inspiration from Tuscany

We got back a few days ago from a short break in Tuscany, Italy. We stayed near Lucca with the aim of visiting lots of old villas and gardens. After reading the book "A Garden in Lucca" it was something I'd always wanted to do, although we unfortunately didn't get to visit the actual garden in the book as they only did group tours.

As per usual, I kept my eyes open for ideas for Amherst. We visited 5 gardens but our favourite by a mile was Villa Reale di Marlia. It was the largest and where Napoleon's sister lived. Here's some things I found that could be really interesting for Amherst...

I really liked this garden room, which had a central structure with vines all around and climbing over the roof. Might be an interesting alternative for the gazebo thingy in the middle of the walled garden, or as an outdoor lounging area in a corner of the secret garden? Or even perhaps up on a hill near the olives as part of a BBQ area? Maybe Dave could grow his grapes over something like this and not just on boring rows. :-)



I also liked the way they used little ditches of water flowing at ground level in the Spanish garden. It lead to a fountain at the end here, but I can imagine it working just as well without. There's a short video of it here, see especially the 2nd half, but the photos will give you the gist.



I was also intrigued by the way they used terracotta pots to make a garden. The Lemon tree garden at Villa Reale is supposedly famous for this, and because it gets to cold for them to survive the winters there, they have special orangeries (or actually they call them limoneries) where the pots get wheeled off to every winter. :-) This might be an interesting way of getting our "secret" garden in the courtyard going. We won't be able to plant things in the ground until the new house is built or else they'll just get trampled, but there's nothing stopping us from growing in pots which can then be carted off elsewhere when building starts...



Every garden we visited had a grotto style fountain. I didn't find them that appealing to be honest, with the exception of the one at Villa Reale which I liked for the simplicity of the steps shape...



Finally, my other big inspiration came not from a garden but from a tower. The Torre Guinigi in Lucca to be precise. It has trees growing at the top of the tower! Perhaps we should think about this for our mini-library tower... I suspect it would be an engineering nightmare and wouldn't pass any of the fire hazard criteria, but hey I can dream... ;-)

inspiration from Sagamore Hill

We were just watching an American history documentary, when it showed a house: Sagamore Hill in Long Island, New York. It belonged to Teddy Roosevelt. It's a great house, but what struck me on sight was the colouring. We both really really liked it, to the extent that I'm wondering whether we should mimic the colours at Amherst.

Thanks to the wonders of Flickr here's some photos, showing it in different lights and seasons. (Thanks very much to those who took these photos and posted them in a form they could be blogged).


Sagamore Hill
Originally uploaded by cyclingbill2003


Sagamore Hill
Originally uploaded by halgil


360/366 Sagamore Hill
Originally uploaded by Amberture

The main house is coloured blue - of a similar albeit slightly lighter hue than the one we picked for the cottage. But what's different is that they've used a darker grey colour as accent for the window frames - whereas up till now I'd been planning to use an off-white.

I also really like how they've got the contrast with the rust red on some walls. That could work perhaps for the extension parts of the cottage - the upstairs bathroom part; the laundry - as well perhaps as the library extension on the main house? Need to think some more about this, but it has certainly given me some more ideas... Even if we didn't go with the red colour - the idea of having a sharp contrast - green perhaps? - is appealing.

idea for a shower

I found this on Ebay. It's too expensive (and too far away) to bid on, but wanted to make a note of it as perhaps we can build our own. It'd make a great outdoor shower, as well as a way to make sure you didn't use too much water.



It's an old (1810) portable watersaver shower. You apparently pumped water up to the top using something like an old tyre pump. Then you had your shower and the water collected in the bottom where you could pump it back up again.

inspiration from Kent & Sussex

We recently spent a few days in Kent and Sussex, visiting gardens and old houses. The weather wasn't brilliant but we were lucky most of the time - grey skies but seldom rain.

As usual, we were on the lookout for ideas we can copy at Amherst. Here's our favourites:

At Derek Jarman's garden in Dungeness we found a form of gravel garden - actually shingle - that I like. I've seen gravel gardens before but I've not liked them: this one was different though: no fences and surrounded by proper sized pebbles rather than itty-bitty stones that crunch when you walk. Given how hard it will be to maintain grass where we are, this is a godsend.


At Walmer Castle we discovered a lovely shade of blue paint that worked surprisingly well even in a sometimes dark corridor:


A cool concept for a lookout bench at Scotney Castle:


Wonderful circular steps designed by Lutyens at Great Dixter:


Raised planting troughs at Sissinghurst.... Actually I'd come across these on a past visit but seeing them again reminded me. Of course hers are all proper stone and weigh a ton but you can get fake plastic ones that look very realistic - I have to remember to get a bunch before we leave, as Mum says she's not seen them in Australia.


Also at Sissinghurst, the lovely plant gazebo from her famous white garden:


And finally, also from Sissinghurst, the herb garden. I'd love to lay our herb garden out this way in the square between the two houses (albeit without the tall hedge). I especially like the camomile bench that you can see at about 13 secs in:

architectural models

On my recent visit to the V&A museum I visited the Architecture Gallery for the first time. It wasn't as big as I thought, really just the one room:



However, what it had was delightful. Here are a few photos of my favourite models. We are *definitely* going to have to make the model of Amherst into something like this, I love them.

My favourite: inside this even had furniture!


Some others:

Wrought iron at the V&A museum

I'm a big fan of wrought iron, and so one of my favourite parts of the V&A museum is their iron gallery.

I had a chance to visit it again on Monday and this time I took pictures. :-)

It's just so beautiful, the sad thing is I expect there's hardly anyone left who has the skills to do this sort of work nowadays. If money were no object I'd have this sort of ironwork on the fences and verandah at Amherst...**ah, dreams***

idea for fire fender

idea for fire fender
Originally uploaded by lynetter

I found this on Ebay and I would have bid except it's in Sydney and so delivery to Melbourne is going to cost a fortune. A pity. But, wanted to keep a copy of it here as it's a great idea and I reckon I could easily make something similar.

I've been looking into getting fenders with seats to go with the fireplaces... they're really expensive. This could be our solution. I also like how the seats are boxes, I can see that'll be really handy for storing all the kindling/other stuff that accumulates when you have a wood fire.

plant ideas from Rushworth

While back in Australia I visited a friend who lives in Rushworth, about 2 hours drive further North from Amherst. She's restoring an old farmstead which has a lovely established garden with some really interesting plants. Here are a few that I was interested in for the Amherst garden:

First, this amazing lily... or at least I think it's a lily judging from the shape of the leaves and dead petals, but I can't tell for sure. Sam didn't know what it was either... if anyone recognises it, can you please leave a comment?


Another is this tree with great purple bell-shaped flowers. Again, we didn't know what it was precisely... thought at first a lilac but apparently the leaves aren't 'furry' which means it isn't that. Please leave a comment if you can suggest what it might be.


Finally, a peppercorn tree. This would be a lovely shade tree for the house garden plus the peppercorns would come in very handy in the kitchen too. :-)

Mum's visit to Wigandia garden

A short while ago I wrote about Wigandia garden. This is a famous Australian garden, renowned for being extremely drought tolerant, low maintenance and with its own unique style. You can see the garden's website here.

Well, thanks to the garden creator William posting a comment (thanks!) I discovered that the garden was opened to the public for the first time in years over Easter.

Unfortunately I couldn't go myself, what with being on the other side of the world, but I convinced Mum to go in my stead. It was a very long day for her, around 4 hours drive each way(!) but I think she enjoyed it, and she did an amazing job of taking photos and video.

In Mum's words:
"It was all a surprise – I had not expected it to look so good. And his sculptures would be, anywhere else, just a heap of old junk like the rusty decrepit bike thrown on a heap of sort of garden rubbish. It looked just perfect – a guy there (another visitor) and I both commented it would look like waiting for the rubbish collection in our places, but was so exactly right where he had placed it! I think it was one of the volunteers who told me he had given it a LITTLE water to make it really nice for Easter, since about Christmas. that is, probably the bathwater to cover an acre or so! "

I've put the full set of Mum's photos up on Flickr here. As well, to give you a flavour of the garden, below is a short video compilation showing one side, plus a couple of photos.


Music thanks to Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)







Based on the photos, the garden is amazing. The fact that it's so full of life, at the tail end of a long hot summer and drought, is phenomenal. Yes, I imagine it'd be prettier still in late autumn after some rain, but it's easy to make a garden look lovely when it's lush and green - what's hard is what this garden succeeds at - to look wonderful even when it's dry and overbearingly hot. It's also clearly a garden for wildlife, with the various drinking bowls for birds and all the butterflies. Just wonderful. I hope I get a chance to visit it myself in person one day.

San Francisco inspiration

In early October I was in San Francisco for a work conference. It finished on the Friday and I stayed over the weekend to visit friends.

On Sunday Caroline and I went exploring to see some of the beautiful old houses. I'd been to San Francisco several times before, but not since I got interested in architecture, so it was fun to look around with fresh eyes.

You can see all the photos I took here, but below are some that sparked particular inspiration for Amherst.

Bamboo mural on the front of a house in Haight Ashbury - something like this might be nice for a shed or verandah wall?


I loved the glossy black finish on these stairs.


And I loved the concept of training vines to grow across the risers of stairs.


I like the small verandah under the eaves of this house and can see something like this working well with the style of Amherst.


You can barely make it out in this photo, but there's some lovely old stained glass set in the trellis on the edge of the verandah. Something like this could be really great on the verandahs at Amherst, at one end to screen something off, or simply as a partial divider maybe? In particular, for the old cottage now Dad is putting the wraparound verandah on.


I loved this plant, especially how the melodrama of it so fitted with that of the house. This is a reminder to not separate planting from the architecture.


Plunging rosemary plants... I never knew they could grow like this. This might be a nice option for around the balcony edges or on terrace walls.

Hidden passageways

Hey, I just found a new thing to add to the ultimate wishlist for the house... a hidden passageway! I stumbled across this company who specialises in them, thanks to digg.

Don't panic Eric, I'm not serious. It would be kinda cool though. :-)

a different approach to reupholstery

I was really skeptical until we tried it for one of our armchairs and now I will never go back. Unless there's another reason for reupholstering besides replacing worn fabric, I recommend getting fitted covers instead of 'permanent' reupholstery.

We've had two armchairs done now, and for both you can't tell that it is removable. We got them done in a rough velvet-ey cream fabric and it's so practical to be able to take the covers off and throw in the washing machine. Once dry, you then just re-fit using the hidden zippers and velcro and voila, it's back to normal except now it's clean! It's a hell of a lot easier than steam cleaning.

The place we've used so far is called Plumbs Covers. Their brochures can be a pretty tacky looking and any of the special offers only applies to horrible chintzy polyester fabrics. But, they have a big range and provided you're willing to pay for the custom-made service and pick a decent fabric, it's brilliant. It worked out for us about the same price as permanent reupholstering would have, so it wasn't about saving money, but it is more practical. The best thing about it now is that they've just introduced a worldwide mailorder service. So, you just need to take the measurements yourself and send photos of the sofas / chairs you want covered and they'll make it to order.

