Forever House #45

Tuesday 16th May, 2017

ceiling sheets up and looking fantastic.

Much chillier this week - got a doona on tonight as well as the two lighter covers I've been using. I took a sleeping bag to Ronnie's Camp earlier today just in case he needs it. He's wearing his whole wardrobe to bed by the sounds of it! He said he just puts another sloppy joe on.

We had two cruisey productive days today and yesterday. Both of us arrived at the Forever House around lunchtime, after collecting metal from Metroll, and I did a turn around Bunnings collecting putty and other bits and pieces for working on windows when not mudding.

Wetting down to prepare for next wet row.

A bird's eye view of the mudding

On arrival yesterday I had enough mudding ingredients to get stuck in. I laid the first row in a long time on the wall between the second bedroom and the dining/lounge room. There has been a stack of cement ceiling sheets leaning up against that wall since Ronnie and I arrived on the 1st May. So rather than cover them in mud and water, I waited till now when Ronnie and the trusty sheet lifter, has lifted them all up 3m to that ceiling.

This wall has quite a lot of creative additions to work around. I think this came about because it was the last wall to be started and the creative juices went a bit mad. No regrets though I like all the little touches. They become more distinct as the walls grow.
This wall will be complete in about five more rows - at lintel height. I did a row yesterday, and another this morning and today I continued mixing mud and laid a whole row across all the remaining walls. A six mix day.

This is a mix of mud lifted out of the barrow.
Those blobs are the cobs -
hence the name of the method is known as cob.
You get a sense of how many barrows of mud
have been dug and then made and laid.

Ronnie making the form work
to mud to in preparation for the
fixed glass walls I am doing
above two mud walls

Ronnie just got on as he does. He finished all the inside ceiling sheets in the last week - and he's continuing around the outside. He's got scaffolding up everywhere - tricky to find a track through it without ducking and weaving. To put this last run of sheets up across the front and down the left side of the house, he has to remove the corrugated wall sheets that Andy put up years ago and trim the tops to allow the ceiling sheets to slip in above them when replaced on the walls. Ronnie designed and ordered some metal mouldings in the same pale eucalypt as the walls, which get screwed up snug to the ceiling and around the windows. The courrugated iron wall sheets slot in to these mouldings. And there are strips of corrugated rubber that squeeze up inside there - all in an attempt to ensure a proper vermon proof lock up.

Check out the tidy finish at the ceiling
and around the window frame

The skylights are fiddly
but a nice touch

Every day the work-site looks more like a house. Every batch of mud made and row of mud laid is closer to the last mud. It seems incredible after all the digging, sifting, barrowing, chopping straw, carting water and sand - that all of a sudden the mudding will be finished. It'll still need spraying with bondcrete and water to seal it ready for painting. But the laying is about 7 days off being complete.

I've dug enough dirt to lay another six batches of mud tomorrow. I'll dig some more after that ready for next week. I'm sanding windows ready for painting and glazing after the mud work each day. No idle moments for this girl. Not at home nor here - until it's done.

Ronnie and I have eaten well. Veg burgers last night and chicken and veg tonight. By the fire.

I've put a sheet of marine ply under the mattress of my bed in the van. Slept much better last night. Sleep time ready to do it all again tomorrow. Zzzzzzz.....

All the bottles snug in mud

Wednesday 17th May 2017
Today I got up early enough to make porridge for Ronnie and me. I feel the provision of food is the least I can do while I'm there - when I'm gone he eats nutrigrain for breaky, muesli bars for lunch and baked beans for dinner. So I gave Ronnie his porridge where he was out by the fire and went back to wait for my coffee to perk. When I got back to the fire Ronnie had run our of milk on his porridge and tipped coffee on it... not a great move he concluded.

2nd bedroom details

Bottle wall from main bedroom perspective

The six barrows worth of dirt I dug yesterday was ready for today's two and a bit walls worth of mud. That equates to 180 shovels full of raw dirt, thwacked with a lump of pine atop a wire bed base into a barrow, to sift and remove larger rocks, and pushed down whichever is the path of least resistance, to my pile by the cement (mud) mixer on the front verandah. Always good to start the mudding day with the ingredients needed. The only continuous requirement beyond dirt, chopped straw, and sand is water.

My right hand is going numb as I write, lying back on pillows in my caravan nest; that radial nerve is in trouble again. I've been trying to work my right arm less than gung-ho - but carting water and digging dirt are probably the things I can't get away from and I don't want to get away from them - I'm just meaning re the use of my arm... My other injury is a bump on the back of my head - standing up suddenly and whacking it on scaffolding. Ouch! Though it didn't bleed so all good.

