Pictures

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This is a panorama of the building site before construction began.
Augering the pier holes.
Peering down a 2 metre deep pier hole.
And two finished piers.
The piers will be covered with crushed stone like this. It is unwashed and so looks brown rather than blue-grey. It's cheaper to let the rain wash it.
The power pole guarded by Ricky the Wonderdog.
The power pole in place.
Digging the trenches.
The laser level used to keep the trenches level so the water level is uniform.
Sullage trench showing the arches covered in stone and the cloth that will cover the stone.
The polythene septic tank. It's bedded on fine sand.
The rock that Malcolm tossed with the excavator. This inspired my later rock sculptures.
More rocks for Margie's garden. You can see the water storage tank and our winter wood in the background.
A corner of Margie's garden looking toward the house site.
Formwork for the slab, made from green timber.
The polythene and mesh are in place and ready for the pour -- none too soon.
The workers: Ricky, Neville, Michael and Thomas.
The concrete pump almost ready to start the pour.
Finishing the slab.

Here's what we started with, jealously guarded by Ricky the Wonderdog in case someone decides to run off with a piece.
Tony welds pipe together.
And this is what's left over.
Thomas scrubs the oil from the bottom plates.
The pipes are in place.
The pipes are only roughly aligned. Packing pieces made from scraps of masonite are wedged under the plates to bring them into complete verticality.
The pipes are held down by studs made from threaded rod epoxied in place.
The first beam being welded in place.
The second beam is in place.

And these are the welds.

top of pipe	beam join ground off smooth	pipe join ground off smooth

Only the exposed beams at the front and back of the house will need the welds ground smooth.

After we have finished the steelwork, it will be time to deal with the floor joists and timber framing for the walls.
The carport is taking shape. Rigidity will be provided by the steel purlins to support the roof, the corrugated steel sheeting that will cover the rear and right hand end, and diagonal bracing on the rear and right hand end.
The joists are local hardwood and 160 mm by 45 mm on 450 mm spacing.
Here's a detail showing the lower packing piece that holds the joist at the correct height.
And this is the writer drilling holes in the underside of a beam.

Joists for the lower level are almost complete.
Starting the first wall.
This is the completed first curved top wall that was the template for the rest.
Here is the "come-along" that we used to bend the top plate to shape. There was a tendency for both the top and bottom plates to curve, but the weight of the wall flattened the bottom plates somewhat. They were then wound down flat with threaded rod and nuts.
The front wall to Thomas's bedroom is the first to be lifted into place.
Moving the walls is a team effort. That's Thomas to the left, Fran to the right and me playing piggy in the middle. We used short lengths of rope so we could keep our backs straight. Walking the floor joists while holding onto rope is easier than walking on them without a counterbalance.
Ricky guards the steel lest anyone decide to walk off with it. The top sheets of corrugated iron are 9 metres long.
The carport is framed up and ready for the chicken wire, foil and corrugated iron.
The lid is on the carport and we have somewhere dry to work when it's showery and shaded when it's sunny.
This is where the deck is to go. The purlins tended to flex until the deck was in place. We discover that we are supposed to place stiffening on the underside and later we do. Mysteriously, but unsurprisingly, there's no indication of a stiffening member under or between any purlins in the architect's drawings!
The completed side deck. All but the extreme right hand end are within one metre of the ground, so we won't need to put up a balustrade.
The Bosky wood burning cookstove that will provide space heating, hot water and cook our food. This was the first purchase for our new home. One has to get the priorities right!
The pagan rock sculptures I assembled in a fit of creativity.
This view shows several walls in place. The wall that is sloping top left to bottom right is only there temporarily. It's the rear wall of the spare bedroom/office.
The pipe used to create the braces started to distort when the braces were tightened, so I had Tony weld end caps on the pipe.
All four walls of the master bedroom are in place. The plywood bracing is a third wider than required and a grade stronger. We are also bracing almost every wall, not just those required by the engineer.

