Thread: My latest ongoing project

Ah Ha! Gotcha Donna!! I knew you'd drop in and I just knew you were up to something interesting!

That's a great start on your home. Lovely countryside! It must be satisfying to see how much you've accomplished so far. sure there's a lot to go, but, WOW.

That's looking really good.

Good to see your still doing things.

That is one large project. Obviously post and beam construction, means heavy work. Are you making your own bricks? I believe that is heavy onerous work too

ok so you teased us with one photo but there must be more on the construction.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeese

Yes we are making our own bricks. They are smaller than the average aussie mud brick, but the wall still ends up 320 thick as we are laying them in a flemish bond. There was a lot of heavy work, and scary heights. When I have all my photos collated from my dead computers I will post some more. We started building nearly 5 years ago, and wished we had started 25 years ago when we were younger and fitter. the heaviest piece of timber i worked out was one of the main bearers, think it was around 300kg.

Donna

What a lovely build. I wish you joy of the build. Progress pics please.

Looks great Donna. Having had the fun of building my own straw bale mansion, I know the effort involved. All strength to your right arm ... and your left ... and your legs ... and back .......

Well done.

Nearly built a mud brick house once. Attended two workshops, made moulds, designed the house for mud brick: Built in another material .

Nice to hear of people using different bonds for the brickwork. I used english bond
(1 1/2 bricks thick) for a massive pantry, which supported a good deal of the house.

Look, I'm trying to redeem myself here having fizzled with the mudbrick aspect.

I'm envious. You have done well.

Regards
Paul

The brickwork is actually the easy, enjoyable part, its all the heavy wood, and the heights and the roofing that have been the hard part! We have used a lot of secondhand timber, and it makes it hard going. There are many times where I have just felt like walking away from it, but it is really starting to come together now. I am finishing up work at the end of May and starting a Bachelor of Arts (fine art) through Open Universities Australia. It will mean i will be home more and hopefully will be able to get it (the house) finished on time. The council wont give me another extension and I will have to go through the whole application process again if we dont.

I am really looking forward to building my kitchen. I will be making it a faceframe style like in the book "Build your own Kitchen Cabinets" by Danny Proulx. The timber will be ironbark (this is what I have hopefully enough of here already) and inside the cupboards will be hmr laminate (not white, but beach patterned)which I bought off a cabinetmaker on ebay really cheap. Will look a little different, but will be a cheap kitchen!

Donna

Donna

You have a lot on. Good to hear your enthusiasm and energy for it all.

Just a word of warning (no make that caution) regarding ironbark. It is a wonderful timber, but possibly not the best furniture timber there is. It does want to move around a little. This is not a problem with bush furniture where ironbark is very often a prefered timber.

If however you are using it for your kitchen and I am assuming here that it will be for the bench top and cupboard doors make plenty of provision for movement.

It is also a difficult timber to glue (as are most of the dense hardwoods).

The most stable timber is quartersawn (as opposed to backsawn which is far more common) material and in days gone by, when all doors and windows were made in timber, it was the material used exclusively.

Being of a pedantic nature and something of a pureist (but far from pure), I built our external house doors from ironbark (sourced from the property). The style was "framed ledged and braced." I did get some movement in them and they are extremely heavy.

I also made a spiral staircase using ironbark and box. I attempted to make the handrail from thin laminated strip glued together. In the end I couldn't do it and had to use a different timber. The glue on the ironbark would not hold under stress.

Two vanity tops were made from laminated ironbark and all the stair treads. One vanity and one stair tread split apart as I had not allowed enough for movement and shrinkage. I was able to repair them both.

I don't want to put you off using ironbark. Just be aware of it's problems and make allowance. It looks fantastic.

I know what you mean about the weight of the roof members. I had three roof beams 3.3m long 75mm thick and 300mm deep (ironbark again, what else). I had to make up a tall jib for the back of the tractor to lift them in place.

And doing a degree on top of all this. Good luck

Regards
Paul

Amazing!

I know where you are coming from Bushmiller I will be careful with it. Ironbark is mostly what I have used in the last 10 years or so. I am down to the dregs of our money, and ironbark is what I have, (and besides I do love it.) The timber I will be using is over ten years old.

Donna

We have a couple of internal walls mudded in up to full height, the ones in the pics will be rendered. peter has been sanding the exposed beams and posts, and has put paper over them to stop me putting my muddy mits all over them. I had forgotten how lovely they were.

Donna

Donna

That is going to look so good when finished.

Is that a Rottie I spy in the middle pic. We have had three in all, but no more! Too restrictive when we we want to go anywhere.

Regards
Paul