The pictures will tell the story of the progress over the past week. Ronnie framed up for where the mud is to finish so that he can install a timber frame for the glass wall which I will create atop the mud. I went to AJ Magnay on Friday afternoon and was like a kid in a lolly shop in the glass room there. I bought $300 worth of glass that measures 500mm or longer. I will cut these various colours and textures into lengths that will fit the height of the framing. The width of each piece doesn't matter. An eclectic mix of glass coming up - won't know what we've got till it's up! I'm looking forward to this phase!

my makeshift mould to stop
the mud over the mirror
falling down before dry

Watch this space - 
at Ronnie's suggestion
the gaps around the french doors
will become coloured glass rather than wall

Ronnie dug a brand new sanding device out from behind the passenger seat of his ute. It has added a very handy dimension to the window prep I am doing after mudding and digging each day. I head over to the mosaic shed, which is currently the window prep shed - and sand and scrape and remove hinges. Most of the glass is already removed except a few panes where the putty is so hard it feels impossible to remove - so I may just leave those as they are. I've got a shopping list of hinges and other door furniture, plus gas for the stove.

Also to report - my American Currawinyan friend Pete dropped in today and took footage of the Forever House with a baby drone. He's a cameraman and the drone adds a string to his bow. I will put that footage up on the blog when I get a copy. It's awesome!

Left farm @ 4.30pm and got home about 7. Shopped for wine, milk and dinner - ended up scoffing inari with seaweed x 2 and hazelnut chocolate x 1 in the car on the way home. Home to a hot shower - though mud hair accompanies me to bed until tomorrow. Hoping my right shoulder doesn't give me too much curry overnight and that I might swim a km in SCU pool in the morning. My body would love the stretch but my shoulder will be key...

I have had two treatments for my shoulder since being home and have had two nights without a dead arm which is most exciting and a relief. I went to an Osteopath who used to treat me on the Northern Beaches of Sydney way back when I was a 19yo milko (40 years ago). He now works out of Lennox and he is a magician. 

The repaired window for the external bathroom door

Sunday 21st May 2017

The remade old window
for the Mud Room Door

The 2nd of two highlight windows for above sliding doors

An old light being used as the beginning
of a design for the wheel between
the main bedroom and the kitchen

I spent all day yesterday in the glass shed at home cutting and foiling glass for the 2nd of two highlight windows that will sit above the sliding doors onto the verandah. I also cut fresh glass and foiled it to repair a window I made over three years ago for the external bathroom door. At that time, after finishing it, I sat it up by an open window to admire, and a puff of wind blew it down. Shit damn and blast I exclaimed.

I have had to order a new soldering tip for my iron because the existing one has died. The new tip should arrive by next weekend. But I think it will be another week before I get to soldering all those prepped stained glass windows.
Catch you all soon. Thanks again for your interest. D xx

Forever House (#44)

Monday 8th May 2017

9.17pm I should clean my teeth. Just left Ronnie down there by the fire. He had salmon, sweet potato and asparagus, I had chicken and veg. Both frozen meals from home, heated up on Dad's gas camping stove and eaten by the fire with head torches on.

Ronnie and I met at Metroll in Lismore at 7.30am. We ordered the metal that will bring the Forever House to lock-up; to be collected on our way through next Monday morning..

I had little sleep last night - went to see Jeff Lange at a house concert in Lennox Head and got to bed after midnight up at 5.20am. Packed the esky and clothes and off to week 2 of this awesome push. After ordering and paying for the metal, Ronnie headed to Currawinya while I went to Bunnings for a few items, then to Lismore Transit Centre to collect a fellow Currawinyan Pete off the bus and give him a lift out to the property. He has returned from extended travelling. 

We had a lovely catch-up as we drove the two hour trip in Ronnie's wake. Came across Jason, a man I had been intending to call, parked beside the road where he has Telstra mobile range, making business calls. Being with Optus I don't get range anywhere much past Casino. And I have learned to turn my phone onto airplane mode at that point so that my phone stays charged for the three days I am there. I organised for Jason to come and slash my block, Pete organised to join his team of avocado pickers mid to late June. The dirt road out to Currawinya was being graded which was not the best timing but the trip back should be very smooth.

I dropped Pete at his driveway as I headed down the hill into my place. Ronnie was there already, getting stuck into work and after I'd unpacked my car I followed suit. I made three batches of mud and laid them just before Bob's arrival. He has been a Currawinyan since 2000 I believe, initially with his wife Edna who died about ten years ago now. Bob turned 80 in January. He looked very lean and shiny on this his 5th day of no food - a self imposed fast. Poor thing sat and drink water while Ronnie and I stopped for a coffee, tea and crackers with vegemite and cheese.