Front view of The House of Steel with the wall framing almost complete. That's the corrugated steel cladding in the foreground.
Looking into The Great Hall from the level of the front deck, but a little beyond the deck's extent. That's my son Thomas to the right. He's close to 1.8 m (6 ft) tall. Above the opening for the French window you can see the box for holding the 4.5 m (almost 15 ft) steel lintel. It is very heavy and later caused problems.
Looking into Thomas's bedroom from above. I took this picture of Fran while strapping studs to top plates.
View from the "main" road. The highway is 2.4 km (1.5 miles) away.
The view from our side road.

The House of Steel from the north.
From the east.
From the south-east.
Looking down the corridor toward the front of The House of Steel.
Looking up the corridor toward the back of The House of Steel.
You can see here how the gutter is supported by laminated wooden beams, rather than steel. I forgot to order the extra long purlin, but Michael came to the rescue. He was making lots of laminated and curved beams at the time.
The interior of the gutter with the seams patched and ready for sanding, then painting with marine paint.
The purlins, bridges and strapping over The Great Hall.
A stainless steel frame and blackwood chair made by Tony Dunshea and Michael Henrysson.
The bridging from Stramit. There were supposed to be only two of the sort in the top row. The rest were supposed to be like the two at bottom left. They were also supposed to all be the same length!
Here we see the "accuracy" of The Bastard Salesman from Hell's order. The purlins in the upper part of the picture are 100mm (4 in) longer than those in the lower part!
Fran on the left and Tony on the right discuss an aspect of laying the corrugated zincalume roof.
The roof is complete at last. Notice the slight reversal of curve at the left and right hand edges, just like the wingtips of a bird. I suspect that this wasn't anticipated by the architect, but it looks great!
Looking through the rear door frame towards the front. The door will open outwards and closes on a seal akin to a refrigerator door, or the door in a ship. No unwanted draughts in The House of Steel.
Ricky the Wonder Dog waits patiently for me to cover the steps with scrap plywood attached with ducting tape to protect them during construction. Shortly after this, he had his first visit to the front deck. He was a little chary of ascending the stair until he'd seen me do so. He celebrated by having a nap in the sun.

The house is starting to look finished now that most of the cladding is on and the windows and doors are in place.
We will be using flat zincalume sheet to close in the sides and ends of the purlins so that they look "solid". More zincalume sheet will be used to fill the gap between the corrugated roofing and the top of the wall.
These are the witches' hats used to mark where Marguerite has planted various decorative plants and herbs.
One of the "lent for free" trestles we used up to 3 m or so above the ground.
Here is Fran using a spirit level to ensure the screws remain in vertical alignment.
The collection tank that will sit under the front deck and collect water for pumping to the larger polythene tank, seen here in the background. I'm not sure about having the soldered seam you can see here being exposed. The ropes were needed to prevent the tank blowing away in the gale force winds we experienced shortly after delivery.
The steps to Thomas's room. The flyscreen won't remain in place as it would be exposed to potential damage as we continue with building and will be removed shortly.
The double reflections in the windows are quite fascinating.
My and Timmy adjusting the sliding door to Thomas's room.
Ladder brackets are used above about 3 m height. They are known as "suicide hooks" as there is no guard rail as with conventional scaffold these days. Their prime virtue is that they are cheap and effective. If there's a danger of falling, a rope about the waist, up and over the top of the building, attached to something solid the other side works well.
Hughie stops to roll a cigarette. He prefers his faith in God to guard rails or safety ropes.
The windows team: Fran, My, Ricky the Wonder Dog and Timmy.
View from the main road.

