May 2020

As the sun rises over the Muddled Up Manor site the plans are being drafted on the kitchen bench on a computer running Vista.

It's May 1st 2020

Darren has taken up position and will remain for nine days, learning a new program and perfecting the plans to submit to the building inspector and council.
May 12th and we have been issued our permit and we're off and racing.

The first star pickets is rammed into the gravel/clay ground that is still rock hard from the summer baking.
The next weekend we hire a 'tiny' bobcat and Darren 'teaspoons' the dirt as best he can, even taking run ups to the ground to try and dislodge it, to no avail.

So we 'booked a bigga digga' for the next weekend.
Fortunately the tiny digger was great to fix the bridge that we'll need to bring trucks with supplies over, so not a total loss.
The 'bigga digga' chewed through the site and Darren was able to level it well using a water level to check.

With string lines in place the holes for the roof support poles are marked ready for the mini excavator and 600mm auger to dig to 750mm deep.

The tree for the centre house post has been chosen and thanked for it's contribution.

It's the middle tree and needs to be 4.8mt tall and I'd like to use the Y to support the ridge beam and be exposed, we'll see!.

All in all it's been an amazingly successful and productive month.

About Muddled Up Manor

The kernal of this project started when I was about 11 years old. I would lay in my bed and design a room that was a separate entity from our three bedroom house, it could be entered from my room and yet had no presence on the outside, a Tardis like room, complete with  kitchen and bathroom to suit a very young persons imagination.

I wanted a small place of my own, private, function driven, absolutely only the essentials for a simple life.

In the last ten years my need to build a home from scratch has returned. The design has gone through many changes, the biggest was from cob to strawbale. I spent a fabulous 10 days in Victoria with about 20 people building a cob house and realised that for Western Australia's heat I needed to keep it out not collect it in the thermal mass and release it by night.

When I returned from Victoria I drew up some plans and bought 30mm insulation sheets from Bunnings and cut them into bale size to build a model, it still had rounded walls at that stage.

Since then a three room house evolved, an entrance/air lock room, a bathroom and a room that is kitchen bedroom and lounge in one. 

The design plans have also been upgraded to something far more legible, and the model we built while travelling around Australia is a huge improvement on my yellow blocks thanks totally to my partner who has a very exacting nature:). The model was based on the width of the available popsticks and is a 1/24 model!

Big hat, big boots! The roof will have a metre verandah to protect the clay rendered strawbale infill. The bales will sit on a cob/rock stem wall above a gravel drain.

The interior floors will be compressed dirt with linseed oil finish, the interior walls will be clay render also.

The windows and doors I have collected and refurbished over the years ready for this moment.

I have been able to walk through and live in this house in my head for years, I know every nook and cranny and now it's time to make it happen.