I’d thought I’d mention more about where I live and the house itself – as a continuation from yesterday’s post.

The property is situated amongst a few small farmlets and an increasing number of suburban houses. Indeed many of the small farms are being bought up to turn into estates where people can live together on their 1/4 acre blocks. Originally the area was all dairy farms and orchards but that’s quickly changing now. It’s a hilly area with a few winding roads, which makes for a pleasant drive.

The house is located on a “pocket” of 38 acres only ten minutes away from a major shopping mall. About forty minutes away from the center of a city with nearly four million people in it. I don’t own it (unfortunately) but the property alone is worth about 6 or 7 million dollars U.S.

The house itself is made of bluestone (granite) and mudbrick (adobe). All of the outside walls are bluestone and rough cut – which can be a problem with the inside walls all jagged and uneven. The interior walls are mudbrick, painted white, and Douglas fir (Oregon pine). There are two large fireplaces, back to back – one in the front room, which we’ve made into a lounge area, and one in my workshop (which was the old lounge room). The new lounge area works well and is great to be in – especially on a winter’s night when an open fire is raging. It’s cozy with it’s French doors, exposed Oregon beams and gray slate floor.

As you walk through the front door the lounge is on the left and the kitchen area is on the right. There is a huge single paned window just above the sink in the kitchen which has views of the outside fernery garden. It’s calm and tranquil and is just the thing when you’re doing the washing up. The facilities are rudimentary but they do work well. For instance there’s an old wood burning stove and oven. It’s a beautiful old thing and I know that some people would pay thousands for this sort of thing but it takes some getting use to? Plus it means that you need to have lots of small pieces of wood to fuel it. We’ve never really used it until the past year, but it does make a nice juicy roast and is great for cooking fish as well.

The main appliances that we use for cooking are an old electric cook top/broiler/grill and a microwave oven and we’ve become experts with these I’d have to say. Even when it comes to cooking a roast we can do a bloody good job. For instance, if I’m roasting a chicken I’ll first microwave it and then take it out, break it up into portions and crisp it up in the broiler/grill. It works really well. Roast beef can be “crisped” in a frypan on top of the cooktop. Sounds like a bit of bother but really it’s not. Just a few more minutes on top of the cooking and it makes a big difference. Needs some practice though, I should add. The floor in the kitchen is also gray slate, which makes cleaning so so.

Walking on through the house you end up in the main loungeroom – which has actually been made into my workshop now. It’s an open area with a staircase leading up to the second floor – used only for storage really – and the aforementioned fireplace. In the room is all of my junk – large workbench made of rock maple and jarrah, which is a deep rich red wood that contrasts nicely with the creamy white of the maple. There are toolboxes, shelves of handplanes and bits of wood everywhere – just as you’d expect a workshop to be.

Off to the right side of the lounge/workshop is the laundry and toilet. We’ve been having some plumbing problems but they’ll be fixed up before too long. There’s just too much happening at the moment, that’s all.

Continuing on through the lounge/workshop you enter the library, which has a spare bed in it at the moment. It’s a nice room though somewhat dark. It has exposed beams on the ceiling, slate floor, an old pot-bellied wood burning stove – sadly not connected to the chimney properly – and bookshelves of books lining the walls.

To the right of the library is the “office” or computer room and, behind you, is the bathroom – with a wonderfully deep claw-footed bath looking out over a glorious view of the ferns and flowers in the garden. It’s a great place just to lie in the bath, soak and meditate or just relax. It’s also good for singing. The floor in the bathroom, as well as the computer room, is made of yellow and red bricks arranged haphazardly in patterns.

There’s some more bookshelves in computer room but it’s mainly where the computers are (as you’d expect). In fact there’s books everywhere in this house – even a bookshelf full of books in the laundry!

If you continue on through the office/computer room you’ll end up in the bedroom – a beautiful room that’s filled with light during the day, thanks to a row of six largish windows arranged in a semi-circular pattern on the right. There’s another wood burning stove in here to add warmth but we never use it as there’s not a lot of ventilation when things start to get a bit smokey. The huge Oregon exposed beams fan out across the room and rest either in the stone or on the redgum window frames. Once again the floor is made of firebricks, but this time arranged in a circular pattern. The bed head is up against a pine wall, with the studio on the opposite side.

If you retrace your steps back into the library and then continue on from front to back you’ll end up in the studio. Again this room is filled with light – due mainly to a huge 9 x 5 foot window and two sets of French doors – one leading outside to the back and one leading to the side verandah. There’s a nice cedar art table in front of the window for Amy to do her work on as well as a hutch for art supplies and a large plan drawer. The floor in here is also slate.

Out the back we have the garden – well, it’s really the part of the garden that we have fenced off to keep OUR dog, Gus, in – as explained in a previous post. It’s a pretty large area – maybe about a quarter of an acre in itself? Plenty of space for two active puppies anyway!

Beyond that there’s a pond, or “dam” as we call it here in Australia. Basically it’s there for the livestock to drink but there’s a lot of bird activity there in reality – native ducks, egrets, ibis and herons. Until last year there were three very large goldfish in it as well, probably a foot long or so? Two of them were orangey-gold and the third was black. For many years I didn’t know there were there. It was only when the water was low during the drought that I first saw them. Last summer though I figure some birds must have got the fish? I’m not sure what happened otherwise? There’s another dam way down and out of view at the back of the property but the water there is rather brackish – not that the water in this dam is any good either!

The dam can be seen from the bedroom window and looks gorgeous in the morning when the rays of the sun reflect off it.

Extending beyond the house/garden area are the fields – or “paddocks” as we call them. Most of them have horses in them to help keep the grasses down. None of the horses are ours but we’ve been known to rescue one or two of them in the past. Sometimes we even let a horse or two into the garden to act as lawnmowers for us.

There’s also a few acres of pine plantation on the property. A long time ago the father of the owner decided he wanted to start a Christmas tree farm and got as far as planting all the trees in rows and close together. In the end though he didn’t go through with the idea and so the trees were left to grow and grow – like long tall matchsticks! Whenever there’s a wind about there’s always a few of the trees that snap like twigs and fall. Well, fall as much as they can anyway which, in many cases, isn’t that far as they’re always leaning on the other trees.

About the only other thing I need to add is that it’s always an adventure getting up and down the washed-away, pot-holed driveway. Every so often I have to get out of the car and remove another fallen pine tree that’s lying across the drive, which makes things interesting to say the least.

I love living here! It’s a gorgeous place to live but, like every house, has it’s own problems and personalities. I wouldn’t change it for the world though – unless, of course, I had to? Apart from the house in which I grew up I have lived here longer than any other other place – into my seventh year now. I could easily live here for another seven!

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