Peter and Natasha

1. thanks for the post
(Comments)

...ry. Maybe March, gulp. We were hoping to get slab, frame and roof on by April/May at the lastest to avoid rendering in the wet but it's all looking very tight, even with using a professional builder! ...

2. Sustainable House Day
(Comments)

Wonderful to see the new photos of the sustainable house day and also the latest rendering blitz. One day you'll be done. Stick with it guys.

3. SHD Impetus
(Comments)

It is great to read that you have such an exciting goal and are back into the last external rendering chores to make the house as good as you can before your 'open' day. Lets hope you can get a good

4. Great pun Sue!!
(Comments)

(attention rendered - love it)

5. Mushrooms and rendering
(Comments)

Glad your office has had some attention rendered - it is always hard when you have a place that has been the repository for everything that's not in daily use and it has to be cleared out. Where did y

6. 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.

7. soil testing
(Comments)

... is the silt and then the clay. we need at least 15% clay content for our soil to be viable to use in the render....

8. sounds like a plan
(Comments)

but is that render in the jars?

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

... lovely drop in visitor today - Jan who I immediately remembered coming over to help one day when we were rendering. Jan was keen to get up the ladder that day, and I distinctly remember seeing her en...

10. Moving along
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...abulous people (Tim and Daniella, and Andrew and Josephine who found us via our website) come and help us render. It's always great to meet new people on their straw bale journey, and this was no exce...

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

...p; It's been a pretty hard road for them, and we are going up to their place to help them in on a Rendering Blitz on the weekend of 18th & 19th June. We want to get stuck in to the third c...

12. Nice Dream
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...weak points where drafts can get in, possibly around the underside of the eaves. Sounds like a job for a render fix – someday. We inherited a lawnmower lately from Natasha’s Uncle Alan ...

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

If you think that this 'owner builder' or 'straw bale' thing is only for experienced or 'handy' type people, you would be mistaken.  We had very little experience when we started on this journe

14. First Steps
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...fternoon yacking, 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...

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

... We have been ticking things off our list, feeling very happy indeed. We have now finished all the rendering on the outside of the house, which is very very satisfying, and all the rendering is...

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

We've been rendering again. It may seem like a never-ending task to some but we just do a day here and a day there. Most of our days are now taken up with work or looking after Dylan so we build when

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

... It has well and truly proved its worth. So on to our progress. We've been at work over the weekend rendering bedroom 3 with Mel. Some of it was only at first coat and some cob was needed in a c...

18. Front and south
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...t door but we've not been using it because the deck is not built there. It's also lacking a final coat of render. So as it's the main part of the house that you see as you come up the beautiful new dr...

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

...ve lived in but not very Zen. So yesterday Steven and Caroline (and Imogen) came visiting hoping for some rendering action. But I needed a break from rendering so Steven and I embarked on getting the ...

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

... of the house to get the rooms ready for the shelving and cupboards.   This has involved rendering a little bit in the pantry and some larger expanses (walls) in the WIR and store-ro...

21. New opportunities
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

We were very fortunate to have some rendering assistance this weekend, as well as some great weather, and we are very pleased to have the north external wall now fully rendered. It looks fantastic. We

22. Chipping away
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...tion to do odds and ends inside but we still need to attend to weather tight issues outside. So I've been rendering the east wall, continuing what was mostly finished a couple of months ago. I also to...

23. A holiday
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...tion requires reconstruction at some stage so some "finished" outside areas are having to be re-rendered. It all takes a lot longer than we hoped but that should not be a surprise by now. Th...

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

...gaps where draughts are coming in to reduce the cold air flow inside! It's so cold that the final coat of render Peter has applied to the office/storeroom has still not dried after over a week. We ...