Aberdeenshire inspiration

We’ve just got back from 4 days in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, spent mostly visiting castles and gardens albeit in somewhat drizzly weather. As is usual whenever we travel now, we came back armed magpie-like with ideas for Amherst! You can see the full set of photos here but these are the main ideas:

For the garden:

My favourite of the gardens we visited was at Leith Hall, as it was the most ‘English’ of the lot with a huge zigzagging herbaceous border and lots of flowers and specimen trees. Ideas it sparked included:

Gates that shut themselves by means of a heavy stone weight tied to them


Having a circular gateway like their moongate. Not sure how hard it would be to make, but in the right spot it could be really effective.


Mowing the grass to make a pattern. I’ve seen this done before to create walkways, but never as effectively to create a decorative pattern.



A close second to Leith Hall of my favourite gardens was at Crathes Castle. It was the first we visited on this trip. Ideas we got from it:

Lupins lupins lupins. They were everywhere in full bloom, especially in the garden at Crathes Castle which had an entire border full of them. They really looked spectacular. I’m going to give them another chance in our London garden, plus put them on the list for the ‘cossetted’ secret garden area at Amherst.


Square rope like netting stretched between stakes all along the herbaceous border was used at almost all the gardens we visited, but we saw it most at Crathes. I’d not seen it before, I guess because we’d not visited early enough in the season before the plants had grown. It was put about thigh height and the plants just grew up through it so that it provided them with support and held the flower stalks up straight. A very clever idea I shall definitely borrow, a lot easier than attempting to stake individual plants.


Gravelled paths but letting the edges go a bit wild so that succulents and little creepers can spread in the margins


Garden gates made of curved metal strips. I love cast iron gates but as I don’t know any friendly blacksmiths I figure we won’t be able to ever afford them. But, perhaps we will be able to find some readymade curved metal strips which by judicious weaving and screwing together, and black paint, we could get this effect.


Dave found a lovely creeper which has pink and white mottled leaves as well as green. It is called actinidia kolomikta.



The only non-castle-attached garden we visited was Pitmedden Garden. I learned once and for all that I do not much like parterre style beds and elaborate planting out schemes. Which is good as I’ve now spared myself a trip to Versailles! But we did see some things we liked there, including:

Apples and other fruit espaliered not against a wall, but along and over a curved arch walkway, like you would more commonly see with roses.


Double rows of limes (or linden trees as Dave prefers to call them) planted close enough and pruned to create a walkway.


Carefully chosen sculpture can really enhance a garden – we both loved the lifesize boxing hares on the main lawn.



Drum Castle was the last of the castles we visited, and we spent a lot of time in the garden as we got there too early! Most of the things we'd seen elsewhere though, so although it was lovely we didn't get any new ideas. The sole exception was that there was a spectacular tree, called davidia involucrata... aka the pocket handkerchief tree!



For the house:

There weren’t as many ideas as you might expect considering we visited 5 houses, but with only one exception they were all very different to the usual style of place we visit. They were mostly castles, and Scottish style castles at that, which tended to have a lot of narrow towers with lots of winding stone steps. We visited in order, Crathes castle, Haddo House, Leith Hall (like a mini-castle), Craigievar castle and Drum castle.

Some of the ideas:

The importance of rugs. You can never have enough rugs it seems, and if you can’t get giant ones that cover a room, then just get 3 or 4 and scatter them around. They don’t even need to match to look good provided they’re all of similar style, and they look even nicer when they’re worn. So I’m on the lookout for old rugs, I wonder where you get them from?

Tapestry seats on chairs. I might even experiment with re-upholstering the new dining chairs with tapestry seats, if I can find some ready-done tapestry. I’ve seen it come up on Ebay occasionally. I just don’t have the patience to do the lot myself!

Little flaps, about the width of a bookmark but lying perpendicular to the book, hanging from the top of each shelf in a library. It stops the dust getting onto the books in the shelf below. Dave reckoned we could do it using Velcro to hold the strips on and then just have a piece of wood that sits over the top to give the illusion of a straight edge. When it got dusty you could just peel the Velcro off and wash them.

Dave is keen on the idea of having a ‘Great Hall’, aka a long room with barrel vaulted ceiling. We talked about maybe having the library at Amherst in this style. I was also wondering about putting the giant stained glass lamp in there, with a skylight above it, but would have to try it out in SketchUp to test it didn’t disrupt the symmetry.

Rather than having a chair that converts to a 2-step stepladder, have instead a longer bench or stool that converts to a 4-step stepladder.

the radiator is on sale

A year ago I wrote about this incredible radiator I'd found.



This week I got an email from Joris to say an electric version is now on sale to consumers, with a central heating version coming soon too. If you're interested in it, you can contact joris via email. The only bad thing about it is the price.

Now, you have to not think of it as a radiator.
You have to think of it as a work of art.
A work of art that was bought by several design museums and won lots of awards.


Take a deep breath.


The price is 3,950 Euros. That's around US$5000.

To put it into perspective. That's the price of a week long holiday for two somewhere nice in the Maldives or Caribbean. Or, in Amherst terms, about the same price as the sewage treatment system is likely to cost.

I'm in sticker shock. So is Dave. It is a magnificent thing, something to treasure, both functional and beautiful. I just wish it was cheaper.

Idea: doors with windows that open

This old door was for sale on Ebay. We're not going to buy it as they want way too much money for it, but I really like the style of having a section with opening windows. Maybe we will repurpose some other doors to get the same effect.

apply patterns (3): Garden

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to garden layout and those spaces which are bridges between house and garden.


#105: South facing outdoors
People use open space if it is sunny, and don't use it if it isn't, in all but desert climes. Therefore:
Always place buildings to the north of the
outdoor spaces that go with them, and keep the
outdoor spaces to the south. Never leave a deep
band of shade between the building and the sunny
part of the outdoors.


As Pattern Language was written in the US, I presume in Australia we'd need to reverse 'north' and 'south', but the basic principles still apply. I guess we will find out when Eric does the "sun test" whether this will be an issue, but I can't see how it will be. There may be some areas of deep shade in the vicinity of the house in the secret garden area, especially when trees grow, but in the height of an Australian summer frankly you need shade.


#106: Positive outdoor space
Outdoor spaces which are merely leftover between buildings will, in general, not be used. Therefore:
Make all the outdoor spaces which surround and
lie between your buildings positive. (which seems
to mean: give it a distinct shape, as definitely
as a room, and make its shape as important as the
shapes of the buildings that surround it, but don't
make it too enclosed). Give each one some degree
of enclosure; surround each space with wings of
buildings, trees, hedges, fences, arcades, and
trellised walks, until it becomes an entity with
a positive quality and does not spill out
indefinitely around corners.



#114: Hierarchy of Open Space
Outdoors, people always try to find a spot where they can have their backs protected, looking out torward some larger opening, beyond the space immediately in front of them. Therefore:
Whatever space you are shaping, make sure of
two things. First, make at least one smaller space,
which looks into it and forms a natural back for it.
Second, place it, and its openings, so that it
looks into at least one larger space. When you
have done this, every outdoor space will have a
natural back; and every person who takes up the
natural position, with his back to this back ,
will be looking out toward some larger distant view





#115: Courtyards which live
Courtyards intended to be private open spaces often end up unused, full of gravel and abstract sculptures. Most common reasons courtyards fail are because there is too little ambiguity between indoors & outdoors, so the transition is too abrupt; because there are not enough doors into the courtyard, so no-one ever passes through; or simply becuase they are TOO enclosed. Therefore:
Place every courtyard in such a way that there is
a view out of it to some larger open space; place it
so that at least 2 or 3 doors open from the building
into it and so that the natural paths which connect
these doors pass across the courtyard. And, at one
edge, beside a door, make a roofed verandah or a
porch, which it continuous with both the inside
and the courtyard.



#120: Paths and Goals
The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking. And the process of walking is far more subtle than one might imagine. As you walk along you scan the landscape for intermediate destinations and try (more or less) to walk in a straight line toward these points, wiht the effect that you often 'cut corners'. These intermediate destinations, however, keep changing becuase the further you walk the different your vantage point, the more you can see round a corner. Therefore:
To lay out paths, first place goals at natural
points of interest. Then connect the goals to one
another to form the paths. The paths may be straight
or gently curving between goals; their paving should
swell around the goal. The goals should never be
more than a few hundred feet apart.





#163: Outdoor room
A garden is the place for lying in the grass, swinging croquet, growing flowers, throwing a ball for the door. But there is another way of being outdoors: and its needs are not met by the garden at all. For some moods, some times of day, some kinds of friendship, people need a place to eat, to sit in formal clothes, to drink to take together, to be still, and yet outdoors. They need an outdoor room, literally - a partly enclosed space, outdoors, but enough like a rooms that people behave in it as they do in rooms, but with the added beauties of the sun, wind, smells, rustling leaves. Therefore:
Build a place outdoors which has so much enclosure
around it that it it takes on the feeling of a room,
even though it is open to the sky. To do this,
define it at the corners with columns, perhaps roof
it partially with a trellis or a sliding canvas roof,
and create 'walls' around it with fences, sitting
walls, screens, hedges or the exterior walls of
the building itself.



#167: Six foot balcony
Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used. Therefore:
Whenever you build a balcony or porch, always make
it at least 6 feet deep. If possible, to give it an
added feeling of security, recess at least a part of
it into the building so that it is not cantilevered
out and separated from the building by a simple line,
and enclose it partially - eg: with a low wall or
heavy columns. In terms of space, treat it as an
outdoor room



#168: Connection to the earth
A house feels isolated from the nature around it unless its floors are interleaved directly with the earth that is around the house. You want a house to feel rooted as if it belongs where it is placed. Therefore:
Build a series of paths and terraces and steps
around the edge of the building. Place them deliberately
to make the boundary ambiguous, so that it is impossible
to say exactly where the building stops.





#174: Trellised walk
Trellised walks have their own special beauty. They are so unique, so different from other ways of shapng a path, that they are almost archetypal. Therefore:
Where paths need special protection or where they
need some intimacy, build a trellis over the path and
plant it with climbing flowers. Use the trellis to
help shape the outdoor spaces on either side of it.



#238: Filtered light
Light filtered through leaves or tracery, is wonderful. This is because direct light casts strong shadows resulting in harsh images, and also because filtering reduces glare. Therefore:
Where the edge of a window or the overhanging eave
of a roof is silhouetted against the sky, make a rich,
detailed tapestry of light and dark to break up the
light and soften it. You can do this, most easily,
with climbing plants trained to climb around the
outside of the window. If there are no plants you
can also do it beautifully with simple canvas awnings.



#243: Sitting wall
In many places walls and fences between outdoor spaces are too high; but no boundary at all does injustice to the subtlety of the divisions between the spaces. Therefore:
Surround any natural outdoor area, and make minor
boundaries between outdoor areas with low walls, about
16 inches high, and wide enough to sit on, at least 12
inches wide. Place the walls to coincide with natural
seat spots, so that extra benches are not necessary.

applying patterns (2): Interior

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to the details of the interior, such as how furniture is laid out, window heights, etc.



#134: Zen View
There is a problem with any beautiful view. You want to enjoy it every day, but the more open and obvious it is, the more it shouts, the sooner it will fade. Gradually it will become part of the building, like the wallpaper, and the intensity of its beauty will no longer be accessible to the people who live there. Therefore:
If there is a beautiful view, don't spoil it by building huge
windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which
look onto the view at places of transition - along paths, in hallways,
in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms. If the view window is
correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as
they come up to the window or pass it, but the view is never visible
from the places where people stay.


