The floor plan of our house reflects a traditional settlers’ cottage layout with a central front door and rooms on either side. The roof is steeply pitched with space for rooms in the loft. The house is a rectangle with its long sides facing north and south. To the west is a covered deck which is accessed from the living area.

The house is around 170 square metres including the useable upstairs space and deck. The living area has high ceilings to the roof space so that there is extra light from the clerestory windows.

To the north there are large windows to capture winter sunshine for heating. These windows have vine covered pergolas for extra shading in summer. The windows on the south side are small and positioned to allow cooling breezes to enter the house in summer. There are windows in the east and west gable ends. On the south there are 2 skillion windows in the roof.

Beneath the house we have a cellar and under the deck are 2 large rain-water tanks which give us most of the water for the house and garden. A grey-water system situated under the deck will provide supplementary water for the garden. Thermal mass is provided by a polished concrete floor and internal rammed earth walls. The external walls are a mixture of very well-insulated rendered eco-board, mini-orb Colorbond and sustainable timber. Solar panels are positioned on the north side of the roof which is light coloured Colorbond.

We hope this house will enable us to generate all our own electricity, as well as return excess to the grid, and supply all our water needs including enough to grow most of our fruit and vegetables. We are using sustainable, recycled and environmentally-friendly building materials where possible. We are creating a beautiful house that is welcoming and homely and that is a pleasure to live in.

We are enjoying the challenge of creating a new sustainable home and garden but we know that not everyone wants to do the same. However we do think that we can do many things to make our homes more sustainable, grow organic food, change the way energy and water is used and significantly reduce waste. By taking small steps to make positive changes, we can all reduce our ecological footprint and learn to live lightly on the planet.

Over the years we have learnt a lot about environmentally friendly building materials (our cladding choices were featured in ReNew issue 149), planning and building houses, use of energy and water, zero waste living, healthy homes and urban farming. We are still striving to put in place all the knowledge we have acquired by means of many small steps. We believe that the best way to help others is by ‘walking the talk’. We love sharing our knowledge and experience with others and are planning to run workshops, tours and open days in the near future. If you would like to attend one of these events please contact us. Sue also has a Permaculture Design Certificate and can help with planning and designing a Permaculture-based garden.

We invite you to join us on this ecological adventure. Together we can work on the changes we all need to make to save our environment. We love a quote from the I Ching Book of Changes…A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step!