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

Internal rendering, a new window, flying trampolines and houses popping up like mushrooms. All this since the last blog.  First of all, we decided to have a look at the forsaken room, otherwise k

26. 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

27. Making way
(Blog/Living and Finishing)

...ing the windows in, then jack the windows up and pack them underneath, remove the flashing, and re-do the render around the windows, particularly underneath, to create a decent slope for the water to ...

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

...ed. However we have managed to knock over a few very satisfying tasks. We continued along our path of rendering the west end of the house, moving round to the north face of the house. This is wher...

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

...y. I like this new pace and life style! I'm also starting to re-vamp the website and plan some more rendering days. We've had a few people ask when we are having the next rendering weekends, so ...

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

... scale we have. It is possible to get a good amount done on the weekend, as we showed 2 weeks ago when we rendered bedroom 2 internally and got it ready for habitation. Brenda cleaned up the mess I ha...

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

...g forward to sharing our home with lots more people in the future. Last weekend we finished off the rendering of the second bedroom, which is great, and will mean we can have visitors over with ...

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

...of my mind - to the front. Would we become slackers?We had been planning to get stuck into some 3rd cooat rendering in our second bedroom today, and we were quite excited about getting a bedroom finis...

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

...k we've had massive support from Brenda in many areas 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 l...

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

...o on the ceiling, and some more sealing along the inside celestory windows. And then there is the cob and rendering on the outside. Patience, patience! At least we have a few days of cool weathe...

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

...tory 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 help would ...

36. It's a long way to the top if you wanna straw bale
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

..., and Kirsten, Ivan & Odyan dropped in to say hello, and Tathra and Gilda came to get stuck into some rendering. It was fantastic! Then today we had Josie & Anthony, and Geoff & P...

37. Deck prep and entertaining
(Blog/Lock up and inspection)

...int it will be fully operational and will look really good.  But my main focus lately has been rendering the area where the deck will go, as getting the deck done is a requirement of the C ...

38. Appreciation
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...l and truely given up our attachment to our 'we SHOULD be in the house by now" thoughts, and have surrendered to the journey, both of when we will be able to move in, and when our baby will be bo...

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

...allation 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 usual excellent attention to ...

40. Kitchen cabinets
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...nally use it is brilliant and relieving. Bring on the decking now! Mind you, before I do that I have some rendering to do. My birthday was on Saturday and I decided it was fun day - so I cut up anothe...

41. Dirty work
(Blog/Walls and Render)

Back to rendering again. I've been on other jobs lately, overseeing our amazing visitors rendering for a while but I got back into it myself in the last two days and remembered how much I enjoy it. It

42. Render, kitchen, doors
(Blog/Walls and Render)

We had our ace render crew in on Sunday working mostly on the outside this time. Roll call - Katrina, Ethan, Claire, Nic, Culina, Roisin and Mel came around in the morning and in the afternoon Peter H

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

...he 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 course. &nbsp...

44. A good cut
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...amaging any of them. It will get faster with another set of hands of the job. But first, clean all of the render and straw from those rooms! I've become used to throwing things out of the gaps where w...

45. Composting toilet
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...ver, I needed to clean up the ensuite where it will go so I spent some of the morning removing all of the render (heavy stuff), plastic drop sheets and straw from the floor in the ensuite. Then I proc...

46. Eaves lining
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... through the rafters and messing with the nicely laid insulation. Jo and Nic started putting on the final render coat on our pantry and they are instant experts. After they had gone, Cam and I went in...

47. Nesting
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... would take to get 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 2...

48. Many tasks
(Blog/Walls and Render)

... this way a couple of years ago. As a result of the sodden ground and ongoing rain I didn't get into much rendering today. It was just me on site except for a wonderful lunch visit from Natasha.I mixe...

49. Getting closer
(Blog/Walls and Render)

...n the first 3 days of this week I had the company of 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 Fri...

50. Revealing Walls
(Blog/Walls and Render)

We were blessed again with mild weather for rendering. Brad and Mark arrived to a lovely cool morning at the house on Sunday morning, and before long we were getting stuc