Strawbale House

Jean over at the The English Armchair Abroad has tagged me for a post about 6 things you don’t yet  know about me. Well, let’s see what secrets I am willing to give away …

1. I absolutley adore cats.
2. The first cat I can remember got run over by a car. Since then all my cats have been indoor cats.
   Once we finished our strawbale house I will propably let the cat outside though as we are quite far from the road.
3. I am the proud owner of a Lamborghini. The special thing about my Lamborghini is that it runs on diesel.
4. Rosalba and I are also in the middle of setting up a small organic farm on the land where we are building our strawbale house.
5. We have dedicated half of our land to a program called “Land for Wildlife” to help preserve native flora and fauna.
6. I grew up in Switzerland but never realy liked snow or cold which is why I moved to Australia where I met my lovely partner Rosalba.

So there you go. Now you know all my secrets …

The fun part for me is that now I get to tag 6 other bloggers for a fun post as per the following rules:

1. Link the person(s) who tagged you - check
2. Mention the rules on your blog - ditto, check
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours - ditto
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Well heres the list of bloggers I’d like to know more about:

1. Carole’s Thoughtfull Spot - Even thoug I have only followed Carole’s blog for a short while, I already feel like Carole is a good friend because of here easy going writing style.
2. Grubby Gumboots - Interesting articles generally about gardening and some lovely pictures.
3. Gr, Midnight & Cocoa - I think I’ve done quite well not having a cat blog in the first two linked blogs. Anywya, this blog has some lovely cat pictures and the odd video.
4. SolReka - Some intersting and weird articles about renewable energy with a hint of conspiracy theroy at times. 
5. Chica & Pumuckl - A blog about two Egyptian kitties in germany. As I said above, I adore cats.
6. Off-grid Living - featuring intersintg articles about renewable energy.

As August has now finished we have closed the competition for the book of house plans and have drawn the winner. But before I announce the winner I’d like to explain that we have also drawn a runner up and a second runner up in case the winner is not interested in the book.

So without further ado I present to you the winner of the competition:

Terry Gerling

Congratulations and we hope you enjoy the book of house plans and make good use of it. Terry will also be notified of his winning by email.

And I’d like to also say that I liked all comments left by all participants. We did not feel once that a comment was neither civil nor intelligent.

Keep up leaving your great comments.

As prize in our first ever competition, we are giving away the book of house plans by Peter Lees (pictured on the left). This book contains a large number design sketches but does not contain finished plans. Nevertheless there is enough information to help you work out what you’d like or not in your house, though.

The competition starts now and runs until the end of August. To be in the draw to win this book of house plans, all you need to do is leave a comment anywhere on this site.

In early September I will draw a a random entry from all comments left on this site. So to have a chance of winning all you need to do is leave one intelligent and civil comment. Multiple comments do count as multiple entries so if you are really keen, feel free to leave multiple intelligent and civil comment.

Also, please remember that if you win I will need to be able to contact you so make sure that you enter a valid email address at which you can be reached with your comment in the “Mail” field.

So go ahead and leave lots of happy comments. Good luck.

Your email will not be published, is only accessible by myself and will only be used for the purpose of this competition.
Rosalba and I reserve the right to judge what constitutes an intelligent and civil comment.
Our decisions are final and no correspondence regarding them will be entered into.

About a week ago Journeyer has tagged me for a six word memoir. I thought initially that’s going to be easy… I know better now.

Well, here it goes:

“Playing, Working, Searching, Moving, Marrying, Sustainability”

Then again, I’m not so sure about the above. Maybe try the next one instead?

“Computer Games, Computer Job, Sustainable Future”

Well this one is more what I seem to have focused on throughout my life. Well you get to pick which one you like better, and please do let me know in the comments.

As part of writing this six word memoir I get to tag the five bloggers below (in no particular order) to write their six word memoirs.

• Ben Barden
• Lightening at Lightening Online
• Jess at Sustainable Suburbia
• Snoskred at Life in the Country
• Neerav at Rambling Thoughts Blog

Rosalba, Remy (our son) and I have just moved house this last week from a largish 4 bedroom home to a reasonable sized 3 bedroom home. Foolishly we decided to do most of the moving ourselves.

I think one of our friends upon hearing this has put it best: “You are either very naïve or just stupid.” Now that we are fully moved out of our old home I have to say that I agree with that assessment. I am  more leaning towards the naïve rather than the stupid, of course.