I'm not sure I fully subscribe to this theory, because it presumes that the view is never changing, whereas in fact it differs all the time with the variation in weather, plants, etc. But, I think a view is a bit like chocolate... if you have too much you start to take it for granted and not enjoy it like you would if you kept it as a treat. I don't want to have floor to ceiling huge expanses of glass everywhere to 'bring in the view' like so many modern houses seem to, and our plans for Amherst don't.


#135: Tapestry of light and dark
In a building with uniform light level, there are few places which function as effective settings for human events. This happens because, to a large extent, the places which make effective settings are defined by light. Therefore:
Create alternating areas of light and dark throughout the
building, in such a way that people naturally walk toward the
light, whenever they are going to important places: seats,
entrances, stairs, passages, places of special beauty, and
make other areas darker to increase the contrast.


Hmmm... I think this will happen naturally, especially if we use a variety of lights, wall lights, table lamps etc, and of course have dimmer switches everywhere. (That was the best thing I did here in London was to put dimmer switches in almost every room, it made such a difference to the atmosphere). I guess that when we eventually get to the stage of designing in for lighting, wall colours, etc we'll have to think more carefully about this.


#139: Farmhouse kitchen
The isolated kitchen, separate from the family and considered as a factory for food is a hangover from the days of servants. A much better model for modern living is the farmhouse kitchen. Therefore:
Make the kitchen big enough to include the 'family room' space,
and place it near the center of the commons, not so far back in the
house as an ordinary kitchen. Make it large enough to hold a good
big table and chairs, some soft and some hard, wth counters and stove
and sink around the edge of the room; and make it a bright and
comfortable space.


Yes, this is what we aspire to have in our kitchen area, although it will still be a separate area so that you can shut off the mess if you want.



#179: Alcoves
To give a group of people a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in one's and two's in the same place. This is particular true for places like the kitchen and the living room, where if there are not these areas then people who are doing one thing (eg: reading) will be disturbed by people doing something else, and thus be less likely to spend time together. Therefore:
Make small places at the edge of any common room, usually
no more than 6 feet wide and 3 to 6 feet deep and possible
much smaller. These alcoves should be large enough for 2
people to sit, chat or play, and sometimes large enough to
contain a desk or a table. Give the alcove a ceiling which
is markedly lower in height than the main room, and consider
making a partial boundary using low walls and thick columns.


I really like the idea of having alcoves. This is going to be the biggest challenge to design in I suspect. I especially like the idea of varying the ceiling height... perhaps we could even have drawers high up in the extra ceiling space that's been enclosed for storage?


#180: Window place
Everybody loves window seats, bay windows and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn up to them. These kinds of windows create 'places', and a room which does not have such places seldom allows you to feel fully at ease because you will always remain slightly torn between being drawn to the light and drawn to sit down. Therefore:
In every room where you spend any length of time during
the day, make at least one window into a window place.
Make it low and self-contained if there is room for it
(eg: alcove); under sloping roofs use dormer windows.
Window seats built into niches are a good way to execute
this in a small space. Low sills should be very low -
12 to 14 inches - and the armchair nearby should give
a sense of enclosure, eg with tall back and sides.


Yes, window seats are a definite must. I like the idea of having low sills too.


#182: Eating atmosphere
Some rooms invite people to eat leisurely and comfortably and feel together, while others force people to eat as quickly as possible so they can go somewhere else to relax. Therefore:
Put a heavy table in the centre of the eating space -
large enough for the group of people using it. Put a
light over the tapbel to create a pool of light over
the group, and enclose the space with walls or with
contrasting darkness. Make the space large enough so
the chairs can be pulled back comfortably, and provide
shelves and counters close at hand for things related
to the meal.



#184: Cooking layout
Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is too short and also if it is too long. Therefore:
To strick the balance between the kitchen being too
small and too spread out, place the stove, sink and food
storage and counter in such a way that 1) No two of the
four are more than 10 feet apart. 2) the total length
of the counter - excluding sink, stove and refrigerator -
is at least 12 feet. 3) No one section of the counter
is less than 4 feet long.



#185: Sitting circle
A group of chairs, a sofa and a chair, a pile of cushions - these are the most obvious things - and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life aroudn them to concentrate and liberate energy. The most important difference between them is their position, shape and informality. To get the best arrangement:
Place each sitting space in a position which is protected,
not cut by paths or movement, roughly circular, made so that
the room itself helps to suggest the circle - not too strongly
- with paths and activities around it so that people naturally
gravitate toward the chairs when they get into the mood to
sit. Place the chairs and cushions loosely in the circule
and have a few too many.






#188: Bed alcove
Bedrooms make no sense because the valuable space around the bed is used for nothing except access to the bed. Therefore:
Don't put single beds in empty rooms called bedrooms.
Instead put individual bed alcoves off rooms with other
nonsleeping functions, so the bed itself becomes a tiny
private haven. This is a particular useful way to get
extra sleeping spaces without making the house grow
much larger.



#189: Dressing rooms
Dressing and undressing, storing clothes, having clothes lying around, have no reason to be part of any larger complex of activities. Indeed they disturb other activities: they are so self contained that they themselves need concentrated space which has no other function. Therefore:
Give everyone a dressing room between their bed and
the bathing room. Make it big enough so there is an
open area in it at least 6 feet in diameter; a mixture
of hanging space, open shelves and drawers, and a mirror.
Place it so it gets plenty of natural light, ideally
light on two sides.



#190: Ceiling height variety
A building in which the ceiling heights are all the same is virtually incapable of making people comfortable. Therefore:
Vary the ceiling heights continuously thorugh the
building, especially between rooms which open into
each other, so that the relative intimacy of different
spaces can be felt. In particular, make ceilings high
in rooms which are public or meant for large gatherings
(10 to 12 feet), lower in rooms for smaller gatherings
(7 to 9 feet) and very low in rooms or alcoves for one
to two people (6 to 7 feet). Where ceiling height varies
within one storey, put storage in the spaces between the
different heights, and vary ceiling heights from storey
to storey, with the highest ceilings on the ground floor.



#193: Half open wall
Rooms which are too closed prevent thenatural flow of social occasions, and thenatural process of transition from one social moment to another. And rooms which are too open will not support the differentiation of events which social life requires. Therefore:
Adjust the walls, opening and windows in each indoor
space until you reach the right balance between open,
flowing space and closed cell-like space. Do not take
it or granted that each space is a room; nor, on the
other hand, that all spaces must flow into each other.
The right balance will always lie between these extremes:
no one room entirely enclosed; and no space totally
connected to another. Use combinations of columns,
half-open walls, porches, indoor windows, sliding
doors, low sills, frenchdoors, sitting walls, and so
on, to hit the right balance.



#194: Interior windows
Windows are most often used to create connections between the indoor and the outdoors. But there are many cases when an indoor space needs a connecting window to another indoor space besides the obvious (corridors, small rooms that would otherwise feel like prisons). In particular:
Put in fully glazed fixed windonws betwen rooms which
tend to be dead because they have too little action in
them or where inside rooms are unusually dark.



#196: Corner doors
The success of a room depends to a great extent on the position of the doors. If the doors create a pattern of movement which destroys the places in the room, the room will never allow people to be comfortable. Therefore:
Except in very large rooms, a door only rarely makes
sense in the middle of a wall. It does in an entrance
room,for instance, because this room gets its character
essentially from the door. But inmost rooms, especially
small ones, put the doors as near the corners of the
room as possible. If the room has two doors, and people
move through it, keep both doors at one end of the room.



#199: Sunny counter
Dark gloomy kitchens are depressing. The kitchen needs the sun more than the other rooms, not less. Therefore:
Place the main part of the kitchen counter on the
south and southeast side of the kitchen, with big windows
around it, so that sun can flood in and fill the kitchen
with yellow light both morning and afternoon.



#200: Open shelves
Cupboards that are too deep waste valuable space, and it always seems that what you want is behind something else. Therefore:
Cover the walls with narrow shelves of varying depth
but always shallow enough so that things can be placed
on them one deep - nothing hiding behind anything else.



#210: Waist-high shelf
In every house and every workplace there is a daily 'traffic' of the objects which are handled most. Unless such things are immediately at hant, the flow of life is awkward, full of mistakes, things are forgotten, misplaced. Therefore:
Build waist-high shelves around at least a part of
the main rooms hwere people live and work. make them
long,9 to 15 inches deep, with shelves or cupbard
underneath. Interrupt the shelf for seats, windows
and doors.



#202: Built-in seats
Built-in seats are great. Everybody loves them. They make a building feel comfortable and luxurious. But most often they do not actually work. They are placed wrong, or too narrow, or the back does not slope, or the view is wrong, or the seat is too hard. To make a built-in seat that really works:
Before you build the seat, get hold of an old armchair
or a sofa and put it into the pusotion where you intend
to build a seat. Move it until you really like it.
Leave it there for a few days. See if you enjoy sitting
in it. Move it if you don't. When you have got it into
a position which you like, and where you often find
yourself sitting, you know it is a good position. Now
build a seat that is just as wide adn just as well
padded - and your built in seat will work.



#221: Natural doors and windows
Finding the right position for a window or a door is a subtle matter. But there are very few ways of building which take this into consideration. The delicacy of placing a window or a door has nearly vanished, but it is just this refinement, sometimes down to the last inch or two, which makes an immense difference. Therefore:
On no account use standard doors or windows. Make
each window a differen size, according to its place.
Do not fix the exact position or size of the door and
window frames until the rough framing of the room has
actually been built, and you can really stand inside
the room and judge, by eye, exactly where you want to
put them , and how big you want them. Make the windows
smaller and smaller, as you go higher in the building.



#222: Low sill
One of a window's most important functions is to put you in touch with the outdoors. If the sill is too high, it cuts you off. Therefore:
When determing exact location of windows also decide
which windows should have low sills. On the first floor,
make the sills of windows which you plan to sit by
between 12 and 14 inches high. ON the upper stories
make them higher, around 20 inches.





#223: Deep reveals
Windows with a sharp edge where the frame meeting the wall create harch, blinding glar, and make the rooms they serve uncomfortable. They have the same effect as the bright headlines of an oncoming car: the glare prevents fyou from seeing anything else on the road. To solve this:
Make the window frame a deep, splayed edge: about a foot
wide and splayed at about 50 to 60 degrees to the plane of
the window, so that the gentle gradient of daylight gives
a smooth transition between the light of the window and
the dark of the inner wall.



#235: Soft inside walls
A wall which is too hard or too cold or too solid is unpleasant to touch; it makes decoration impossible and creates hollow echoes. Therefore:
Make every inside surface warm to the touch, soft enough
to take small nails and tacks, and with a certain slight
"give" to the touch. A very good material is soft white
gypsum plaster, it is warm in colour, warm to the touch,
soft enough to take tacks, easy to repair and makes a
mellow sound. Whereas cement plaster, though only slightly
different in makeup is opposite in all of these respects.
Wood is also good (if you can afford it!)



