interesting brick patterns

Every time I drive down this street I say I'm going to take a picture... at last yesterday I did. It's a street up near the garden centre in Kingsbury (northwest London) which is full of these rambling houses built I'm guessing around 1910-1920's in late Arts&Crafts style. I'm not a huge fan of the mock tudor beams, but I adore the way they've incorporated bricks. Rather than just plain brick walls, they've made patterns out of them by putting in different kinds of bricks, some on their side, etc. I've never seen any other houses like it, only in this particular road. It would be a little fiddly to do but very effective, I'm going to remember this as an idea for a feature wall perhaps at Amherst.

house near gardenshop with nice bricks
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

Vaulted pool at Gardens d'Alfabia in Mallorca

We went on holiday to the mountains in Mallorca a few months ago and while there visited some old Arabian-style gardens called Gardens d'Alfabia. They had this amazing vaulted cistern for storing water to irrigate the gardens... it sparked an idea. Perhaps at Amherst we could have a swimming pool like this. It'd be nice and cool in the heat and could be magical if we put shards of mirror and candles in the roof and walls.

074 Roofed Cistern Garden d'alfabia
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

introducing Toora

I haven't posted for over a week, things have been crazy at work and our focus this week has been on a different house. We have another old 1900's era house in a little town called Toora in Gippsland Victoria which we rent out. It is vacant now for a few weeks until the new tenants move in, so we're paying my Dad to do a little fixing-up... mainly painting and minor repairs. Not much, as we can't afford to do anything major, but it's a lovely house and deserves some attention. For a little effort it would really shine, I just wish I was able to be there to do it myself. Anyway, this week we have been picking paint colours, etc and Dad is down this weekend working on it.

We originally bought the Toora house as an investment back when the area was really cheap to buy in, with the idea that one day we might be able to buy some land around it and have our "farm dream" there. Unfortunately by the time the land adjoining the house came up for sale prices had skyrocketed so we couldn't afford it. It's a pity because it is a lovely area, and unlike Amherst it is one of the few parts of Australia with an English style climate in terms of getting lots of rain so would have been brilliant for gardening.

Anyway, now the plan is to hang onto it as an investment and perhaps one day use it as a holiday home. Toora is only about 15 minutes drive from some lovely beaches and only half an hour from Wilsons Promontory which is an amazing national park with forests, beaches... one of the the most spectacular places I've been. This site has some pictures if you're interested.

Since we bought it the big change has been the building of the Toora Windfarm, with these giant windmills. From what I read online, a lot of people were upset about them saying they spoiled the landscape, were loud, etc. So, when we were back in Australia last and went to visit, we weren't sure what to expect. But, they're beautiful! They're like giant modern art sculptures, just mesmerising to watch. We couldn't hear them at all, and our house is closer than most in the village. This is the view from our house:

IMGP0971
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

solar powered wallpaper

flowerstrip2
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

I don't think this is in production yet, but I think it sounds amazing. From the description: "By embedding electroluminescent materials into the design pattern of the wall paper and incorporating a built-in light sensor, the wallpaper can respond to the lighting requirement of a room, acting as a decorative element when a room is naturally bright, and as a flat wallpaper light when the room requires more light. With power supplied from a solar charged battery, it can also be manually controlled to increase or decrease luminosity. Sustainable, efficient, functional, and technologically sexy." You can find out more about it from this site

Dad's thoughts on the house plans

Below are Dad's thoughts about the house plans so far. Interestingly, like everyone we've shown it to, he much prefers plan A. Here's a picture of the plan A inside layout:

planAcombined
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


Extract from Dad's email - 8th April
I looked at all the options Eric made, and hands down his option A is best all round. You will accept that I am biased towards his first because it looks more in the country style of a large and functional house without any sense of ostentation. It also has the views concentrated towards the best directions. And the large open plan of the lounge, with the one little bedroom makes it emminently suitable for an area exclusive to you and Dave for most of the time, and suits for entertaining as well. Access walking is closer than in B, but will need cars under a carport.
Other parking easy to arrange further uphill.

Dave's shed cum cookery, cum lab, cum study, cum computer room is well placed for the garden access and helps make it an integral part of the rest of the house so won't isolate him while giving him his space. You will understand that you will make your spaces too about the place, and of course there is overlapping. There needs to be machinery storage so keeping the views downhill predominantly will give a place to put these essential structures so they don't impinge on your daily awareness when musing from your house window in the morning or late evening. I have been up at 05:30 and watched manificent sunrises as the light came over the horizon and watched the roos slowly hopping away to where roos go to sleep during the heat of the day.The same at evening. The strength of your block is that it isn't going to be overbuilt so your view won't include house tops. Not overlooking Tex's place is also important.

