The land: * Soil classification - H (highly reactive clay) Stumps to sub-floor: * Joists and Bearers - 140x45  (but we accidentally did joists at 190x45) * Sub...

40. Suppliers & Contractors we recommend
(Straw Bale House/Straw Bale House)

...glar - 0418 363 030 Termite Barrier: Kordon rep: Mike Street 1800 133 393 Recycled timber/floor boards/decking etc: Recycled Floors Dandenong - contact Ray Barton 03 9548 5888 (Ray is...

41. Stillness doesn't stay still
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...th Ethan and Claire.  They haven't seen the house since about February when we had just started the floor so a lot has happened since then!  And then to top it all off Sonny and Deb with Ali...

42. Plumbing and purlins
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ifference to the vibe and three songs in particular - Off The Wall, Working Day and Night and Get On The Floor, all from the album Off The Wall - have given us a soundtrack to our build. We're both sa...

43. Not hot
(Blog/Rafters and Roofing)

...ually my biggest concern, as it happened. In trying to lever up a rafter on to the beam from down on the floor, a big gust of wind took the rafter which started to slide off the beam and framing and b...

44. Framing finished
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...have reached the end of another phase of construction. A few days ago we had piles of walls lying on the floor waiting to be finished, braced and put up. Now there are none. All walls are construct...

45. Muddy puddles
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...et back in the swing of things. It was a delayed start due to drizzly rain and when we got out there the floor was all quite wet.Inevitably when walking on to the job from muddy ground the floor gets ...

46. Vision to reality
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...beam to bed finally and to get some internal wall framing up. We've been constructing the framing on the floor and stacking it up and we have quite a pile now ready to go up. Not all wall frames ar...

47. Questions answered
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...e found we were quite efficient at putting the walls together. We don't have a lot of room on the floor to lay the walls, as our bracing is in the way, so we have laid them on top of eachother ...

48. Peter 2, Ring Beams and Posts United 0
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...hat idea. I did have one fun moment with my ladder, which was standing a bit shallow and in a flash the floor came up to meet me as the ladder slipped on it's feet. I grabbed hold of the nearest piec...

49. Beaming
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

...That involved taking down 2 posts and putting up replacements at the new heights and bracing them to the floor. It was easier than I had expected to to get them up and get them level. The next part wa...

50. Clerestory, cloistery or celestory
(Blog/Posts, beams, framing)

... apply the Borax, especially to the areas where they've been spotted. Once we get the poles up on to the floor, it will create a barrier to the ground for the termites so they wont hang around long.&n...