#236: Windows which open wide
Many building nowadays have no opening windows at all, and manyof the opening windows that people do build don't do the job that opnening windows ought to do - ie: fully open! Therefore:
Decide which of the windows will be opening windows.
Pick those which are easy to get to, and choose the
ones which open onto flowers wyou want to smell, paths
where you might want to talk, and natural breezes.
Then put in side-hung casements that open outward.
Here and there, go all the way and build full French
windows



#237: Solid doors with glass
An opaque door makes sense in a vast house or palace, where every room is large enough to be a world unto itself; but in a small building, with small rooms, the opaque door is only very rarely useful. Therefore:
As often as possible, build doors with glazing in
them so that the upper half at least allows you to see
through them. At the same time, build the doors solid
enough, so that they give acoustic isolation and make
a comfortable 'thunk' when they are closed.



#251: Different chairs
People are different sizes, they sit in different ways. And yet there is a tendency in modern times to make all chairs alike. A better approach is:
Never furnish any place with chairs that are
identically the same. Choose a variety of different
chairs, some big, some small, some softerthan others,
some rockers, some very old, some new, with arms,
without arms, some wicker, some wood, some cloth.



#252: Pools of light
Uniform illumination serves nouseful purpose whatsoever. In fact, it destroys the social nature of space and makes people feel disoriented and unbounded. Instead:
Place the lights low, and apart, to form individual
pools of light which encompass chairs and table like
bubble to reinforce the social character of the spaces
which they form. Remember that you can't have pools
of light without the darker places in between.

applying patterns (1): House shape

These patterns are my favourites from the book "Pattern Language", as described in my previous post. In this post I look at the ones relating to the overall shape of a house, and check out how our current plans for the new house measure up.


#107: Wings of Light
Buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not fit places to spend the day. Therefore:
Arrange each building into wings... make each wing long and
as narrow as you can, never more than 25 ft wide. Use the wings
to form "positive outdoor spaces"


After some measuring up on the latest set of plans, I think we fall within this limit pretty much if you count it as having 3 wings - two either side of building and one jutting out for the library. The library and also the screened porch that sticks out from the main building also help to frame the 'secret garden' area behind the house so that's good too.


#127: Intimacy gradient
Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests will always be a little awkward. Therefore:
Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence
which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the
building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and
finally to the most private domains.


If you start at the main entrance, then it works OK. The only thing that potentially jars is having the downstairs toilet in the mudroom area. We're still working on the precise layout for this, the latest is here. I think provided we can get it so that the mudroom part can be closed off without making the toilet feel stingy and cramped, it'll work. I like how the library is off in it's own area. This will let it be both a place for quietness (reading, sleeping) and for partying, around the mid-sized billiards table, which Dave is eying up putting here ... I think this could be cool provided that it has a cover so can be a normal table at other times.


#128: Indoor sunlight
Very few things have as great an effect on the feeling of a home as the sun shining into it. If the right rooms are facing south, a hosue is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy. Therefore:
Place the most important rooms along the south edge of the
building and spread the building out along the east-west axis.
Fine tune the arrangement so that the proper rooms are exposed
to the south-east and the south-west sun. E.g., give the
common area a full southern exposure, bedrooms south east,
porch south-west.




As this was written for the US I presume in Australia we'd need to reverse 'north' and 'south', but the concept is still relevant and our plan works. We have the breakfast area, kitchen, and main bedroom where the morning sun comes, and the lounge and library at the evening side.


#130: Entrance room
Arriving in a building, or leaving it, you need a room to pass through, both inside the building and outside it. This is the entrance room. Not only is this for practicalities such as providing a place to put things while you fumble with keys, or to shelter from the weather, it's also for psychological reasons - eg: to provide a symbolic marker for saying final goodbyes when guests are leaving. Therefore:
At the main entrance to the building, make a light-filled
room which marks the entrance and straddles the boundary
between indoors and outdoors. The outside part may be like
an old fashioned porch; the inside like a hall or sitting room.
Provide seating areas either side, with the indoor seating
part of a sequence of sitting spaces.


Yes yes yes! This puts into words why I like entrance rooms, and generous ones at that, not just at one end of a passage. With the addition of the seating nook, I think ours will feel nice. I'm rethinking though using that lovely door that Dad found as the front door, because it doesn't have any glass in it. I know we could cut out some of the panels and insert it, but that'd be such a shame. Maybe instead this chould be a door to the Library or something, hmmm. Alternatively, perhaps we use the solid door still, but have glass panes either side in the wall? That might work really well, although obviously it means the entrance area has to be wide enough to fit it (but that's no bad thing)


#131: The flow through rooms
The movement between rooms is as important as the rooms themselves; and its arrangement has as much effect on social interaction in the rooms, as the interiors of the rooms. Therefore:
As far as possible, avoid the use of corridors and passages.
Instead use public rooms as rooms for movement and for gathering.
To do this, place the common rooms to form a chain, so it becomes
possible to walk from room to room, and so that private rooms
open directly off these public rooms. In every case, give this
indoor circulation from room to room a feeling of great
generosity, passing in a wide and ample loop around the
house, with views of fires and great windows.


We're on the way to accomplishing this I think, at least in terms of flow. The exception is the library area, but that's deliberately meant to feel separate. Ditto the screened porch area as that's a kind of outdoor garden room as much as an inside space. We even have a loop if you consider throwing open the porch doors between kitchen & lounge.


#132: Short passages
Long sterile corridors set the scene for everything bad about modern architecture. Therefore:
Keep passages short. Make them as much like rooms as
possible, with carpets or wood on the floor, furniture (eg:
seats in alcoves), bookshelves, beautiful windows. Make
them generous in shape and always give them plenty of light.
The best corridors of all are those which have windows
along an entire wall.


Yes. The only corridor we have, really, is the small one going to the library. I'm seeing that this will definitely have windows all the way along looking onto the secret garden and probably waist high shelves too below it. (No point having full length windows as there'll be stuff on the verandah and who wants to look at the back of chairs?)


#133: Staircase as a stage
A staircase is not just a way of getting from one floor to another. The stair is itself a space, a volume, a part of the building; and unless this space is made to live, it will be a dead spot, and work to disconnect the building and to tear its processes apart. Therefore:
Place the main stair in a key position, central and visible.
Treat the whole staircase as a room (or if it is outside, as a
courtyard). Arrange it so that the stair and the room are one,
with the stair coming down around one or two walls of the room.
Flare out the bottom of the stair with open windows or
balustrades and with wide steps so that the people coming
down the stair become part of the action in the room while
they are on the stair, and so that people below will naturally
use the stair for seats.




I really like this concept and I think we could definitely achieve it in the "living hall" area, we just need to carefully design the bottom part of the stairs. Maybe the first few steps has a kind of arc'ed area like in this picture? I like the feel of it. It can get a bit more formal further up when the bannister starts. Also, I think we should give careful thought about having shelving as you go up the stairs for books, ornaments, etc, as well as space for hanging pictures. Perhaps the area midway up, where you turn, is quite wide, almost like a teensy room, with space for a chair, some book shelves, and of course the windows looking out over the view? This would also let us have more 'under stair storage' which is always a great thing to have... and perhaps help the "living hall" feel not quite so cavernous?


#138: Sleeping to the East
As humans, we are sensitive to natural rhythyms and cycles. The best time to wake up after sleeping is at the end of REM sleep (ie: just after a dream), as you'll feel much more energetic than if you awaken at other times. But, the only way to make sure you wake up at this best time is to be woken by the sun. The sun warms and nudges you awake so gently that you will wake at the best point, unlike an alarm that jerks you awake no matter what your dreamstate. Therefore:
Give those parts of the house where people sleep an eastern
orientation, so that they wake up with the sun and light. This
means typically that the sleeping area nees to be on the eastern
side of the house, although it can also be on the western side
provided there is a courtyard or a terrace to the east of it.
Position the bed so that you can see the sunlight from it,
but it isn't shining directly onto the bed itself or else
you'll get too hot.


I think we're OK on this, as the master bedroom is at the right side of the house to allow this.


#145: Bulk storage
There is always some need for bulk storage space; a place for things like suitcases, old furniture, old files, boxes - all those things which you are not ready to throw away, and yet not using everyday. Very often the need for this kind of storage space is neglected, meaning that some other part of the house is sacrificed to this function. Therefore:
Do not leave bulk storage till last or forget it. Include
a volume for bulk storage in the building - its floor area at
least 15-20% of the whole building area, not less. Place this
storage somewhere in the building that costs less because it
doesn't need a finish. It could be in the roof, if you have a
steep roof, or in the basement if building on a sloping site;
it could even be in a separate shed.


Inside the house we are definitely lacking in this at the moment. I think making the stair landing area wider (and thus allowing more under stairs storage) will be a big help. In fact, this would probably be plenty when you consider there will also be sheds and things. But some things are too important to entrust to external sheds.

Also, this reminded me about the wine cellar. Where or where shall we put that? It doesn't have to be a huge place you actually sit in, but we do need space to store it. Hmmm.


#159: Light on two sides of every room
When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty. Therefore:
Locate each room so that it has outdoor space outside it on
at least two sides, and then place windows in these outdoor
walls so that natural light falls into every room from more
than one direction. Don't let this make your plans too wild
however; you can stick to the essense of the pattern with
windows on one side only if the room is unusual high, if it
is shallow compared with the length of the window wall, the
windows large, the walls of the room white, and massive deep
reveals on the windows to make certain that big windows bright
against the sky do not create glare.


This is another one that is obvious when you see it written but I'd not thought about before. With the exception of the pantry, WC and walk-in closet, I think we're OK on this front. I guess in most of those places we could solve it through judicious use of skylights.


#191: The shape of indoor space
Every space which is recognisable and walled enough to be distinct, must have walls which are roughly straight, except when the walls are thick enough to be concave in both directions. Acute angles where walls join are hardly every appropriate. Ceiling shape matters too - there are some kinds of shape which tend to make people feel uncomfortable:



Therefore:
With occasional exceptions, make each indoor space a
rough rectangle, with roughly straight walls, near right
angles in the corners, and a roughly symmetrical vault
over each room.


Now this is interesting. I disagree with it partly, after the experience of visiting Casa Battlo, one of Gaudi's amazing houses in Barcelona. This was very curvy and organic... it looked odd in pictures but standing in it felt very very comfortable. But, that is at an extreme, and we are not going to be able to do that. So, generally I agree.

Also, I like the point about roofs. In our travels we've stayed in lots of B&Bs, several of which were renovated barns. Everyone has always raved about them, big ceilings, etc. But I've never found one that I've liked being in, not to sit and watch TV or sleep, anyway. They are just too cavernous. I always thought I just had odd taste, but now I understand why... it's the ceiling shape!

I think we will be OK on this front with our current plans... The upstairs rooms have interesting ceilings that I can't quite imagine yet but I think they will feel more like dormers? Perhaps I shall ask Dave to do a sketch, he is good at envisaging stuff like that.