The scaffolding Ronnie set up after I left last week is awesome. He has completed battening the ceiling outside on the verandah and eaves ready for sheeting. He was struggling most of this arv with the sheet lifter and how to make it work with the new scaffolding. In the end we lifted the lifter up on to the scaffolding and to my horror, after my shower I found Ronnie with his head torch on, putting up a ceiling sheet in the dark. He wanted to see some progress for the day! I asked him not to do that again. He said that's what I get for giving him a head torch...
Sleep time.

Tuesday 9th May 2017

Much earlier to bed tonight - just before 8. Another huge day - the progress is palpable.
The caravan bed is not the best in the world - especially for a weary body already aching from a hard days work. But it's better than no bed and I've got my firm timber based bed at home to crawl into tomorrow eve. 

Ronnie was up enjoying the quiet of the morning and his coffee and fag when I arrived. We're into a familiar rhythm by now - he's got an easy temperament (as do I, I think) so we're cruising. He set his sights on sheeting the outside ceiling up to a certain point today and he was one sheet short of achieving that. I helped move the sheet lifter along the scaffold as each sheet went up. And I help position each sheet, slotting the edge into the joiner strip until he has placed two or three screws to secure it. He hopes to have all the ceiling sheets up by the end of this week.

I mudded and dug dirt, tidied up a bit more around the joint. I collected burnable timber which meant scrounging up all the redundant white-anted pallets which have served as scaffolding until now.  The stock of ceiling sheets is leaning up against two of the mud walls which means I can't mud above the sheets because they would get totally filthy. So there is only one wall I can work on at the mo. It is between the two bedrooms and has a circular bottle design in it.



I'm enjoying the mudding so much. I will take that wall right up to the ceiling. But have decided to stop the mud on the final two walls at lintel height. I've asked Ronnie to build a frame between the top of those mud walls and the ceiling. I'll insert fixed panes of whatever glass I can scrounge into those frames. This means less mudding (my right arm has an injury and I need to go easy on it). These high windows will look great and allow more light throughout the house.




No visitors today. Just us working methodically on an overcast and sometimes drizzly day. Tomorrow we do it all again and then I'm off home to my day job while Ronnie keeps going till Fri arv. He's a Godsend. I've left him down by the fire having a Wild Turkey and he'll have a shower. I had mine earlier and have taken a panadol to ensure a sound and replenishing sleep.

Wednesday 10th May 2017 - Sunday 14th May 2017
After another full day working two up at the house, I left Ronnie to it and headed home. I took some windows with me to work on at home. I've chiselled out all the glass panels and their old brittle putty. The frames need sanding and painting and I'll cut some clear panes to replace some of the opaque ones. I also have windows that will go about the sliding glass doors on the verandah. Ronnie measured them for the openings he will make. I am taking them home again to complete stained glass and paint the frames.

windows removed to take home and work on

I pulled the generator starter rope this morning and broke it.
Ronnie managed to make a temporary pully
untill I bring this one back fixed

looking back towards Currawinya
from the top of the Hogarth Range on my way home

After some procrastination on the stained glass window front, I got into the shed at home today - Mother's Day - and made a great start on the windows that will go above the sliding doors. This five-panelled window is one of two which will be complete next weekend ready for Ronnie to install above the sliding door as part of this push to bring the house to lock up. I hope to have the bedroom windows re-glazed and painted too, ready for installation before Ronnie finishes up in about three weeks time.

Forever House #43

Meet Ronnie

Monday 1st May 2017 I have the opportunity to finish the Forever House this year after thirteen years.

Regularly writing the blog really helped me stay motivated in 2013. I'm sure it will again now as I aim to have her finished, again, by the October Long Weekend 2017.

Last year, I was refinancing at home, to convert my back shed into a cottage for me so I could rent out the main house. A builder friend convinced me to include enough to pay a builder to come out and smash the remainder of the Forever House build. I borrowed extra on his reckoning. About seven months later here I am with a builder, Ronnie, here for a month to get the house to lock-up. I cannot believe my luck, to have an experienced builder come and camp and enjoy the challenge of this project. Ronnie came out a month or so ago and did a materials list. We made a plan to make a start on Monday May 1st.

Ronnie's home away from home

We shopped last Saturday for as many materials as Ronnie's ute would carry (ceiling sheets mainly, and timber to fit out the window openings), and drove out to the site. We met at Bunnings again today, and loaded up the rest. I towed the camper trailer for Ronnie's home away from home. His ute was laden with work horses and tools. We got to the farm at 1pm and have been unloading, cleaning, whipper-snipping, pitching the camper trailer, basically preparing the site ever since.

