Post Script: the City Council do matter after all

The more we had read about small dwellings, tiny houses and small space living, the more we came to understand that without a building consent we really were quite dependent on no-one complaining to CCC about our lovely wee housing set up. Well, there are some funny folk about, so no surprises in early February this year we had a visit from a Council inspector in response to a complaint about our shed (in the bottom garden). Our "wooden huts" hence got an inspection too as a flow on, and soon enough we had a Notice To Fix from CCC. Sigh.

We had always thought we would have to justify ourselves with CCC, so we'd already done some research into what the NTF and subsequent Certificate of Acceptance application really meant. Our strategy went something like this:
- Got some help from a geotech and structural engineer to analyse what we had built and certify it as OK in terms of building code compliance. We were real lucky to find a couple of engineers who were really on board with the "small space" concept, and who found creative ways to make things work for us. We hadn't realised there so much subjectivity in engineering!
- Our friend Esther offered to draw up as-built plans for us, which we happily accepted. Neither of us appreciated the size of the task involved, so it got quite epic for a couple of weeks! An amazing gift really of time and effort from Esther actually, plus Kat.
- Our final stroke of luck came in the form of the CCC building inspector our Certificate of Acceptance application was allocated to - Phil Carr. Phil was unbelievably helpful, and always ready to listen to a reasoned argument. When we finally got to meet Phil it was very obvious that he too was a big "small space" fan.

Hence we are now officially legal :-)

The one argument we didn't win in this process was about the composting toilet - CCC simply would not budge on the requirement for a standard flushing loo. A little disappointing, but again not surprising - as a society we're just not quite there yet. Hence it's back into building mode again :-)

Garden antics & coming full circle

After almost 18 months of preparing, planning, umming, aahhing, & changing our minds completely, we have returned to where we started - the garden. In preparation for big diggers, gravel rafts, & the various mechanisations of TC3 construction, much was removed from our wild jungle garden which in fact did not need to go at all. Oh the joy & humility of hindsight :-)

So now that our 2 "sheds" have us living in wonderful domestication again, the time has come to transform the building site into a new & much more expansive garden.  It's great fun too - with so many trees now gone, & the house occupying so little space, the gardening potential has gone exponential!

Nessi puts the final touches on the kitchen-bivvy walkway

It was going to be a curvy wurvy kind of boardwalk, but we chickened out :-)

The unofficial princess of stout, Ariel Linklater, brings much needed supplies.
The Hop Baron 8 ball stout is highly recommended

Post-stout hammock happiness

The solar hot water experiment

This photo probably deserves some explanation...we have developed a mild obsession for hot water projects. First of all we got a compost hot water trial going (full details in a future post I think), & quickly followed that up with a simple solar hot water experiment.  The set up at the moment consists of 300m of 13mm plastic irrigation pipe, coiled into nice tight spirals, sitting on sheets of dark coloured corrugated iron, all covered with clear plastic to keep the (b)easterly out. This seems to work quite nicely for 2 peoples washing needs every day, with a gas hot water backup for colder days. A work in progress...

Recycled macrocarpa desk, transformed into our new dining room table...the dining room is outside of course

Re-built stone walls, with another set of steps

Making new steps right next to a big old tree stump was not that smart...

The mammoth stack of bricks is almost on its way to a new home

Richard overseeing the loading of his "new" bricks

Forklift in progress

And away they go - off to Pigeon Bay to become a grand english country garden style wall. A fitting new life for the old 3 York St, and accomplished in good style; all stages of the process have been very hands on - from the building of our original house, to our demolition of it, to the cleaning & stacking of the bricks by Richard & Lynley - it's been fantastically old school. 

Finito

There is still something really nice about getting a job completed - as much as we've loved the process, sitting back & enjoying our new kitchen is feeling pretty damn groovy. It's all come together remarkably well - the fold out table caused us a few headaches, & the pallet ceiling is a bit gapy in some places, but otherwise it's all rather fabulous. Time to kick back & enjoy all those luxurious morning teas we've been dreaming of for months!

With the completion of the kitchen, we've said goodbye, at least temporarily, to the blue tent (aka "hercules") which has functioned as our outdoor kitchen for almost a year. Amazing piece of kit. A stunning performance, & way beyond our expectations considering it only cost us $350 new.

So now time at last to switch into gardening mode & set up more growing space - and there's lots of it. Small living spaces generate more garden, which is totally us. We are the complete antithesis of the modern subdivision, which seems to equate grossly oversized houses with no garden, as equaling success and happiness. Good luck to them!

Varnishing above the future kitchen sink

Door frame in progress, hercules in background

Various kitchen interior shots, courtesy of the lovely Esther Water 

  

cheers :-)

Back to the garden

Nessi points out the spuds she has just planted. Such simple fun :-)

Cladding the kitchen

This time round we decided to go all out on the cladding, & so purchased rusticated larch weatherboards from Halswell Timber. A bit more pricey, but well worth it - real easy to work with, & they look absolutely fabulous. Window flashings proved to be just as much of a headache as last time; partly due to our wonderful collection of windows, each being somewhat unique, & partly because of an incredibly obvious blunder I made ordering the flashings, the result being we ended up with twice as many sill flashings, & half as many jamb flashings as we needed. Sigh.

Into the fiddly finishing work now, so not long til we hook her up to the grid & call it usable.  Feels like its time for some gardening anyway :-)

Getting started on the south wall

It's not often that everything lines up this easily

Fashion goddess Nessi Lukes struts her stuff in swanni (circa 1985) & well worn jeans.

Almost done

A patchwork of small bits to finish off the East wall

Not much left over!

done

done

done

and done - too easy

Inside now - the last of our good floorboards get recycled

Mega fluffy wool insulation gets bedded down under a pallet ceiling

Kitchen progress

The kitchen is coming along nicely - this being our second small building creation, some things have gone very quickly with not much fuss at all. We've learnt. On the flipside it's hilarious some of the daft mistakes we keep repeating...over & over again. A rich & humbling project!

Huge thanks to all the locals who have pitched in when needed - our architectural import Sheryl has been amazing.

We've got the larch weatherboards stacked & ready to go now - looking forward to that next phase.

So ahh what do we do with this wall now?

Derek & Dave negotiate the 3 York St obstacle course in fine style

Sussing out the roof trusses

The simple joy of pounding in a nail, midwinter, in a t-shirt

By contrast the girls are totally rugged up on this day

Nighttime winter building - characterful stuff

A patchwork of ply scraps fills out this header nicely - I love this stuff :-)

Sheryl & Nessi hammering home the last few nails on the top plates

Roof trusses mid-way through installation

Sheryl in action again on the roof

Our unofficial building inspector is officially "off-duty" for the winter

Barge boards are on

Accumulated ice from a smallish puddle

Crikey it's been cold!