#193: Half open wall
Rooms which are too closed prevent the natural flow of social occasions, and thenatural process of transition from one social moment to another. And rooms which are too open will not support the differentiation of events which social life requires. Therefore:
Adjust the walls, opening and windows in each indoor space
until you reach the right balance between open,`flowing space
and closed cell-like space. Do not take it or granted that
each space is a room; nor, on the other hand, that all spaces
must flow into each other. The right balance will always lie
between these extremes: no one room entirely enclosed; and no
space totally connected to another. Use combinations of
columns, half-open walls, porches, indoor windows, sliding
doors, low sills, frenchdoors, sitting walls, and so on, to
hit the right balance.


I like this. I think we will achieve it inside mostly through the use of indoor windows. It gives me a place to display my stained glass collection as well.


#209: Roof layout
It helps to bring the patterns to life it the roof plan is organically related to the nature of your building. To do this:
Arrange the roofs so that each distinct roof
corresponds to an identifable social entity in the building.
Place the largest roofs - those which are highest and have
the largest span - over the largest and most important and
most communal spaces; build the lesser roofs off these
largest and highestroof; and build the smallest roofs of
all off these lesser roofs, in the form of half-vaults
and sheds over alcoves and thick walls. When a wing
ends in the open, leave the gable end at full height;
when a wing ends ina coyuryard, hip the gable so that
the horizontal roof edge makes the courtyard like a room.


This I'm leaving to Eric, but it'll be fine. It's OK in the plans so far, and also on his website he says part of his design philosophy is that buildings "can be 'read' - the internal layout is visible in external form"

Speaking of Eric's website, it's been updated, there seem to be lots of new pictures compared to the last time I looked. And they're just lovely. I feel very confident that together we'll come up with an incredible house because everything I've seen that Eric's done just feels right - even the stuff he does in a more modern style I like, it feels warm and inviting. Having also just visited Oak Park, I am noticing details more and some things, like the curved finish on the top edge of the stone chimney feel similarly nice (sorry can't link directly to it so this is the picture)

How lovely is this?! Not only is the use of the stone gorgeous and helps roots it to the ground, but the shape gives it a character all it's own. It's worth a browse in his project gallery if you're interested in this kind of thing... it'll also give you a flavour of Australia too. :-)


#232: Roof caps
There are few cases in traditional architecture where buildiners have not used some roof detail to cap the building with ornament. The roof cap helps to finish the building, it gives it a human touch. The power of the cap is of much greater than its proportions would lead you to expect - consider how dramatically different these two buildings appear:



Therefore:
Choose a natural way to cap the roof - some way which is
in keeping with the kind of construction, and the meaning of
the building. The caps may be structural; but their main
function is decorative - they mark the top - they mark the
place where the roof penetrates the sky.


The picture says it all really. I totally agree. I even have just acquired via Ebay an old factory vent that might be useful for this, even if it's just on the shed... (I'll post up a picture separately).

I want an eNook

I think this eNook is a great concept... basically, it's a narrow cupboard with storage nooks including charging plugs for all the electronic detritus of modern life. It hangs on a wall doubling as a bulletin board, only folding out when you need. I can imagine this kind of thing could be great in the kitchen or entrance hall.


As is typical, it's only available in the US (so far) but I figure it would be easy enough to do a DIY version with a bit of creativity.

should we have a metal roof?

Last night we watched an episode of Grand Designs which featured a house in Devon with a copper roof. The house itself I didn't much like but they showed samples of how the copper would age over time. After a few months it would go a lovely mottled browny red, and after a few years it would start to take on a green patina. I can imagine it being gorgeous.

Which raised the question - should we consider having a metal roof other than the traditional 'colourbond' sheets? Copper is probably way too expensive for us but there might be other options... for example, this is an example of a house with metal shingles.


Besides the look, there are also apparently other benefits. According to this article, they last longer and are more fire resistant.

inspiration from Lyvden New Bield

A few weekends ago, when we drove up north to collect the armchairs, we stopped off en-route at Lyvden New Bield.

This is a National Trust property that I've wanted to visit ever since seeing it on an episode of 'Hidden Gardens'. It consists of a very atmospheric ruin over 400 years old - except it's not a ruin, it just was never finished! It's designed full of Catholic symbolism in the measurements, carvings, etc. Quite extraordinary.


There is also an Elizabethan garden, one of the oldest gardens in England. It has huge spiral mounds, laid out in a grid and surrounded by rectangular waterways to make a sort of moat.


These mounds are seriously big! They were built from scratch using the earth from digging the moat. To give you an idea of their scale, this is me standing halfway up one.


Overall, the garden had an interesting feel to it - unnatural and yet organic combined. In an odd way, it reminded me a bit of Casa Battlo, the wonderfully unusual apartment designed by Gaudi in Barcelona. (by the way, the photos don't do Casa Battlo justice... I hated it in photographs but standing in it I fell in love)

I was curious to see this garden in person because it's a very different sort of garden to the most. It uses earth shapes as much as plants for effect. The only other garden I've heard of like it, which we're going to attempt to visit in May (on the one day each year it's open to the public) is the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. I'm intrigued by the idea of creating giant sculptures out of earth; it might be interesting to experiment with something like this at Amherst.

ideas from October roadtrip

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been away. Last week I got back from two weeks holiday driving round Northwest England with Mum. While away, we visited many historic homes and gardens, including Blackwell - a famous Arts & Crafts house I’ve been desperate to see ever since I heard of it. Besides being a fun trip it’s given me lots of inspiration for Amherst, especially for the garden. Here's a selection:

Blackwell in Lakes District
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fireplace tiling with bold colours and just a few patterned tiles for contrast...	...and high mantles
interesting shelves around mantles and alcoves	this is while it was being restored but it shows clearly the lovely barrel shaped ceilings

Blackwell is a turn of the century Arts & Crafts home, designed by MH Baillie Scott. It was only restored and opened to the public a few years ago and still has almost all it’s original woodwork, tiles and stained glass. It has a wonderful feel to it and is quite distinct to Standen although they share a similar heritage. It’s the first time I’ve been inside a house that looked like a stereotypical Arts & Crafts design from picture books. It felt very liveable even with the sparse furnishings as everything was in the perfect proportions. My favourite parts in every room were the fireplaces; each was different and had an adjoining inglenook, often larger on one side and almost always with windows. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me take pictures inside but there's some photos at the main site and a good article about it with more photos here.

Levens Hall near Milnthorpe
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reminder of how effective it can be to have a short hedge of box around island beds
wonderful pale pink flower with beanlike seedheads, staked waist high in an autumn border	boring but practical...having an overflow drain at the side of garden ponds

Levens Hall has reputedly the world’s best (and oldest) topiary garden. It was fascinating, but perhaps the biggest learning for me was to avoid topiary! Not because it looks bad – on the contrary, I discovered it can create an Alice-in-Wonderland type atmosphere done en-masse and was surprised how much fun it was to walk in. But, it takes decades to establish and maintaining it is clearly an impossible amount of work; I just can’t see myself managing to do justice to anything but the simplest piece. You can see more pictures from our visit here.

The Courts Garden
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Incorporating a formal marsh-like border around a pond	Having lots of berries for Autumn colour
Using grasses to create a shimmering walkway	Planting hedging shrubs at the base of fruit trees, so they can be sculpted into a ‘collar’
Using holly for hedging and sculpting hedges into more organic flowing shapes

The Courts Garden is a National Trust garden about a half hours drive outside Bath. To see the full set of photos from our visit there, click here.

Hollytree Cottage B&B
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Sorbus tree; planted on an angle to create an arch effect	Planting climbers with bright autumn colour to fall over a low wall near a gate

Hidcote
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Letting a variegated holly bush grow into a tree	Borders so deep they’re almost squares, which you can walk around on all sides
Wonderful varieties of sage, like Boutin with flowers like felt	Toad lilies (or tricyrtis to give them their proper name), which grew waist high
Snowberries

To see the full set of photos from this visit to Hidcote, click here… Hidcote truly is one of the most inspiring gardens I’ve visited and even in not-great weather it’s still wonderful. But, to see it in full glory, here are photos from a Summer visit several years ago when I first fell in love with it.

Snowshill Manor
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Unusual layout of a garden bank, with arced wall and grass walkways to zigzag down instead of steps	Garden buildings which are in the middle of the garden with doors that form a walkway

Another idea - which sadly I wasn't able to take a photo of - was using writing as part of room decoration – e.g., cut-out wooden letters balanced in arced wall grooves (so not flat against wall) that spell out a phrase.

Mostly Snowshill is visited to see the house contents – which is a treasure trove collection of everyday things, like antique bicycles, toys, costumes and so on. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take any photos inside, but we did take some of the garden which is nice in its own way. To see more photos of the garden click here.

Lacock Village and Abbey
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Clock incorporated in a door

Lacock is an entire village preserved by the National Trust. The only things that bring it to the modern age are seeing all the cars, the tarmac and people’s clothes. But, get rid of the cars, bring in some dirt to cover the roads and period costumes and you have instant period set – which is why it seems almost every period drama in the UK gets filmed there! It’s also been used in the Harry Potter films, especially the Cloisters underneath the Abbey. To see the full set of pictures, including the Cauldron from the first Harry Potter movie, click here.

Acorn Bank Garden
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Permanent raised beds inside a greenhouse	Pretty artichoke flowers
Virginian Pokeroot	Small mini-ponds interspersed in borders to grow water plants
Lovely narrow winding cobbled path through the orchard	Unusual angled pair of steps
Terraced paths with plants in a narrow strip and down the banks, with undercover ponds

Acorn Bank is quite small but lovely in its own way. It has one of the largest collections of herbs in England and a lovely orchard with lots of old apple and pear varieties. To see the full set of photos click here.

Hilltop in Lakes District
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growing alpine plants in small ridge on roof

As for Snowshill, Hilltop is famous for the inside of the house rather than the garden, as it’s where Beatrix Potter (she of Peter Rabbit fame) lived. You can’t take pictures of the house, but if you want to see more photos of the outside, especially the vegetable garden, click here. Even though the garden was looking a little worse for wear, we couldn’t resist photographing it considering it’s where so many of the stories were set! It's in the little village of Hawkshead in the Lakes District

interesting window shutters

Last weekend I visited Nice, in the south of France. I was there for a "hen party" - ie: a girls weekend away to celebrate a friend's wedding. It was a lot more civilised than the male equivalent(!) in that we didn't spend the entire time in bars & got to see some of the city.

As per usual, I kept a look-out for ideas for Amherst. I'm a big fan of window shutters in all guises, but Nice was the first place I've ever seen "shutters within shutters":



I think it might be fun to have the 'Nice' shutter style in some windows, interspersed with the more traditional Australian approach, aka:

chicken moats

Is this not one of the coolest ideas? A chicken moat!!! The chickens are nearby and kept within a secure area, so safe, but they also serve as guards, eating the pests and weeds. I think we'll need a chicken moat around our vegetable garden.

Thanks to Building the Homestead blog for the idea.

inspiration from Cute Little Farmhouse

Another blog I read today is an old favourite, Cute Little Farmhouse. I'm glad I did as it's given me lots of inspiration.

First, their porch posts. In fact, I must have a thing for out-of-the-ordinary porch posts, as I fell in love with these ones at Hillsdale House too. Here's a picture of the ones at Cute Little Farmhouse, midway through - they ended up painting the base part white. But, I really like them at this point where you have the contrast & natural tones. It made me think, it might be a nice way to tie in some of the verandah areas at Amherst with the garden, where I'm hopefully going to have some brick paving and wall columns:


You can see the painted version & their full description at the Cute Little Farmhouse blogpost.