View from the north east.
View from the south east.
View from the south west where most of the weather comes from. Note that southern hemisphere Tyvek is printed upside down. The white box is the temporary power box and will shortly be attached to a wall by the electrician. On Friday, the meter reader told us we have consumed 74 kWHrs so far at a trivial cost.
View from the north west.
View from the north. This is where the sun shines brightest in the southern hemisphere. The walls concentrate the sunshine making the deck very warm. In the summer, it will be unbearable, so some sort of shade, or sail will be needed.
The front door. The door frame material (vinyl) is made in Germany. It's designed to butt against brick walls. The window frame material, also vinyl, is from the USA, so it's designed to hide the edge of the wall cladding.
This is one of the three hinges that support the door. Allen keys are used to adjust the hinge from below for height and from the end for tilt.
This illustrates the folded zincalume trim we used to hide the raw edge of the wall cladding. It works well.
This illustrates how the wall cladding fits into the groove around the window frames. We will run a bead of silicone along the join for weatherproofing. The join will eventually be concealed by a narrow (20 mm or so) frame, likely a bright red.
The wooden joists are covered with zincalume flashing to be painted blue to match the steel beams later. The corners will be covered by folded zincalume trim later. The edge of the zincalume is folded back on itself to make it appear heavier and to provide extra stiffness.
This is a window frame before the siding is applied. The frames are attached to the openings with screws through the fins.

Glass wool batts in the master bedroom wall.
The power box attached to its permanent position. The purlins each side will have corrugated zincalume attached to protect the electric cables. To the right is the telecomm connection.
The platform at the rear of the house between the carport and back door. The tape to the left of the door is holding some bunched up stuff to prevent the door handle damaging the wall. It will be replaced later by something more sophisticated.
For the first time in many months, I walked to the southern end of the property. I wanted to take some photographs and check the water level in the dam. Here's the photograph I took:
Here's a photograph of the house from Viv's property:

The house in the early morning winter sun.
The Great Hall awaiting the installation of the vapour barrier.
Here you can see the ceiling in The Great Hall receiving its insulation and vapour barrier of black polythene. The pieces of wood are to provide good support for the lights when they are installed.
Metal plaster battens holding the vapour barrier and insulation in place.
The plasterboard being stacked in the carport.
The team of five on the trestle holding up the plasterboard. Tony on the far left and Fran, third from left are wielding the screw guns.
Tony, Hughie and Paul adjust the specially modified trestle for the highest part of The Great Hall. The modification is the wooden sled it is screwed to in order to add an additional 500 mm or so of height.
Fran and Tony plasterboarding the corridor.
The Great Hall from the north west corner.
The Great Hall from the north east corner.
The corridor is done.
A seam between two sheets of plasterboard taped up and awaiting the mud.

The house now has the water collection tank under the front deck and the downpipe from the gutter.
This is how the downpipe attaches to the gutter.
And this is the pump that transfers water from the collection tank to the storage tank.
The 22,500 litre storage tank is now full. The poly pipe is held in place with 2 mm fencing wire in a single loop around the pipe. At the back of the tank, the wire was tightened with gripples.
The Great Hall. The floorboards look white because they are coated with a film of plasterdust created by sanding the joins. The plasterboard is 1.2 m (4 ft) wide, so you can see the far wall is almost twice standard wall height.
The corridor. The plaster has yet to be sanded.
This is the sewage and effluent plumbing under the house. A good storage place for the flyscreens, too at this time. Later, the weeds will be covered with a layer of gravel to suppress them.
Some scraps of plasterboard so we could compare the effects of different colours. On my system, they all look close to what they appear in real life except the fourth from the left. Given the variability of computer displays, don't bet that what you are seeing is what we'll get. Most likely we'll be going with the two on the left; ceilings and walls.

