It all started out at a family picnic in a small village near Geelong. “Why don't you buy a rural property? It will be great for the grandchildren to come and visit you.” We thought it would do no harm to just have a look around at what was available on the market as after all, the grandchildren were still very young and even if we found some land that we liked, we wouldn't have to do anything with it until closer to retirement in four to five years’ time.

It didn't take us long to discover a piece of land with a NE aspect overlooking the Leigh Valley and a bank that would give us a long term loan to buy it, as this meant low repayments, with the option of paying more off the principal as funds became available. We felt that we would manage this quite comfortably in our four year time plan when the sale of our suburban home could finance the construction of a new house in the country. The block was supplied with reticulated water and electricity also but we decided that a rain water tank would help out during water restriction times. With the approval of our children, we made the purchase. However, circumstances can change very rapidly. In 1994, Noel began to suffer a muscular complaint which made his teaching job a struggle to continue. Eventually in May of 1995 he was forced to retire. He chanced to remark to a colleague about the land that we had purchased in the country. This brought an immediate response: “Can I come and see your house as I want my children to go to the school in your suburb.” An offer was made with 50% of the purchase price available immediately and the rest in six months time at the date of settlement.

We had always been interested in alternative building materials. When we lived in NZ, we had often passed cob buildings made of rammed soil mixed with tussock grass, which had survived for at least a century. We had gone to the alternative building demonstrations at Seymour and paid visits to the mudbrick homes of friends of friends, etc, and eventually, with the realisation that putting our own physical labour into the construction would now be impossible, we elected to have a contractor build our new house out of rammed earth.  There were other reasons for selecting rammed earth. The Western District of Victoria is a notorious fire prone district. The fire rating on rammed earth is four hours.  We had also read up about the mass of a building and its impact on the internal comfort level of the house.

 Jenny did not want to have dark earth walls so we hunted around and found that washed granitic sand with off-white cement, instead of the normal grey cement, gave a golden sandstone appearance to the
Using an elevatoraa afinished walls.

Fortunately we have a land surveyor son and a draftsperson son-in-law who were able to provide us with the measurements of the property and the means  of displaying it. We transformed our plans into a cardboard model which we took out to the property to find out how the building would work with the sun in heating the rooms during the winter and shading them in summer.

Although the land had the aspect we desired, an old quarry on the property restricted where we could build and the dimensions of the house itself. We created a plan of one storey which fitted tightly into the “flat” land which would give us the best view over the valley. When we went to the engineer to get his approval, he said “Do you realise that you will have a two metre step at the north end of your building? You can't have a concrete slab with that sort of slope.” Although we had had the land cut and filled, we had not realised the degree of slope still remaining along the “levelled” part where we perforce had to site the building.

aaaaaaaaaThe final ram
Back we went to the drawing board. By taking one half  of our original plan and placing it on top of the other and by making it into a boomerang shape to fit along the contours, we were able to achieve a better result with all the main rooms now having a view over the valley.
We had always appreciated the extra room, a sort of granny flat, that we had built on our suburban block. It had provided a young adult room as our children were growing up, an actual granny flat, and a room for university students as our children flew the nest. Although this would add to the cost, we decided we would add a room over the garage which would be a self-contained studio and would be available for the family when they made their promised visits.

In September of 1995, the slab was poured. We were fortunate in that we had a range of tradespeople in our church congregation who would become our sub-contractors and who would recommend others to carry out the work for us. The rammed earth contractor was not available until the beginning of November, so the slab was able to cure longer than most. 

At this stage, we had to vacate our house. Friends lent a caravan, others storage space until we reached the lockup stage. By May, we had the roof on, the septic system in and running water available in the lower floor laundry and bathroom, but no windows. That was a cold winter. Our lounge was the second bedroom to be, our bedroom was the third bedroom, the laundry was also the kitchen with a camping  stove, but we did have a shower and a toilet. I remember we went to bed at six o’clock to keep warm. 

Mentioning toilets, we looked at the alternatives, wanting to be environmentally aware and water savers. Eventually we had to choose a system which processed all the water from a septic system. As we had three toilets, the composting ones would have been very expensive and were not geared to looking after the grey water anyway.                                                Next stage - the roof

During 1996, we got to the lockup stage, the second floor went in and our cat learnt how to climb a ladder to get to her sleeping place on our bed in the main bedroom on the second floor. Noel was able to manage the finishing off jobs, such as architraves and the like whilst Jenny did all of the painting. The Triton work bench made simple tasks for a fit person, manageable for a disabled one. The kitchen furniture was a recycled one, the result of a divorce where the wife wanted to get rid of the old and  replace it with a very expensive new one, much to our good fortune.

aaaEven kids can ram
The rammed earth has lived up to its reputation. It is a very stable building material. We put some tiles over one of the articulated joints and there has been movement of only part of a millimetre. We had proposed that this project would be completed in two years. Apart from a few minor adjustments, this was the case. Now in 2000, we can say that we feel there is little more to do and we can enjoy the results of our labours. As well as family using our studio, we have opened it as a Bed and Breakfast establishment catering for local events and visitors passing from Geelong to South Australia. 

The front of the house has few
windows as it faces west.
Most windows face east and north.

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