Sunday, August 24, 2008

House building

Can't find a place to rent so the pressure is mounting for me to build a house again. Started my first house in 1972 at the height of my hippy period. We spent all our money buying 50 hectares of undeveloped land with friends Paul and Smiley and no jobs so were dirt poor, eating from our large garden, the ocean and the occassional wild goat or big fat eel from the river. With wife, three kids and a woolley one eyed dog who I trained to nip the backsides of only women to make them work faster ( I lie, he trained himself!)we were living in a small shed and caravan with a woodstove, outside bath and sauna and a washing machine driven by the rotary hoe. So you understand the pressure. I designed a ten sided two storied pole house with dormer windows and half round log cladding. It did look simple on paper! It only took five years! For a start with no money I had to find work to buy materials and we had no power so it was down to chainsaw and hand tools and a few disasters like the bridge breaking under our truck full of metal for the driveway and smashing all the window panes over the back of my head in the car while chasing our runaway bull. But ultimately it was a success, it's still standing even if my marriage isn't. Perhaps I should get someone else to build the next one!

1 comment:

Jon said...

I say go for it!!! If you could build one then you can build one now...

And I really like the verse you left on my site... it was decisively apt...