The porch over the back door deck before the clear corrugated acrylic sheet is in place. Also, the underside of the curved gutter has been enclosed with plain zincalume sheet.
Some of the various trowels and other tools used for the plastering.
The post plastering tool, the sander, sitting on a case of our favourite cure for plaster dust -- Cascade Sparkling Pale Ale.
The view north through Thomas's bedroom door.
And this is what Thomas will see through the eastern window.
The guest bedroom looks west through the orchard to the windbreak of Matsudana poplar-willows.
While dining we can look north through the French window toward Mount Wellington, shrouded in rain-clouds on this occasion...
... or west into the orchard...
... or south toward the windbreak of Canary Island tree lucerne and various other trees and shrubs.
The view north from the master bedroom...
and east from the master bedroom.
One of the replacement floor boards from John Clennet's sawmill. This is not damage, but how the board came out of the thicknesser. Select Grade supposedly means that boards like this are rejected! happily most were more useable than this one.
Fran used Thomas's skateboard to kneel on while nailing down the floorboards. Here, the first few have been prised loose for turning over,  gluing and nailing.
The closet in the corner of the guest bedroom that will contain the hot water cylinder. On the corridor side, the door will open to reveal a shelf above the hot water cylinder for towels and such. There is another cupboard above that to be accessed from the bedroom side. Or maybe a Punch and Judy show instead.
We used Wattyl paints exclusively and are very pleased with their quality. The small cans atop the 20 litre (5 gallon) can are sample pots.
I gave up trying to rebalance the colour in this picture. The ceiling and ensuite wall visible in the centre are pretty close on my monitor, but the green of the walls is far too blue.
The dining table made for us by Michael Henrysson and Tony Dunshea. Michael also made the matching coffee table for us. The blue hose in the bottom left corner is the giant vacuum cleaner.
A detail of the top of the dining table. The timber is called tiger myrtle.

Fran nailing up the floorboards while kneeling on my son Thomas's skateboard -- supervised as always by Ricky the Wonderdog.
How not to do electrical wiring! Cutting holes in the plasterboard to access the cable and studs is not recommended. Lots of patching to do. I heard recently of an owner-builder who plastered her whole house before calling in the electrician!
Fran brushes Resorcinol glue onto the edges of the boards for the shelf in The Great Hall.
The slots cut by the biscuit joiner. Slivers of wood, called biscuits are glued in the slots to strengthen the joint and maintain alignment.
Here the boards are clamped together with pipe clamps until the glue has set.
The "vacuum cleaner". It's a dust extractor usually attached to woodworking machinery.
Richard's antique floor sander. It's the noisiest tool that was used for building the house.
Here we can see some gaps between the floorboards in Thomas's room. They were caused by variation in the width of the boards, around 5%.
The surround that holds the bottom of the downpipe firmly in place. It's made from scraps of scantling and a piece of marine plywood.
The underside of the gutter showing the zincalume sump connecting to the downpipe.

The house from the south east
The house from the south west
And from the north west. Hopefully, Marguerite's plantings will be making a better show by the time we have our housewarming.
The Great Hall from the front door. The heights of the light fittings need some fine tuning, but we will leave that for the supplier to do when he comes to inspect the results of his advice. On the right you can see the shelf over the French window we made to stiffen the wall.
I ascended a stepladder in what is to be the kitchen to take this rather over-exposed shot. The wiggle in the cords of the small lights over the island bench will be removed by the judicious use of a hair dryer.

