We must have had so much fun building our own house that we built one for Louise's parents too. We wanted this to be quick, simple and cheaper than our house, but yet with some character, which seems to be completely missing from most modern houses. Coming from Gippsland, I have seen and loved the 'barn style' of houses that Alternate Dwellings in Morwell makes. So after discovering that the building regulations are way more difficult for an owner builder to comply with here, than they are in Victoria, they delivered a kit, supplied some carpenters, who built it to lock-up in an amazingly quick 2 weeks. Then we finished it ourselves, with some help of some friendly tradesmen. I particularly had a lot of fun with the tiling.

Being on a flood plain we decided to build it on an elevated timber floor (just in case). The framing, windows and cladding are all plantation grown timber, and I lined most of the interior with plantation grown timber too. The windows are Pilkington 'Comfort-plus' which gives good thermal insulation without the extra weight of double glazing. There is heaps of insulation in the walls and roof, plus one valuable piece of jewellery - a thumb ring that Louise lost in one of the walls when she was putting the insulation in.

There is one 26,000 litre rainwater tank that provides most of the water for the house, and the waster water is recycled onto the garden via an aerobic treatment system. We couldn't get the full rebate for a solar hot water system, so we went for an instantaneous gas system, which is has a similar carbon dioxide rating to an electric boosted solar system.