Shower

Temporary kitchen in bathroom

                     It is over three years since I made up the bed in the caravan on my Currawinya plot. How excited am I?  I've moved the kitchen from the 2nd bedroom to the bathroom with Ronnie's help. He's made a private shower under an old tank stand beside the house. He whipper-snipped tracks from house to loo to camper trailer to my caravan to shower.

We ate Thai Green Chicken Curry by the fire and are now in bed clean, tired and rpreparing to start work tomorrow. 


Tuesday 2nd May 2017
Evenin' all, two days in and one to to go for me, three to go for Ronnie. I think we're doing great. He's very organised, and after all this time away from it the building site needed bring back to something workable..We have both been organising the space to be able to get on safely and productively.

I'm cosy in my caravan, which had a few rat shits and needed a soapy bucket of hot water to give everything a once over. I threw away the sheet on the bed and the two covering the seats at the table. We set the camper trailer up for Ronnie and he's pretty happy in there. Lucky I haven't sold that yet (if anyone is interested it will be for sale sometime soon! let me know). Ronnie had planned to use his swag - which would have been fine, I'm sure, short term - but a month is long when you are working hard and a nest for all weathers is necessary I feel.

Today I rose and ventured down to the house, Ronnie was on his first coffee and fag. The kitchen is awesome. About 6.30am and he'd been up an hour. The conversation about where what when and how launched us in to action. Ronnie was walking around eating his Nutrigrain already in work mode.

We had to set up my mud-making station, whilst allowing him free reign to also work. We decided if he did a few more ceiling sheets over the verandah (following on from where Dave, Jeff, Ken and I had sheeted previously), that would give me an under cover corner for the mud mixer and my ingredients. We had to work out a track that I could push the barrow with sifted dirt and then with mud to where I need to lay mud.

before

during

after

Ronnie's work area needed some serious consideration. Putting up ceiling sheets on the verandah, the eaves of which hang out beyond the edge of the verandah floor. There is old pallet scaffolding set up outside the verandah from when we last put up ceiling sheets, but the lantana and cats claw had totally grown through it and taken over. I set about cutting away the lantana and cats claw - firstly using a saw - useless, and then changing to the long handled secateurs - almost awesome. I have bruises on the inside of my left thigh where I wedged one handle of the secateurs so that I could squeeze the other handle closed with both hands, cutting through the lantana with great effort. Ronnie refreshed the scaffolding and started putting up sheets using the sheet lifter we'd hired. The ceilings are 3m high so it would have been impossible without that lifter.

Once I got rid of the overgrowth, I readied the dirt pile to dig and sift more dirt. That entails removing 6m sheets of rusty iron off the ground which stops the grass growing over the pile in between diggings. I got a good work out - feeling it and it was only 10am. Every so often Ronnie needed me to be on the other end of what he was doing - I cannot believe my luck that he has agreed to come out here and help me get this Forever House to lock up. Between us we have cleaned up all the throughfares and I am looking around seeing the finished house in my mind's eye.

I chopped straw, gathered sand and water, swept up a barrow full of dry mud off the floor and got to mudding. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy the process. Ronnie methodically put up ceiling sheets, moving scaffolding and sheet lifter along the deck.





At 4pm after two barrow loads of mud made and laid I went to the river for a swim wash. I'd used the flash new shower room the night before but needed a river fix this arv. Breast stroked up to my little island and back - about 200m return swim.


 Ronnie kept going on the ceiling. At 5 we lit a fire in the 20ltr tin can outside and had a few drinks and chats. Quite different for me having done these pushes largely on my own previously. Veg lasagna for dinner and now bed - exhausted and happy and very excited about this push.

Saturday 6th May 2017
After spending a similar Wednesday out there working I came on home to work in Lismore Thursday and Friday. Ronnie stayed working on the ceiling. I was glad to hear he got home safe and sound on Friday eve - there is no range at the farm so out of contact when out there until coming back into Casino.

All that work took it's toll on my poor old Radial nerve it seems and I have been struggling a little with a dead right arm, and a hand that feels like it is on fire - mainly when in bed laying on my back. I've had some amazing Bowen treatments thanks to a friend who knows that magical knack and am feeling much better now. I will try to go a little less like a bull at a gate in order to survive this month.

This weekend is earmarked to write the blog and to work on stained glass highlight windows for above the big sliding doors onto the verandah. I am re working the panels of a bird light I made way back in about 1986. Ronnie needs the windows to either be finished or to have the exact measurements to work with next week.

