A cleared house site, almost ready to roll!

Ali, Alfie, Angus and Harry on the newly cleared house site, south west view.
The trench at left is the sub-soil drain to clear the water flowing down slope.

The cleared house site showing he stumps of the five trees removed.

Finally the finished shed, water tight and ready for the plumbing to be fitted.

House sold and the Shed Marathon

Wow, time has flashed by in a blur since Christmas. We are now on the verge of the final move to Nannup with the White Gum Valley house settling on the 19^th March, we finally got an offer after three months on the market. Quite  a stressful time doing home opens with infant Alfie. I think a fair amount of stress came from Ali and I not feeling too optimistic about the world financial system problems and what this might mean for house values and the Aussie economy. We’ve long felt that there is a major meltdown coming which is one of the major motivations to do the tree change and get a measure of self-reliance.

We had planned to build the shed during the xmas break but as it turned out the concrete pad was not cured sufficiently as it was poured on the 22nd December. Instead Ross (my dad) and I planned on getting most of it done during a four day break around Australia Day, 26 -29 January. Little did we know that this would be the hottest weekend of the year with each day getting up to the early 40c mark. Standing on a concrete pad surrounded by white sand definitely pushed up the local temp for us, not to mention the reflection from steel frames. The extreme heat meant Dad and I could only work for around 10-15 minutes on the pad before being driven back to the shade for a drink. By the end of each day our brains felt scrambled to the extent we couldn't add up simple figures. Progress was very slow with only a single bay, two attached frames, being completed after the four days.

The shed build begins 26 January 2012.

We kept plugging though and returned the next couple of weekends to progress things further, this time with some milder weather and the help of many willing hands things went a lot easier.

Ali, Linc and Alfie and the Shed frame as of 18 Feb 2012

Until as you can see below we are now half way through  the roofing. A great learning experience, a confidence booster for the house build and hopefully a place we can call a comfortable home!
Thanks everyone who helped Ross, Jeannette and Elise, Katie, Charlie, Hallie, Guy and Minty.

The shed  with  half the roof done as of 27 Feb.

Ahhh holidays, time to catch up!

Its been a big few months!

Firstly the best bit, Alfie is now 5 months old and has just seen his first Christmas which has been fantastic. Busy times.

Following closely though is major movement on the Nannup front.

Plans for house all approved by Council
So as of  November our plans for a strawbale house to be built in the Shire of Nannup are all approved. Plan details and pics are below in my last post. This proved to be a relatively easy step in the  end with the only query being the weather resistance of the render we will be using.  We quickly sorted this out with some of the details we learned back in March from Brian Hodge at Anvil. Our lime/earthen render has been used one many buildings including some in harsher climates than South West WA with no problems.

A new caravan
Unfortunately at the same time we got approval for the house a change in Council rules occurred which has stopped residential use of sheds. A fair amount of effin' and blindin' then ensued as we were told that only a caravan or similar would be approved for us to live in - a caravan which we would just be parking next to our lovely dry and warm shed, seemingly a total nonsense. Anyway there is apparently some hope this rule will be changed again but in the meantime we've been really lucky to pick up a van for $1000 with a new fridge and A/C. Its very heartening to see how things can work out well even when it seems constant blockades are put up to reaching your goal.

Shed Pad is now done
With some amazing work from Danny Miller at Do Your Block Earthmoving & Construction, we've now completed the site works and concrete pad for our shed.

Looking east from the retaining wall.

Alison and Elise surveying the pad

Looking west down onto the freshly soaked pad