Dealing with local councils is often very much like dealing with 1950’s American sit-com parents. It often feels like you’re trapped in a private episode of Council Knows Best condemned to endless repeats. They’re usually well-meaning, upstanding bodies made up of well-meaning, upstanding men (plus a token well-meaning woman who normally prefers to remain seated), who generally believe they’re strict but fair. They mean well, but unfortunately most of their attitudes would also feel more comfortable in a 1950’s sit-com. So if you want to bring some rock’n’roll into their cosy crooner world, you’ll have to overcome their intrinsic mistrust of all things different and convince them it’s not necessarily the end of the world.
Building inspectors, on the other hand, are more like the world-weary, crotchety uncle (not to be confused with the crochety uncle, who is the uncle that crochets a lot). They normally don’t mean well ... they’re just plain mean, and hardly even normal. For them, the council are naive do-gooders, prone to make emotional decisions whenever someone plays their heart-strings. But building inspectors belong in the wood-wind section - having no hearts, and only their decisions coming with strings attached. The sturdy building inspector is the last line of defence between civilisation and anarchy. Because the council is so easily deceived by wily developers and building subversives, it remains the building inspector’s God-given duty to redress such bureaucratic imbalances, so that the integrity of the entire world is maintained. Or at least that’s what they seem to think ...
So although we had planning consent, the only thing we’d really proven was that our intentions were honourable. We’d convinced the council that this wasn’t some marriage of convenience, and they’d given us their blessings. But a lengthy courtship lay ahead, and the building inspector was a less-than-willing chaperone. Until he was satisfied, it would always remain very much a de facto relationship. And even living in sin was out of the question - he knew where we lived.
Surely this was only a minor inconvenience? After all, we had every intention of heeding not only every legal requirement, but also the spirit in which they were meant. We wanted a house which blended in. And we wanted to blend in as well. Whichever kind of house we finally decided to build, whichever kind of life we decided to construct for ourselves, one thing was certain - it would definitely make a positive contribution to the local community.
Our heads quickly became filled with ideas and plans. As yet, nothing was too fanciful, so no idea was rejected out-of-hand. There would be time later for practicalities. For the moment, we were content to let our imagination run wild.
The old stone cottage still figured prominently in our designs, and Marion has always had a fascination for anything ramshackle, so we began contemplating moving an old ruin onto our section stone by stone. Any ruin. Every rundown cottage, barn, church or railway carriage was seen through avaricious eyes. Borer could be evicted. Dry-rot could be gouged out and puttied over. And there was nothing a lick of paint couldn’t disguise.
We pored over old photos and souvenirs from our European tour looking for inspiration, and found it in guides to Skansen and Seurasaari open-air museums (in Sweden and Finland, respectively). Inside was a bewildering array of log cabins and sod-covered cottages. Rough-sawn floors and huge, soot-stained open fireplaces. Stained-glass windows and low ceilings with ladders disappearing into shadowy lofts.
They didn’t make houses like that anymore, we thought wistfully.
No, they didn’t. But we could ...
So the life-altering decision to actually build our own home was born. There was no fanfare. We weren’t talking about the Second Coming, after all. People have been building their own homes since time immemorial without so much as an architect. Neanderthals could do it. Builders could do it. How hard could it possibly be? Ignorance is, of course, bliss. So it was little wonder we were deliriously happy with our decision. Not that we were totally unaware of the potential difficulties involved. For me, it was simply no big deal. I had confidence that we would, somehow, manage.
Of course, not everyone shared my confidence. In fact, the only people who really thought we could build our home by ourselves was me ... and I’m not people. Marion remained sceptical, persuaded more by practicalities and my constructive zeal, than by any sense of destiny. (Building a house wasn’t something she felt compelled to do, it was simply the last resort. So it seemed overwhelming, daunting. It was too big. It was going to take too long. But there was, unfortunately, no other way.) Everyone else just thought we were mad. Madder than Noah building an ark in the middle of a desert. He at least had a good construction foreman... a God one, in fact. All I had, was a voice inside my head. Maybe I was mad after all...
Not that I was overly confident in my physical abilities - I’ve certainly never been a 7-stone weakling, but my strength has always been in my legs, and I just couldn’t visualise hammering with my toes (and Marion’s ‘hammer-toes’ had, short-sightedly as it turned out, been fixed when she was younger). Nor did I have undue belief in my technical abilities - unless every piece of timber was numbered and each step detailed in a procedural schematic, it was certainly conceivable (likely even) that the entire house would be built upside-down.
Although physical or technical abilities are a bonus in any endeavour, I’ve always believed they shouldn’t stand in the way of getting things done. A lack of strength or proficiency might add a few days (or months) onto the project, but they were only minor handicaps. Trivial obstacles which could be readily overcome. A far greater obstacle was simply a lack of faith.
Losing the sense of being able to accomplish anything by ourselves seems to be a common malaise, now that the world is run by the Animal Farm pigs who do for truisms what rap ‘singers’ do for classic songs. If you need something done, get a professional, we all bray obediently, while ...and can’t do it yourself... is quietly culled in the adjoining paddock. Like sheep with amnesia, we quickly forget that a third of the flock is missing. Such falsisms are the essential oils greasing the cogs of the consumer society. Enlightened self-interest, is now just self-interest, pure and simple. Why should I build my own furniture, fix my own car or grow my own carrots when I can earn ten times as much in a single hour than unskilled workers can earn in an entire day? We once calculated - during smoko on a particularly dismal day - that a doctor earned over a tonne of apples an hour! Don’t ask me what the significance of that is, I just thought I’d throw it in ...