Ronnie and I meet up on Monday morning to do it all again. Will write next weekend and report on the progress we make. Thanks for being out there in blog land reading and taking an interest in my project.

Forever House #42

May 2017
Hello Forever House Readers. It's time to pick up where I left off back in January 2014. My daughter is putting pressure on me which is kind of her.

I've been going to post a blog for a while, to indicate there is movement at the Forever House station and a big final push is in the pipeline. But every time I sit down to write I feel compelled to pick up where I left off - with my darling J getting sick. Which stops me because I want to share the story of Jeff' but I want to do it justice so cannot rush. Watch this space for a link to that blog when I settle to write it.

In a nutshell, since I signed off, things didn't work out the way we hoped. Jeff's Glioblastoma Multiforme claimed him. We did everything we could to fight it - but it is a brain tumour that cannot be beat, a fact we chose to ignore until about twelve months in. By that time we had both accepted that he would die. After the fight we put up, we knew we had done all we could. He was amazing throughout the whole sixteen months - right up to the day he died on the 2nd April 2015. He was fifty-seven years old. The man I had hoped to grow old and grey with. Thankfully he was not scared of dying but was very sad to be leaving the life we had created in the nine and a half years we were together. Neither of us would have missed being with each other - even though it was cut way too short. I feel lucky to have had him as my best friend and husband. And I feel honoured to have been able to walk with him as he needed me more and more. Jeff is the bravest man I know and I am so proud of him, and of myself. I carry him with me always. And thank him for continuing to look after me even now he is not here.

This link takes you to a digital story I made in December 2015 called A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Thanks for watching and handing on to anyone you think may benefit from its message.








Since losing Jeff (and would you believe my Dad Frank four days before), I have been juggling loss with acceptance and working out where and how my own life goes from there. It didn't take long, when I got back to work, to realise I could choose not to work a stressful job anymore - and instead to keep my well being front and centre, seeking pleasure and awareness from simple things and creative pursuits. There is certainly a lot of that to get on with - all my unfinished projects - the biggest being the Forever House.


In the two years since Jeff and Dad left us - Mum and I have been widows together which has been a weird blessing. I am so proud of her and her resilience and her zest for living every day, sad as she is that Dad is no longer sharing it with her. I realise so much of my own reslience and zest for life comes from her. Mum is adorable - everybody just loves her.




Here are a few pics of what I have put my energies into before being ready to get back to the Forever House.

Jeff and I began this renovation at home (Tuckurimba) back in 2012 but ran out of money. I finished it while he was ill with the incredible help of friends and trades. It is beautiful. You may note that the pink wall lights and the feature splash-back tiles were purchased in Melbourne for the Forever House, but as with the arch windows, which were also bought for the Forever House many years ago, this renovation pirloined them.
 

Jeff came back to this room for his last 3 months

The extension on the big house at Home

I turned the shed in our back yard at home (Tuckurimba) into a cottage for me. Jeff had his workshop on the left of this building, the right side was the shed shed, the upstairs was storage for everything that didn't fit into the house. There was a carport off to the right as well which I enclosed and turned into the kitchen and bathroom laundry. A great builder Tex and his wife Loida worked with me. I moved out of the big house and into this cottage at the end of October 2016. I am still to make sense of all the remaining belongings that don't fit into my tiny house. The cull has been overwhelming with all of my own and Jeff's and some of my kids belongings. I'll get there in the end. A container now acts as a shed and whatever fits in there is all I can keep! And of course I am still holding so much stuff that will furnish the Forever House when it is complete (five months time).

The shed at Home which became my cottage

My cottage taking shape

In about June of 2016 I bought a surf mat and fins and have become a mat surfer as often as I can get to the beach. I also spend as much time walking the beach as I can.

As a means of getting to the beach more often without having to drive back and forth I replaced my camper trailer with the DonnaVan which has been an awesome addition to my life. 

Jeff's electronics business is now my concern, with the help of my cousin Jess, supplying a local business with boards crucial to the small crane/s they make, which sit on the back of a ute and move beehives around by remote control.
I work part time at my old community sector organisation so that I keep contact with colleagues and the important work done.

I want to finish the Forever House and turn it into the Retreat I have dreamed of for many years. The grass is very long and everything is filthy but other than that, as always, she has waited patiently for my return; and her turn for completion has come. I know Jeff and Dad are sending me strength and motivation for this final leg of a huge build. Both those men supported the project to their utmost. They will forever be indelibly in it's DNA.