Will go through and add my notes as I first went through the plan. Need to be able to read Eric's writing to study the details of internal areas.

1.I assume none of existing trees will be sacrificed in placing buildings.

2.Placing main house (option A) downhill of the old house is great:
*a. old house is a shield to uphill stuff.
*b. Lower on block means easier to hide things other side of dam wall , especially container and Tex's sheds.
*c. Two stories doesn't get up too high and look backwards too easily and over the hill edge to see my carport and tank for the hobbit hole. These need to be uphill of the hobbithole and are over against the back fence. Your main tank will be less noticable unless you go to look at it from a small window looking back.
*d. With main tank uphill to supply head pressure for water the secondfloor areas will be able to get pressure for en suites and flooding the gutter with water when a fire threatens. Your gravity system can be supplemented with regional pressure pumps, but in the main you need to avoid reliance on using power to move water for use, except that you need to move water uphill to the main storage tank. This could be under roof and extra roof space for machinery storage.

3.Carport for cars at uphill means walking down when carrying things, and possibly fewer steps. Assume I am referring to option A as I was very taken with this in it's rough outline.

4.Love the two fireplaces. Very livable area that, with options for party space and yet has nooks for separateness.

5. Appearance of house is very much in keeping with old house. Viewed from the road it will look very friendly, spacious, gracious, and not ostentatious. I have worked on houses with front that no one would think of entering, or make use of for daily living. Just for show.

6. Don't think option C idea of connecting old house to new a good one. Old is on wooden stumps, and unless you trouble to replace these( no need), they present a possible access for whiteant infiltration into the new house. With the best will in the world, you cannot avoid thinking about these little blitters when building. They can use a roof connection to span to another structure. I saw the damage they did at Bethany Guest House and warn you that if you ignore them , they will beat you in the end. There are many horror stories, and yet they are able to be bested with forethought.

That is all for now. Tell Eric that I am very pleased with Option A, and parts of the other options which I will comment on later. Of course, this is your house and my thoughts are only for sharing and considering, not necessarily accepting. Planning is so wonderful because the imagination can soar to great heights.
When I get time I will sketch up plans I have for the hobbithole. Not going to have sod on the roof any longer, but will have a nice look in keeping with the concept, but not having the weight of sod roof. May change my mind again before starting. Can't get height I need without going about 2 feet higher than surrounding slope so another type of roof looks likely, probably old tiles that are placed in the shape of the sod roof but steeper.

P.S. Was able to use the pump to move water from the dam. Will check with the pump people to make sure not going to damage the pump doing this. Water scarce now and so will have to move the stock tank over to connect it to the tree watering system and pump water up to this from dam. Will extend this line to pump to the olive tree site too. May connect olive tree tank to lower supply but don't want to get too fancy, as just a temporary measure. Will go up next weekend to do these and deliver another load to the container. Couldn't take but one of the large cupboards in the tool trailer. Will bring back the the tool trailer and take a lot of stuff of Gran's up to store there as it is better. These are the things you wanted to keep. Took all the bottling stuff.

some good things: candles and wormeries

I've just started browsing a UK blog called
Hippy Shopper and they have some really nice and unusual products... I think the name Hippy is a bit of a misnomer, actually most of their stuff is pretty modern, sleek with emphasis on design, with the environmentally friendliness of it just in the background.

I especially like these alternatives to candles, which give the same kind of light but with no risk of burning your house down. Sadly not yet available in the UK, grrrr, so I shall have to seek out a friendly US seller who ships internationally... maybe there's someone on Ebay already, I hope. You can get them from vessel

On the other extreme, maybe we should get a wormery to help in making compost. Two that sell in the UK are listed here.

model of downstairs plan A

model of downstairs plan A
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

So, this is going to extremes, but it's Dave's fault as he dared me. He said "No we're not building a scale model" in his best stern forbidding teacher voice. Which really annoys me when he tries to boss me round like that, so of course I did exactly the opposite. It's amazing what you can do with some random angle plates raided from the tool cupboard, paper and profuse amounts of sticky-tape!

Hobbit House at the IIsle of Wight

It seems like my Dad isn't the only person building a hobbit house. There is one being built near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight too! Hobbit House, bed and breakfast Isle of Wight

This place is also interesting because they run courses teaching countryside and woodland crafts. Could be quite fun plus we might learn some skills that would come in handy at Amherst.

Bizarrely, I know the Isle of Wight very well, as we go there about 4 times a year to visit a Great-aunt. It is a lovely place, but especially down the far end where she lives it is like going back to the 50's. It is storybook England, full of rolling green hills and thatched cottages, lots of wildlife, many woods still, but then also with lovely beaches. Far closer to what I imagine the Shire to be like.