Second, a while back (but I'm way behind in reading!) they found an utterly magical house which seems like it has been abandoned. Seeing it makes me want to move to Iowa and rescue it. I had no idea they had houses like this in the US too. It reminds me a lot of the ones in Tallinn. Their original post is here, but I liked it so much I made a kind of photo-collage for my 'Amherst inspiration' file.

concept of a "living hall"

We first heard about this on our visit to Standen, and it's turned out to have particular relevance to our own house design (more on that in the next post). So, I thought I'd expand here about what it is.

In doing this, I'm going to cheat and quote from a wonderful book called "The Arts & Crafts Home" by Wendy Hitchmough. I've had this for several years now as a book to dip into, but had never actually read it properly until we visited Standen, which is one of the houses it focuses on.

Here's two pictures, taken from either end...


... and here's how it's described:

"Beyond the entrance porch, Webb provided a substantial
hall, panelled and furnished as a living room with a wide
fireplace around which the family and its friends could gather
for afternoon tea and musical recitals. The ‘living hall’ was
an Arts and Crafts invention, popularised by Webb and founded
on a romantic notion of the mediaeval hall in which a larger
social family would congregate to eat, drink and sleep.

In smaller Arts and Crafts cottages and bungalows almost the
entire ground floor was planned as a multi-purpose ‘living hall’
in a practical determination to sweep away the conventional
warren of tiny rooms. In larger houses like Standen, however,
the hall was a subtle subversion of Victorian values. The
traditional masculine and feminine spaces of billiard room
and drawing room both opened directly onto the hall at Standen
and by providing a neutral third reception room at a time when
attitudes to chaperoning and appropriate behaviour for young
women were in a state of flux, Webb undermined the moral zeal
of earlier Victorian country houses.

...

When Webb visited the Beales in January 1898 he found 11 people
gathered around the fireplace there for tea and, as a consequence
of its success, the hall was made larger and lighter. The
panelling was repainted in white and Webb extended the room
northwards... The combination of the hall and drawing room gave
Standen, and other country houses of its type, the advantages of
a suite of rooms for entertaining, which previously only much
larger country houses had enjoyed. In winter, when the large
windows that characterised the light and airy drawing room made
it difficult to keep warm, the room could be left unheated
and unused".

kangaroos

They look really cute. We have hordes of them at Amherst as they all live in the forest next door and come out at dawn & dusk, making their way along the valley floor, clearing paddock fences with a single bound.

But."At night during the summer, kangaroos graze on grass with sharp pointed leaves called spinifex, and low herbaceous plants. They like to eat large plants and will even devour cardboard"

Now, I knew they'd be a challenge but didn't realise the full extent.

More research is called for, but so far have found one - pretty extreme - tip for dealing with them (via ABC Perth): "Take 6 eggs and one litre of water, Break the eggs into the water, mix it up, put in in a container ( with a lid) and leave it in a warm place (outside in the sun) to go off for a few days (about three will do). Mix this by now absolutely revolting mixture up with 25ml of white acrylic paint. Any colour will do really, the idea is that you can see where you have sprayed. The paint helps the mixture stick to the leaves. Spray it on your fruit trees or garden. It should deter herbivores which do not like protein". Uggh.

Another suggestion is to plant them near gum trees. According to this study, kangaroos don't like plants that contain quinine, like gum trees, as it gives them a stomach ache. They avoid these plants by smell, so if you plant gum trees near your more susceptible plants it might help to deter kangaroos.

I'm not sure how similar kangaroos are to rabbits and deer in their eating preferences, but just in case they're similar, here's a list of plants that the latter two don't like. (warning: it's a PDF). The general rules seem to be that they don't like plants with fragrant leaves, or that have sticky / rough / fuzzy textures. They also, unsurprisingly, don't like plants that have spines like cactii or holly.

Yet another smell deterrent tip comes from about halfway down this message board:
"Animals don't like the smell of fish fertiliser. Neither do i actually. So if you give the plants a weak weekly dose of fish fert, it may help. Add a cup of urine to the mix. A natural territorial marker. It can work for possums and sometimes kangaroos. (Unless there's a drought when they'll eat anything.)"

I guess we will just have to wait and see, and if all else fails be willing to invest in fencing.

Drawers in Stairs

I'm way behind on my blog reading and only just found this thanks to House in progress ... putting drawers in each tread of the stair, what a fantastic idea.

Hillsdale House block

I got home from work early today as a treat to myself, to make me feel better about yesterday. So I had some time to just muck around online and I ended up delving randomly through the houseblogs sites... I try and at least skim everyone's latest posts now - thanks to Bloglines it's really easy. But this is the first time I've had time to trawl in detail through anyone's back story.

If you haven't already, check out the Hillsdale House blog. Their post today caught my eye about building a garden bench, and then I looked at their "before and after" picture and was blown away by how much they'd done and how wonderful it was looking. Then I browsed their Flickr collection and found this:

Back Porch in Progress
Originally uploaded by Greg_e.

Well, that was it for me... I was hooked. I love this verandah post. It sparked a wave of homesickness too... it reminds me of the front posts on the "California Bungalows" in the area where I used to live in Melbourne (in Australia). To show you what I mean I did a search for houses for sale in the area and came across this... and it could be yours if you have around A$700,000!

California Bungalow
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

The tragic thing is that even though they've done the house up, one of the reasons it's selling at this price is because it has planning permission to build a townhouse at the back. *sigh* This is why I'll never live go back to live in this part of Melbourne ever again - all the lovely old houses and gardens are being destroyed by an influx of little box units and townhouses (ie: a 2 storey boxes) everywhere. I was really shocked the last time I visited at how much the area has changed.

Anyway, back to Hillsdale House... Besides looking at their cool pictures, I went through their archives and read all their entries. I'm in awe of how much they've done. It makes me realise how daunting it's going to be for us when we actually pick up tools and start(!) - but also, how rewarding it'll be in the end.

It was fascinating to read their history sectionabout Bungalows in the Portland area. Early on in our research I stumbled across Gustav Stickley and we briefly toyed with the idea of building a replica of one of his houses at Amherst. We bought a book which has reprints of many of Stickley's houseplans, room drawings and articles. They have such anachronistically descriptive titles - my favourite: "an inexpensive but charming cottage for women who want their own home"! It's interesing to see how others like Hillsdale House are interpreting this style in a modern context.

At Amherst we plan to have elements of Craftsman style (lots of built-ins, detailing) plus a few oddities that we got the idea of from these plans which will be perfect in Australia - namely, a "sleeping porch", probably up on the second level, for those hot hot nights; and a small outside kitchen (in addition to the usual indoor one) for those hot hot days when you have to do things like bottle tomatoes! I can imagine us using the outside kitchen - planned to be on the verandah just outside the normal kitchen - almost as much as the indoor one. Anyway, that's all dreams for now...

I must read more Houseblog archives, you never know what you'll discover!

water saving showers

I just came across these cool showerheads thanks to the Treehugger site and thought I'd blog it as we'll definitely need them for Amherst. We won't have mains water connection so will be reliant on all the water we can catch from rainfall. I've always disliked those showerheads that have only a few holes and dribble out water no matter how economical they are. So this looks really cool, seems like it'd give the effect of those watering-can like showerheads but without using the water! A conventional showerhead uses 25 litres per minute apparently, this uses 8.8 litres per minute if you have both showerheads going or 4.4 if it's just the one. They achieve it by aerating the water to give the same feel of water volume even though it's using less water.

tiarashower
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

singing bins and benches

OK so I confess this isn't precisely on-topic but I just couldn't resist. Cambridge have installed some solar-powered benches and bins in a Square that move around as if in a herd, giggle and sing. How cool would this be to have in your backyard! You can find out more here but here's my favourite bit:

"The benches love to be sat on, and they often take up position in new spaces to make themselves more attractive to potential human sitters. Sometimes, when it rains, they move themselves to drier, shadier areas of the square. To attract potential human sitting folk, they like to form patterns - the benches moving in to shapes in the centre of the piazza. The bins are a little more solitary. When the mood takes them, the furniture like to burst in to song. Sometimes, small clusters gather together and sing a tight six-part harmony, and occasionally, though much more rarely due to their shyness, the bins join in with their sweet soprano voices"

_40607780_binsbenches203
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

fixing a window using Sculpwood

I just had to post about this because it was so amazing. I had no idea that this was possible; I'd have thought you'd need to replace the entire bottom section of wood! I can see we'll be using this on some of the old windows at Amherst.

By the way, I found this on the EnonHall website... at first I tried to link directly to their entry about this but I couldn't figure out how. So instead this will take you to their journal area then you just have to select May 2005 then scroll down a long way to May 17... Also I found there is some more information in their forum area about window repair - with luck this will take you there

before after window fixing
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

the dream radiator

Actually Dave found this, not me, and he fell in love with it on sight as did I. It's more like a work of art than a radiator. It's made of concrete and apparently functions even better than a normal one in terms of heating (you run hot water through it... this is the most common form of heating in Europe, although it's not very common in Australia yet).


radiator by joris laarman
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


I don't yet know how much it costs but I've sent some emails to try and find out. It was created by a guy called Joris Laarman in the Netherlands as part of his graduation project and then put into production by DroogDesign, an ultra-hip so-trendy-it-hurts design house. You can see more details at Joris's site and also an interview with him here

UPDATE: you'll never believe it but just as I finished writing this and was about to hit Post, an email reply arrived from Joris himself! Turns out he's in the process of making an affordable line of them. It's still at prototype stage so might take a while to arrive but WOOHOO!! it means we'll be able to have one for Amherst! It's going to be so cool, I'm going to plan in wallspace for it in the bathroom right now.

the dream stove?

Now, I think I'm in dreamland here... although who knows how prices might come down over the next 5 years. But I think I've found the ideal stove for the kitchen at Amherst, as a supplement to the Aga/Rayburn. It's energy efficient, no flames to worry about, and it won't heat up the kitchen (great for cooking on those summer days of 40 degrees). Best of all, no need to bother with gas - which is a problem for us as we're going to have to use gas bottles as there's no mains connection - ironically, despite a gas pipeline running underneath part of our land!

This article in NY Times is what put me onto it. Induction cooktops! Here's an extract:

"Induction cooking has been around for decades, but until now never made it past the swinging doors of restaurant kitchens. The units were too expensive and too fussy and the concept too weird to find a home audience... At Chelsea Fine Custom Kitchens, a shop that caters to the competitive New York cook, Mr. Smeeton demonstrated two Küppersbusch cooktops, one with a special wok unit. "Ice, please," he said, sliding a steel wok into a bowl-shape indentation. He turned the power to high and allowed himself to smile when the ice started boiling before it was fully melted....

Slow cooking has its place, but when you're hungry, fast is so much better. And here was a space-age force, just in time for pasta al pesto and corn on the cob. Induction uses magnetic coils under the cooktop's glass surface to jangle the molecules of iron in the pan, turning the pan into the heat source. Different models offer different amounts of speed and power, but in all cases heat doesn't dissipate into the air so the chef stays as cool as her cucumbers. Shut down the magnetic field and cooking stops instantly. Remove the pan and the glass surface is barely warm. Indeed, Mr. Smeeton said, spills do not bake on, leaving nothing to clean up beyond the fingerprints of disbelieving guests.