All in all I think this was a good exercise to get an idea of what’s involved when Rosalba and I have finished our strawbale home and are moving into it.

I strongly expect us to use professional removalists or alternatively something like PODS where you basically rent a container for a while, giving you all the time you want or need to fill it, they then move it for you, and you again get as long as you want or need to move all your furniture into the new home.

Jess at Sustainable Suburbia tagged me for a meme so below is my reply…

What were you doing ten years ago?

Well, that’s a long time ago. I’d like to concentrate more on the present and future as we can’t change our past. My near term future obviously involves doing some work on our new home. Longer term I see myself living more of a rural life and cultivate chestnut trees.

What are 5 things on your to-do list today?

Since, it’s already 10pm I’ll list what I have on my list for tomorrow:

1. Organise for the rubbish to be removed from our old home. We have just moved from Camp Hill to Annerley these last few days.
2. Get some contact to put on the wardrobe shelves.
3. Finnish setting up my office (I still have 2 servers to go)
4. Start moving some furniture from the garage at the new home into the lounge and master bedroom. The floorboards have only just been polished last week so we were advised that we shouldn’t put anything on the newly finished floors for a week.
5. Clean the kitty loo.

What snacks do you enjoy?

Well, anything chocolate is always a good bet. I really like KitKats (this Giant KitKat would be heaven)

Things that you would do if you were a billionaire?

Start my own power company that only sources energy from renewable sources to help bring down the cost of renewable energy production which in turn would help to save the environment.

Three of your bad habits?

• I procrastinate at times.
• I believe that I am an above average driver ..
• I can get a bit anxious at times, especially if something doesn’t go to plan.

Five places you have lived?

• Cairns
• St. Gallen
• Neuhausen am Rheinfall (next to the Rhinefall, the biggest waterfall in Europe)
• Embrach (close to Zurich Airport)
• Brisbane

Five jobs you’ve had?

• Filling up shelves in a supermarket
• Attendant in a petrol station
• Junior Programmer in a big Swiss bank
• Senior Applications Developer for the QLD government (that’s when I realised I am getting old)
• Managing Director of Avanti Hosting

How did you name your blog?

Well… I wouldn’t say that the name of this blog is anything extraordinary. I just though what I wanted the blog to be about and then just picked the most fitting term I could think of at the time.

Now you probably know more about me than you ever needed to know.

I tag:

Journeyer
Lightening
Snoskred

My friend Neerav has asked me recently to write an article for one of his blogs about our strawbale house. I was deeply flattered by his request as Neerav is one of Australia’s top bloggers and I consider myself as an amateur blogger, having only just started.

Neerav has since published my guest article where I have tried to answer some of the most common questions Rosalba and I often get asked when we tell people about our plan of building a new home using strawbales.

As I think most of my readers are interested in what I wrote in my guest article I thought it might be worthwhile to place a link on my blog to my guest article on Neerav’s blog.

You can find the article at http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/reasons-to-build-a-strawbale-house/.

Reading through the current edition of The Owner Builder magazine I have found a small article on page 36 about Bunnings Warehouse offering discounts to registered owner builders.

In most states you need to obtain a permit to be an owner builder. Such a permit can be obtained by sitting a course with an approved owner builder course provider in as little as one day.

Once you have obtained your owner builders permit you may as well register with Bunnings Warehouse to receive a discount on a large range of trade products. The process is easy and you only need to bring in a copy of your permit, the original, proof of I.D. and fill in an application form.

As I intend to do a bit of work myself on our new home I will definitively register with Bunnings’ owner builder discount program to get a discount on at least the few (or maybe not so few) items I’ll be buying from Bunnings.

Rosalba and I had a discussion yesterday whether our home should include a Truth Window. A Truth Window is a section of wall were the straw is covered by a glass plate and a frame instead of render to show unbelievers the truth about the our walls being built out of straw bales.

I am in two minds about it. I am thinking that heck I built the place, so I know and that’s all that matters, but on the other hand it would also be handy to see the condition of the strawbales.

What do you think? Should we include a Truth Window into our home? Please leave a comment to express your opinion.

As an example on how they may look have a look at: Example 1 and Example 2 of a truth window

Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to track the progress of the strawbale house that my wife and I are about to start building with the help of some professionals, friends and family.

The image in the heading of this site is the view that we’ll be having out of our bedroom and lounge. Isn’t it glorious.

Please check back every now and then or subscribe to the RSS feed, which I’ll explain in a later posting what that is and how to use it.