tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43076595608444937222009-05-13T12:42:15.210+12:00Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-15557388696511449062009-05-01T16:13:00.002+12:002009-05-01T16:27:46.468+12:00

It was only when I checked my website today that I realised my blog was so out of date that it was throwing up an error on my website. How bad is that!The house is now inhabited - we moved in on the 25th November when it was still unplastered and surrounded by blue tarpaulins. Over the next three months Nat and I plastered the whole house - not a lightweight job by any stretch of the imagination.

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-10115582646857141302008-07-02T10:09:00.003+12:002008-07-02T11:00:44.465+12:00

Once upon a time there was an exhausted Queen. She had two lovely but somewhat cheeky sometimes princess daughters. The King was often away in foreign lands doing kingly things like rearranging forests and other plants and motivating disheartened garden centre troops.What the Queen wanted more than anything in the world (apart from a fortnight in Rarotonga at a resort with a kids club and teenage

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-1709737212052801872008-06-20T13:09:00.005+12:002008-06-20T13:32:48.993+12:00

Oh, it's all just so exciting now. Every day our walls get higher.Dave the Builder and Lovely Robbie the Labourer are putting in the hours and the progress is tremendous. It's worth noting that in Mangawhai finding a builder on site on a Friday afternoon is unheard of..... except if they're working on this house. Last Friday I went up to the site at 5pm and there they were. OK they were having a

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-9580366960599377122008-06-09T23:19:00.003+12:002008-06-10T00:01:47.750+12:00

Oh the last three weeks have been so exciting. It's been all action on the little half acre 'up the Tara' (which is what the locals call the area we're building in I've just discovered).Firstly Dave the Builder, being terribly keen to get on with it, decided to forget about Harrie the Digger and do it himself with a hired digger. I'm not sure if it saved any money at all, but it did ensure things

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-10195064228225085282008-05-18T17:25:00.003+12:002008-05-18T17:36:55.675+12:00

Yes, we finally have our Building Consent!I dragged a seriously sick (with tonsilitus) Nat along to a meeting with the Building Inspector and we went through all my straw bale and lime plaster research and the changes to our plans. At the end of the meeting, the very chilled out Derek Free said "Well, you've answered my questions and provided the information I was looking for. I expect to issue

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-4210212074562164352008-05-06T08:33:00.002+12:002008-05-06T08:56:59.413+12:00

We got our peer review done on our straw bale house design by architect Graeme North. And with the greatest respect in the world, I think it proved that he doesn't know much about straw bale houses. He talked about having to compress the bales which every other source states as only being necessary when you are building a load bearing straw bale house. Of course ours is a timber frame with the

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-79258989872413478572008-04-08T08:34:00.002+12:002008-04-08T08:52:49.862+12:00

I bet you didn't think of Building Consent processing as a field with trends and fashions. I certainly didn't. But now I stand corrected.....Apparently the latest trend (and everyone's doing it) is Peer Review. This edgy little number involves combining perfectly sound plans devised by experienced architects and qualified engineers, with the glamourous accent provided by another architect or

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-65003869962134213182008-03-20T12:32:00.002+13:002008-03-20T12:47:35.090+13:00

As promised, here's the picture of the hole in the ground:Harrie the Digger did a lovely job of making our hole in the ground..... the pride I feel in it is quite disturbing really. But it represents so much. The beginning of what will probably be one of the most stressful projects of my life.... our very own strawbale dream house.Anyway, I spoke to Council yesterday and it seems that the Consent

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-31875181258533921882008-03-16T23:10:00.002+13:002008-03-16T23:19:56.145+13:00

I've been wanting to update my blog for days and days but project managing a house build takes a lot of time.... meaning less time for updating my blog!Good news! Harry the digger came in a did the excavation - so now we have a big flat hole in our ground. We have to go down before we go up, so I'm excited.We're getting our timber from MacDirect who did the best quote in terms of price and the

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-62367666453249723652008-02-27T15:37:00.004+13:002008-02-27T16:02:57.339+13:00