The new cooktops are sold with a lot of razzle-dazzle. But the true benefits are a little subtler: once you turn off the power you can leave the pan in place; there's no need to shove it aside or lift it off the stove. Induction also holds steady at low temperatures. While experimenting with one model I found it easy to achieve that elusive trickle of bubbles known as "just below a simmer."

Irwin and I dropped by Krup's Kitchen & Bath near Union Square, where a Viking distributor, Robert A. Luyckx, was on hand with a salesman's model that requires only 110 volts, half the usual power... Irwin skeptically poured a bit of oil into a pan and added a half-pound of cold, moist stew meat. He turned the unit to high, and in seconds the oil was sizzling. In less than two minutes the meat was browned.

Viking, the company that did so much to popularize the semiprofessional gas range, now plans to introduce several induction cooktops. One cleverly combines two induction units and two that use regular radiant heat, the better to keep the cost below $2,000 and allow sentimental cooks to keep their copper pots"

I just had a look at Viking's website and they only have two induction models on sale at the moment, but I guess more will come. I also found that they have an Australian distributor in Moorabbin, which is only a few hours away from our farm, so it wouldn't be impossible to get hold of.

turning a piano into a filing cabinet

This morning I read a post on Lakewood2-flat's blog about making your own furniture. We haven't - and I suspect never will - get into making our own furniture the way they are, but I suddenly thought perhaps others might be interested in Dave's conversion of a piano to a filing cabinet!


IMGP1774
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


The history to this is that I was missing my piano, which sadly we had to leave behind in Australia. (It's loaned now indefinitely to my Mum's church so gets well-used and cared for... I figure when we go back I'll have to buy them a replacement, they've become so used to having it! Anyway, I digress...) I didn't want one of those electric ones as I figured they just wouldn't feel the same to play, and the top-line ones that supposedly mimic the feel of a piano cost thousands.

So, I reverted to Ebay and took a gamble. For the princely sum of £70 we took possession of an old old piano with the most gorgeous ornate casing. It still worked, though was way out of tune and a few dead notes. I figured I could just get a piano tuner in to fix it and all would be well, but as it turned out, it was not possible. In fact, we had bought an obscure kind of piano with a "birdcage" design that made it hard to tune anyway, and it was going to require a lot of dismantling & DIY on my part to repair to a standard that would make me like playing it (would cost more than buying a new piano if I'd got someone professional to do it!)

Worse though was that it just didn't fit properly in our study, it made the whole room feel really cramped. After much discussion we decided instead to give up on the idea of having a piano and resurrect it as something else. One weekend we moved the piano to the backyard and began the great piano dismantling. We salvaged the gorgeous case, which Dave reassembled into a knee-height table / filing cabinet. Not all of the joins are perfect but it's functional and I like it a lot. It fits more files than you'd think because I have hanging files at the top and archived piles stacked up below. In fact, it holds so much we were able to banish our office-like 4 drawer filing cabinet to the garden and replace it with this, which is a much nicer piece of furniture.

Here's a few pictures of our study so you get a sense of how small a space we have to play with...you can see the piano cabinet in situ under the computer screen. It doubles as a table for the mouse! Besides the piano filing cabinet, my favourite things here are the square chair you see with cushions folds out into a really comfortable, properly sprung, single bed, and the computer monitor hanging on the wall. Oh, and the bluebird stained glass window, another Ebay find. :-)


our study in London
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


>
computer in our study
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


We're re-using other parts of the piano too... the "action" (the bit with all the little hammers etc) is squirrelled away in the hall cupboard; it will one day be the centrepiece of a coffee table inside a glass box. The big iron frame is now in the garden leaning against the fence as decoration. And the wooden board which contained all the little metal pins around which the piano wires were threaded is now fixed to the wall in the under-stairs cupboard, as hanger for Dave's tools!

The only parts we didn't re-use in the end were the piano wires (very nasty and sharp) and the piano keys. I did attempt to get the ivory off them but they just kept cracking, and unfortunately we didn't have room to keep them with all the wood...)

inspiration from Tallinn

So it has been *ages* since I wrote. The excuse as usual is that work was manic, but it is over at least for now... we are on holiday and I don't have to go into the office for a whole week, yay! Right now I'm in Tallinn in Estonia. We got here on Saturday and stay till Wednesday. After that Dave goes home and I have to go to Athens in Greece for a work conference (but it's still better than being in the office!)

Tallinn is wonderful, it has a great old town full of cobbled streets and baroque buildings, and it's not yet over-run by tourists. Oh, it's still touristed, but the shops aren't yet stuffed 100% full of junk and trinkets, like in places like Prague, and there are lots of nice restaurants, galleries, museums, etc.

Tallinn is also incredibly wired up, to the extent that our hotel (which is only mid-range) has terminals in each room with free broadband Internet! It's been a big help in researching what to do each day as well as catching up with email etc. Dave unfortunately has had to bring some work with him to do, so while he did that I spent a few hours writing emails, mostly to Eric our architect with ideas about the house. Here's extracts from the first of them which I thought I'd post here for posterity too. When I get back in London, I'll add some pictures we took (unfortunately can't get the pictures off the digital camera here).

Extracts from email to Eric about Tallinn houses (1st May 2005)

Today we spent the morning wandering round one of the oldest suburbs to the east of the "old town", called Kadriorg. It seems in the process of converting from quite slummy to posh so there are some interesting juxtapositions! Anyway, the reason we went there is because Lonely Planet said it had a lot of old wooden houses, and they weren't wrong.

From the guide: "Wood - mainly pine, spruce and oak - was the main building material in the independent interwar period, and an attempt was made to incorporate national romantic visions highlighting peasant and country architectural elements into modernised city designs, a back-to-roots trend which recurred periodically throughout the 20th century. A typical feature of this romantic architecture is a sun motif placed atop window frames. Wooden architecture was by no means simple or uniform, and was influenced by fashions and styles. In Tallinn alone, you can see the influences of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, neo-Renaissance functionalism, classicism, eclecticism and Gothic revivalism".

I am not sure I could identify all those styles, but I could spot differences between the houses we saw A lot of my favourite houses were in disrepair; the outsides looking similar to Amherst with flaking paint etc. There were a few cottages, but the majority tended to be a lot larger, mostly 2 and many 3 storey, like big apartment buildings but made of wood. The sad thing was that interspersed between them were all these dreadful concrete monstrosities; obviously some developers have decided it's better to knock an old wooden building down and replace it with something modern than to restore it. I suppose too that some were burnt down; we saw one that was gutted, plus quite a few that had their windows boarded up. It was quite tragic to look at the abandoned ones because you could still see their characters and ornate wood carvings, they would be highly valued anywhere else.

Anyway, all hope for them is not lost because it seems like people here now are starting to recognise the value of this part of their heritage. In fact, there's an exhibition on at an art gallery here this week about the "wooden houses of Tallinn" which is to coincide with the publication of a book we spotted in a store window today (sadly it was shut, and it's not available on Amazon, so we're going to go back tomorrow to buy a copy since it said on the cover it had English text as well as Estonian).

[Update: we later heard that many of the houses are under protection orders from the city and that grants are available for doing them up, which is wonderful. The main problem is that ownership of the houses is still being wrestled over...the Soviets nationalised everything; when Estonia became independent they sought to give them back to the previous owners or their descendants, but in some cases it wasn't so clear and hence there are tussles about who really owns them. Of course, until ownership is sorted out no-one is willing to spend any money on repairing them, so they just sit there boarded up in limbo. Which is really bad still but at least hopefully it will be sorted out sometime soon and then they'll be resurrected]

After wandering round backstreets looking at around 20 different wooden houses and pointing out things to each other we especially liked and didn't like, we've come to some conclusions about things we definitely want at Amherst. I thought I'd jot them down now while they're fresh in my mind, so here goes...

First and foremost, we definitely want a wooden house. It can have brick / stone footings, and use different materials for things like chimneys etc, but the main part of the house we want to be wooden, or at least clad in wood.

We definitely want a few windows that jut out from the main wall of the house (I call these bay windows but that might not be the right term). They don't have to be big ones; in fact I tend to prefer small rather than giant ones. Also, we don't want a bay window that is curved. We much prefer ones that are either rectangular or, even better, triangular. Basically, we like sharp angles not curves. In fact, there is a house on the road in to Maryborough that has a great demonstration of the kind of window I mean, which I like as much as the ones we saw here. I am kicking myself for not taking a photo of it when I was there. Basically, it is a rectangular jutting out window but the stunning thing about it is that it's positioned on the corner of the house! So you have the wall, then the jutting out part at an angle of 120 degrees, then the rectangular window bit (90 degrees), before finishing turning the corner with another 120 degrees
turn.

We want a roof line and outside shape to the house which is interestingly shaped and more eclectic than the ones you've done on the plans so far. Plan A we've decided we don't like the outside of because it just feels too storybook and a little boring. It is similar I know to some of the houses in pictures I sent and capecod style etc that I said I liked, but as we're learning more our tastes are broadening! Plan B was OK and our favourite of the 3 you drew but not a patch on the houses we've seen here, although I did like that it had a friendly face.

From looking at the houses here, it seems the ones we loved had a lot of variation in their external appearance. They weren't symmetrical from one end to the other; they still were balanced and "felt right" but not a mirror copy. They almost all had a mixture of heights... double storey for most of it but with e.g., a small lean to single-storey section or front porch, plus a room jutting out at the top like a kind of tower (although usually square-ish rather than circular, to make it 3 storeys in some parts. Sometimes this 3rd storey was just in one corner; in a few houses it rose up in the middle of the house. Sometimes it seemed like it jutted up only half a storey... guessing because it and the room below it had lower ceilings than elsewhere in the house.

We both adored the effect created by these little jutting up extra rooms, and so would really like to have one at Amherst too. For example, perhaps it could be accessed via steep steps (like on ships) from the study? It wouldn't need to be big, just enough space eg to have single futons around 3 walls, low bookshelf on another, and opening windows to all 4 sides from waist height. We could put the telescope up there. It would just be a fun place to spend time reading if you wanted to be alone and would double as extra sleeping space for guests, at least on summer nights. (Guessing it might be too cold in winter, but that's OK, we don't mind if it's only usable part of the year)

In terms specifically of roof shape, we generally prefer steeper roofs to flat ones. I've been doing some research on what each roof type is called. Based on that I can tell you I'm not a huge fan of Mansard roofs. But at the same time I don't want it to be so steep that it ends up being a hugely dominant triangle, like some of the houses you see in Germany.

In case it helps any... I was browsing around and came across About.com's guide to different architectural styles. Based on this, it seems the houses we liked most here were a cross between carpenter gothic", "folk victorian", "victorian stick" (for the outside wall textures especially) and "queen anne" (especially for the little rooms jutting up). We especially liked how atop each of the windows there was a little sticking out boxy thing... not sure what purpose it served other than decoration, but we thought it would be very practical for us, as we could have some kind of blind hidden away rolled up out there, and then could just pull it down when needed to block out the sun.