Don’t get me wrong. I was never 100% sure that I could build a house all by myself. How could I be when I knew absolutely nothing about house-building? What I was 100% confident about, however, was that I would know when I was in over my head. I had complete faith in my ability to recognise if, or when, I actually needed professional help.
As long as I remained objective, there was simply no chance of failure, because ‘failure’ wouldn’t be in admitting any stage was beyond my abilities, it would be in not admitting it. It would be far easier to withstand all the I-told-you-so’s than continuing stubbornly towards inevitable disaster.
My first step when embarking on any undertaking has always been to determine the realistic worst-case scenario - the operative word being realistic. I never waste time contemplating horror scenarios, but I also take care not to paint an unduly rosy picture. If I can look the worst outcome in the eye without quivering in my boots, then I know I can proceed with confidence. If I can’t, then I have to look for alternatives.
All we needed now, was a plan. Well, not just a plan, but the plan. The ultimate plan for our dream house. Which meant we had to start condensing our bubbling pot of quirky ideas into a solid, concrete, realistic design. A process which required some serious compromises - not only ideal versus achievable, but Marion versus Kyle. What seemed, in theory, to be a vast ocean of agreement quickly evaporated into little more than a shallow puddle.
We both wanted wood - interior and exterior.
We both wanted a loft, and lots of heavy roughsawn beams.
Neither of us wanted a galvanised iron roof.
Neither of us wanted aluminium windows or sliding glass doors.
After that, our private images began to exhibit distinct differences, especially once I’d finished reading a book lent to us by Wallace (the local architect) entitled “Low-cost, energy-efficient houses you can build yourself”. So while Marion’s ‘dreamhouse’ remained firmly embedded in the 19th century, mine began veering more and more towards the modern passive-solar variety.
Marion agreed with many of the design principles ... in principle (though neither of us could develop any real fondness for the ubiquitous toilet-shower combo), and some of the interiors photographed were certainly in the direction we both wanted to go, but she absolutely hated the designs themselves. The two major issues were the house shapes and the windows - coincidentally the two key design elements which literally define a passive solar house! Marion likes her houses in proportion, and she hates windows.
Not that she hates windows per se. She’s not the least fenestraphobic - though in Australia she did become sick of louvres - and is, in fact, a passionate window-shopper. She likes her windows small and few, not, as most people assume, because she dislikes cleaning them, but because of the effect they have on the aesthetic balance, and the atmosphere inside. In a climate such as Millers Flat’s, smaller windows certainly can make sense. In summer the obnoxious sun is a less-than-welcome guest inside. And the greedy winter needs little encouragement to entice the warmth outside. So getting the right balance all depends on your priorities, and your lifestyle.
Marion’s ideal house is basically a box with one window to the left of the door and two windows to the right, and a steeply-pitched roof with a chimney. Straightforward. Simple. No gimmicks. It’s not so much pioneer style as Plunket style, requiring less the talents of an architect than those of a talented six-year-old.
In reality, our ideas weren’t so different. Most of the discussion centred on details, but details which would ultimately determine the degree to which we’d both feel ‘at home’. So we decided to take our time. After all, we hadn’t even decided on a building site yet, and where we built would also play a significant role in determining the final design. We’d succeeded in narrowing our choice down from an entire planet to a single five-acre block, but that’s where it began to get complicated. There are a lot of potential building sites on five acres, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Marion immediately opted for a site beside the walnut trees at the bottom of the section, mainly because they were the only mature trees on the property (apart from the row of poplars lining the Minzion’s banks), and her ideal demanded a large tree right beside the house (just ask any six-year-old).
For me it seemed too close to the road - the dusty (it’s not tar-sealed), noisy (when you’ve decided to live in the middle of nowhere, any traffic is too much traffic) road - too far from everything else (looking up towards the top of our section would be enough to deter Tensing), and the Minzion down there was slow and gloomy. On the other hand, there were mature trees, it was sheltered from the cold southerlies, and it was relatively flat.
Somehow it didn’t feel right. I wanted somewhere hidden from view and far away from the road. Plus, I argued, what was the point of having such a beautiful creek at the foot of the property if we didn’t make the most of it? So I wandered around the section another thousand times and finally settled on a vague flattening tucked in behind a rocky knoll with a view across the hills and down the stream. From this relatively-central, north-facing vantage point, we could survey our entire section in all its glory. This was where I would feel at home. So we spent some time camped at both sites (not literally, of course, though it would have been a good idea) discussing the virtues of each location and watching the sun slowly traverse our empire. Finally, Marion had to admit ‘her’ site did have a slightly gloomy feel, while the view we’d have from our verandah at ‘my’ site was truly inspirational. If we’d managed to find an old ruin or had decided to build in stone, things might have been different. But as things stood, ‘my’ site was certainly more ideal for the wooden home we were going to build. Which didn’t get us any closer to finalising a design, but at least we were making progress. There was still plenty of time to sort out details, and there were still lots of apples to be picked ...
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