The outside of The House of Steel is now 99.9% complete! The higher part of the balustrade connects to the wall, stiffening the structure and will later support some kind of removable shade/shelter cloth.
Here we see the island bench and the two other workbenches minus their tops to the rear left and right. The left workbench will be lit by lights under the cupboards above, the right hand bench is lit by spotlights attached to the ceiling. The three pendant lights in the picture are for the kitchen sink and island bench. The Bosky wood burning cookstove immediately behind the island bench will have its flue installed shortly.
The pantry consists of chrome plated steel wire drawers. Right at the bottom we will have a tray to catch the bits and pieces that fall, making it easier to clean. We have seen a similar arrangement where the wire drawers are all attached to a drawfront, so they all pull out at the same time. This made little sense to me -- why haul out 30-40 kg every time you need an item or two?
The Blum drawer sides awaiting fronts backs and bottoms. It's much easier fitting them before the benchtop is in place. The sides and slides are made from epoxy coated steel and they run on nylon rollers. The drawers pull out for ease of cleaning and when pushed shut, lock in place. Our drawers will have a scoop out of the draw front rather than a handle. The lowest of these drawers will have a higher than normal front and back -- it's Marguerite's file drawer. Note the vertical pieces of pine holding the slides -- these are to ensure the drawers don't foul the cupboard doors. The standard way is to use a double thickness of MDF, but that costs more than pine scantling sliced up and planed smooth.
Here we see the Blum cupboard hinges. They are concealed completely by the door and are fully adjustable. A bonus is that a quick pull on the trigger behind the leftmost part enables the door to be removed for finishing, or cleaning. The local hardware store sells a plastic version of this that doesn't enable the door to be removed. The hinges come as a pair for $A15. We paid $3 each for the real thing!
The bedhead/room divider in the master bedroom. The lower portion will be fitted out with drawers accessible from the other side. The wide portion above will be a bookshelf above the bedhead. The structure will conceal a shelf, below which will be a rail for hanging clothes.
Fitting home-made doors is much easier than store-bought. You can install the panels after you have swung and adjusted the door frames!
And here are the "bubble and squeak" doors -- so-called because they were made from left-overs. Left-over wall studs and floorboard off-cuts.
We made the laundry and bathroom benches from melamine coated chipboard -- quicker and easier than applying a different laminate. These rooms will be enlivened with genuine linoleum rather than vinyl on the floor, so the stark white of melamine isn't an issue.
The iron on the bathroom bench is for ironing on the white melamine strip on edges that we cut. The bathtub is out of shot to the left.
Tony's cheap substitute for plastic grommets that are sold to yachties -- nylon pressure hose. You'd have to look pretty close to tell the difference, but the cost saving of around 80% was more than welcome. Since the pressure hose runs all the way through, it made feeding the stainless steel cable through much easier!
The turnbuckles we used to tension the stainless steel cable. Tony economised here too and cut the eye off one end to use for the opposite end of the cables as in the picture below.
Here we see the eyes, eyelets and swages used to terminate the cable. The swages are the pieces of soft metal that hold the two strands of cable together. The tool for squeezing them resembles a bolt cutter. My undying gratitude goes to Val for supplying the swages, the eyelets, the use of the swage tool and actually doing 90% of the work attaching the cables!

Fran made a "compass" to guide the router when cutting the curved edge of the island benchtop.
This is the router in action.
The bench is almost finished.
The ensuite bathroom.
The bath I won't be able to truly enjoy until we remove the stupid tempering valve!
The master bedroom. The bed was made for us by Peter Atkinson many years ago. It is constructed from a local timber called sassafras. Some pieces of the timber, Peter found on the local tip! Marguerite started the quilt, but had a friend finish it for her.
The laundry -- the front loading washing machine is a delight to use compared to the twin tub in the old cottage. Note the subdued sheen of the linoleum compared to the gloss of vinyl.
Just inside the entrance to The Great Hall, a club chair that Marguerite restored some years ago.
The TV watching/music listening corner of The Great Hall. The pictures you see awaiting hanging are by local artists Elspeth Vaughan and Richard Bacon. Elspeth's is a picture of cottages on a Scottish island and Richard's is a south west wilderness stream.
The kitchen corner of The Great Hall. I ran out of film at this point. Sort of! There are two or three rolls somewhere in the cottage or The House of Steel. The kickboards under the benches are now covered with zincalume steel and look very posh for such an industrial material. Everyone likes the look of the stainless steel flue, too.
These are the drawer fronts we fabricated. Both of the benches have drawers underneath, rather than cupboards. We made the drawers various heights to accommodate different sized objects. The drawers to the right include a file drawer that holds the household documents and telephone directory.

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