it’s the new year and things are moving. maybe on quite as fast as we were hoping they would, but it’s great to see progress. good progress actually.

it’s in the nature of things that sometimes it is quite easy to tell that the day we can move in is approaching, and this is certainly one of those occasions. the timber flooring is being rolled out throughout the house, and all that is left is our bedroom and the ensuite (on a slightly embarrassing note we seem to be a bit short of flooring, so the last few square meters might be a little further away than we’d like them to be).

this is what our floor is covered with, and it may be worth explaining why we went with this over ‘real’ timber. since the house is off-grid we are looking to optimise the internal climate naturally, without using energy to heat the house or cool it. the concrete slab plays a key role in all this: it works as a heat bank, and helps to regulate the temperature in the house. for this to work we need to ensure we do not add too much heat in summer, but allow the slab to absorb as much as possible in winter. this is why we use ‘heatwood’, a composite floor covering that is closely connected to the slab (there is only a thin layer of glue underneath). a real floating timber floor would effectively insulate the slab, which would prevent heat from going into the slab, as well as being radiated back out, and therefore undermine the whole solar passive idea. will it work? we will find out soon enough.

at the same time the floor is starting to look a lot more exciting (we are no fans of the industrial look of a concrete floor) the outside is arguably loosing a bit of its flair. unfortunately the hemp walls must be protected from the rain. we will miss the characteristic layers, but we left some internal walls in the ‘natural’ hemp look.

the bathrooms are also coming along nicely. we are happy with the colours we have chosen: they are maybe a bit darker than the ones we use when we remodelled the bathroom in sydney, but we’re keeping with the general theme:two tones of grey tiles with black tap ware and minimalist furniture. the vanity is made from tassie oak (that’s just another term for native gum) and is currently sitting in the shed, waiting to be installed.

outside i’ve been busy with the excavator. i’ve moved two largish piles of dirt and used it to cover the rest of the old road. the grass on the dirt we’ve spread last time is already coming through, and if we get a few drops of rain i think this will start to look very nice in a few weeks.