We have lift off! Well actually we've put pegs in the ground and turned the first sod. So it was more of a ungainly wrenching of the first lump of rock hard clay out of it's nest of Kokuya grass in the midst of a tropical cyclone. The extensive documents have all been filed to Kaipara District Council. The forms were so complex that I had to enlist the assistance of my good friend Anna Mahy (of

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-90108716294883486622008-02-06T10:12:00.000+13:002008-02-06T10:29:07.866+13:00

Things have moved so slowly that I couldn't bear to write about them so I didn't. But I'm finally getting a feeling that the various threads are coming together. Let me list them out:DrawingsThese are now signed off by the engineer and are about to be presented to us as finished. What was supposed to take 5 weeks ended up taking 6 months..... when I ask around, nobody seems surprised by this

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-42450883917472114302007-11-19T09:10:00.000+13:002007-11-19T09:29:05.414+13:00

The new engineer seems much better. He'd sent me an agreement within three days of getting the house plans. Now that's what I'm talking about! The plans are still not finished but at least I feel like someone actually gives a damn about getting things done.Now here's a trap for young players that I've come up with. It seems that some of the District Councils close off their files for the

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-32718386885332652912007-11-05T14:13:00.000+13:002007-11-05T16:17:10.173+13:00

It's been a frustrating last month on the house building front. Progress is unbearably slow. We still haven't had the engineering input on the designs. In fact after this morning's phone call with a shockingly rude structural engineer in Whangarei, we don't have an engineer at all. I refuse to work with someone who says that listening to me whinging about the delay is not his job and that the

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-73947437741625504722007-10-08T11:26:00.000+13:002007-10-08T11:59:34.700+13:00

The last month has seen lots of action on paper but no holes in the ground yet for our straw bale home.What we're now going through is the serious business of engineering reports. It seems that having two straw bale storeys to a straw bale house means some extra weight which all needs to be engineered. Most people opt out and go for straw bale down below and a more conventional approach up top.

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-11799281181621163372007-09-06T16:42:00.000+12:002007-09-06T17:04:14.700+12:00

I've outdone myself this time! Over two months since my last post. I guess with all the excitement around me I've just not got round to it.... but isn't the point of a blog to offload when there's lots going on around you?Anyway, what's so new? Well we've finally made our minds up about the home we're going to live in next. Rather than buy something that we spend the next 10 years doing up we've

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-64774920981528434912007-04-26T16:08:00.000+12:002007-06-28T08:38:37.631+12:00

Forgive me blog lord for I have lapsed. It has been two months since my last post!I’m not sure what the excuse is – perhaps I should just stop thinking of one and get on with writing again….Seeing as life in the provinces is still a novelty for me, I’m going to focus on that. I see from recent media coverage that I am once again running with the flock in fleeing Auckland. Garth George’s article

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-41825053305066485032007-02-14T09:52:00.000+13:002007-02-14T10:11:13.416+13:00

I've been following the reports and piccies from the Kiwi Foo Camp organised in some part by Russell Brown of Public Address and have to say just a few things:1. I'm impressedWhat a fantastic thing to do, to bring some of the great ideas brains together and just chew the fat about what's coming next and to get comunally excited about the possibilities of it all.2. I'm jealousWhat do I have to do

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-417304288182460832007-02-02T10:54:00.000+13:002007-02-02T11:22:05.066+13:00

Moving house sucks!We've just moved the family and home of ten and a half years up north to gorgeous Mangawhai. The entire experience was a lesson in keeping your eye on the endgame - having a clear goal and watching that while the details keep biting you in the rear. I hope I never have to do that again (which is all a bit rich as we will be doing it again in a year when we have our new house

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-61647511506859958972007-01-26T23:27:00.000+13:002007-01-26T23:47:40.815+13:00

It's been a big week one way or another. I'm now fully devoted to CopyAnt after months of quietly building momentum while also holding down my day job. So this is it. I'm now employed by my own company.And as if that wasn't enough, the family is moving to Mangawhai on Tuesday. We're leaving the Big Smoke that is Auckland (an afternoon drive sitting behind a dirty diesel truck in rush hour gives

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307659560844493722.post-74549053088524321512007-01-24T10:27:00.001+13:002007-01-24T10:27:43.023+13:00

Long live Copy Ant!

Copy Anthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02413533648608120041noreply@blogger.com1