Finally, (and I know this is irrelevant at this point probably, but just to jot it down) we think we want the main colour of the house to be green. Not a pastelly green, but a deeper colour, like the colours 009944, 119944, 228B22 here (although obviously we'd have to do tests on which worked best in Australian light). The reason for picking green is because not only do we both really like that colour, we thought it would go well in terms of helping it feel lush/cool in the height of summer. A lot of houses here were that colour green or a more natural orangey colour. I really like the latter colour too but as Dave said, that's the colour most of our land will go in summer so we need something that will contrast. Probably, we would use a natural oak colour for the outside of the window frames etc rather than having them the typical white.

interesting brick patterns

Every time I drive down this street I say I'm going to take a picture... at last yesterday I did. It's a street up near the garden centre in Kingsbury (northwest London) which is full of these rambling houses built I'm guessing around 1910-1920's in late Arts&Crafts style. I'm not a huge fan of the mock tudor beams, but I adore the way they've incorporated bricks. Rather than just plain brick walls, they've made patterns out of them by putting in different kinds of bricks, some on their side, etc. I've never seen any other houses like it, only in this particular road. It would be a little fiddly to do but very effective, I'm going to remember this as an idea for a feature wall perhaps at Amherst.

house near gardenshop with nice bricks
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

Vaulted pool at Gardens d'Alfabia in Mallorca

We went on holiday to the mountains in Mallorca a few months ago and while there visited some old Arabian-style gardens called Gardens d'Alfabia. They had this amazing vaulted cistern for storing water to irrigate the gardens... it sparked an idea. Perhaps at Amherst we could have a swimming pool like this. It'd be nice and cool in the heat and could be magical if we put shards of mirror and candles in the roof and walls.

074 Roofed Cistern Garden d'alfabia
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

solar powered wallpaper

flowerstrip2
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

I don't think this is in production yet, but I think it sounds amazing. From the description: "By embedding electroluminescent materials into the design pattern of the wall paper and incorporating a built-in light sensor, the wallpaper can respond to the lighting requirement of a room, acting as a decorative element when a room is naturally bright, and as a flat wallpaper light when the room requires more light. With power supplied from a solar charged battery, it can also be manually controlled to increase or decrease luminosity. Sustainable, efficient, functional, and technologically sexy." You can find out more about it from this site

some good things: candles and wormeries

I've just started browsing a UK blog called
Hippy Shopper and they have some really nice and unusual products... I think the name Hippy is a bit of a misnomer, actually most of their stuff is pretty modern, sleek with emphasis on design, with the environmentally friendliness of it just in the background.

I especially like these alternatives to candles, which give the same kind of light but with no risk of burning your house down. Sadly not yet available in the UK, grrrr, so I shall have to seek out a friendly US seller who ships internationally... maybe there's someone on Ebay already, I hope. You can get them from vessel

On the other extreme, maybe we should get a wormery to help in making compost. Two that sell in the UK are listed here.

more on Geoffrey Jellicoe

I just found this site which gives a good background of him and even has some pictures. I am quite intrigued by Shute... here is a picture of one of the water courses, I like the combination of informal and formal.

geoffrey jellicoe

At the moment I'm just about to start reading a book called Gardens of the Mind about Geoffrey Jellicoe. There was a BBC series recently that looked at how gardens had changed through the decades. Each episode they made a "typical" garden from the period using traditional techniques (e.g., in one of the early ones, I think Victorian? they buried a truckload of rotting fish as fertiliser!) Anyway, the 1970's episode mostly focused on concrete, BBQ's, pergolas, etc but then it had this short interlude about Jellicoe's designs which apparently were in the grand scale of historical gardens but with the added twist that they were designed to fit with Jungian philosophy! Also, not just designing in terms of the visual aspect of the garden (light, plants, texture, etc) but also auditory... the sound that tinkling
water makes, the rustle of leaves, etc.

Now, I don't know how successful he was in practical terms as I've never been to any of his gardens, but the concept is intriguing. I can't work out yet if it's just a pretentious way of dressing up commonsense, but for now I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.. :-) The garden of his they focused on in the BBC show was at a place called Shute in Wiltshire but it seems to be privately owned so hard to get to see.

more from Timme St

The nice guy who runs Timme St sent me some more links to view pictures of cool Russian wooden houses. These included a bunch of sites I couldn't find myself as they're in Russian! In particular, there are some great pictures in the russian sectino on Timme St site itself, about the museum of wooden houses
Malye Karely

more arkhangelsk wooden houses

I just finished watching a new BBC drama called "Archangel", which unsurprisingly enough had a lot of the story set in Archangel in Northern Russia. (This is the region that our wooden chests come from). It made me curious to see whether any of it was filmed on location, as they showed several wooden houses. According to the BBC website that part was filmed in Riga Latvia, so obviously there are nice wooden houses there too! But, in the process of searching I came across some more pictures of wooden houses in Archangel:


The site this is from gives a kind of city tour here, it makes me want to visit it just to experience the vastness especially in winter.


This is from this site which has lots of photos of russian buildings and landscape. I'm pretty sure this is in Archangel because I read about it at another site, it's the HQ of an old timber factory

Here is a link to view pictures from a 2004 visit to Archangel's Malye Karely = open air wooden architecture museum.

Timmest is a fantastic site by a guy living in Timme Street in Arkhangelsk! It tells you a lot about the city as it stands currently including a little about the wooden houses, which are in a league of their own in terms of charm. Here's a picture:


Extract from the Timmest site: "Arkhangelsk is a mixture of faceless blocks and slummy wooden houses. Nevertheless there are some streets being able to tell interesting stories of the old city. First of all it is the Chumbarovo-Luchinskogo street... now it is like a country road, without a hard covering. There are too much mud there, but houses standing in the street are beautiful!. Most of them are wooden, some are really old and others are built in the style and the spirit of the pre-Revolutionary times. Also there is the wooden pavement (mostki).
Pomorskaya street has some old private residence too. There are museums in the most of them. The Museum of Stepan Pisahov (a northern story-teller and an artist), The Museum of an art familiarization of Arctic and The Museum —Country-seat. There are two nice little side-streets nearby. It is the Teatral'nyj side-street and Bankovskij side-street ...There are some remarkable buildings. They are destroyed a little, you know, the Time is cruel and there are no money as usual. It's Russia :)".

There is lots more at the site so if you're interested go have a look - here is the link
again

unusual products

Various things that I thought might come in handy for future reference:

Brume make easy-peel window film in a range of designs that looks just like etched glass. I can imagine it would work brilliantly for kitchen cupboard doors or bathrooms... House goggles offer a similar service

Hang it All can convert photographs into great canvas images in frames. They can even add effects, like watercolour, or create a montage. I think this would work really well with some of my favourite garden pictures perhaps

Gel fireplaces look like real fireplaces and give off heat, but it is burning from a gel rather than gas or wood. It means they can be hung on the wall(!) and don't need flues. Also you can get fire gel baskets to use in traditional style fireplaces

Toffshop sells old fashioned fabric like hessian, calico and deckchair material cheaply. Their site seems to be down at the moment but the phone number is 020 87788049. Might be worth getting some lovely striped fabric for deckchairs?

According to the Evening Standard article, Zaida crafts will make woollen rugs to custom designs. They also apparently sell cheap but top quality persian carpets

7 Hammersmith Terrace

There was an article in last week's Property supplement with the Evening Standard newspaper about an amazing house in London that is going to open to the public for the first time. It is Emery Walker's house... he was a printer heavily involved in the Arts & Crafts movement, and good friends with William Morris etc. The place is pretty much as he left it so it is a real treasure trove of Arts & Crafts... they claim it's the last original interior left (there are others that have been recreated but this is the only one that hasn't been changed since the 1930's). You can see some pictures here

It's opening for a couple of days each week for 3 months only, to coincide with the V&A's latest exhibition about Arts & Crafts. We're trying to book a time to go see the house, it would be amazing to experience it in real life in a home rather than a museum, and we might get some good ideas.

Cob-building thoughts

Both Dave and I have read through (or at least flicked through) the book all about cob-building called "The Hand-sculpted House". There are some interesting ideas in it provided you can get past all the hard-core hippy moralising. For instance, there are several pages explaining why you should never trust government or banks, and instead should touch up your friends/family for loans since "they won't mind if you are late making payments". It even says you should ask first for 5 year loans with no interest! Yes, and I'd like a new car too.

Anyway, once you get past all that, there are some inspiring ideas in the book. Here are the key things we took away from reading it:

* Cob is fireproof, so provided you also have a fireproof roof, then it is very good at withstanding bushfires.

* Cob lets you embed glass shards straight into the wall so you can not only use up broken glass pieces, but you can have really creatively shaped windows. This would be a way to get the gaudi-esque natural feel; perhaps it would be good for the garden room?

* With cob you can easily have tapered walls, thinner at the top, so it gives you a psychological feeling of more space

* Idea of building a thermal mass cooler into the wall (this is from p34): "Our house has no electric refrigerator. In our Oregon rainforest climate, in-the-wall refrigeration works well. A 3-shelf closet cut right through the north wall at eye level keeps perishable foods in good condition. It opens by a small wooden door about the kitchen counter and the outdoor face is fly-screened. It's interior is gypsum plastered directly onto the cob, and it has a ceramic tile floor. Even in summer, with temperatures in the 90's, milk covered with a wet cloth will keep fresh for 3 days. Fungus and bacteria are inhibited by dry air and drafts so fruit and vegetables stay fresh, as higher summer temperatures are counterbalanced by much better airflow than in sealed electric refridgerators"

Some of the ideas aren't specific to cob:

* Idea of using mirror backed glass anywhere you want a view but still want privacy. Perhaps this could be good for the secret garden if the bathroom were to look onto it?

* Idea of designing a house around activities rather than rooms. I think this is partly what we're doing anyway but hadn't thought of it in such black and white terms before. Then, once you've worked out what activities there are for which you need space, you can see what needs to be near to others (and I guess too what might be able to be shared). And that kind of "bubble diagram" gets you partway towards a floorplan

* Idea of building a house at different levels, taking advantage of the slope, with steps from one room to the next

ZipWall

I came across ZipWall in a post on the Domestic Anarchy blog... oh how I wish we'd had this when we were renovating here. Maybe by the time we come to do it again at Amherst this will be available in Australia

The Hardest-Working Room in the House

The Hardest-Working Room in the House is a great article about designing a kitchen, made credible because the author's kitchen is so nice. I especially like the idea of the dappled light through the window screen things, and I love the island unit.

Earth Garden: March-May 2005 issue

For Christmas Mum got us a subscription to two Australian magazines about eco / environmentally sustainable living. Although the tone is sometimes a bit gungho and self-righteous, there's a lot of useful information in them. For future reference, thought I'd make a note of the articles and interesting ideas from each issue which could be handy for Amherst. It saves me having to put little post-it tabs on each page!

Here's the snippets from Earth Garden issue #131 (March-May 2005):

__________________________________________________

Scandia in Seymour - they recondition old wood-burning stoves and re-sell. They could be really helpful in getting the old Raeburn stove working, plus if we want to buy another one for the inside (Dave is eyeing off the Raeburn to have in his shed!) Tel: 03 5792 2388. Also Castworks sell all sorts of wood stoves

A UK company Centre for Alternative Technology sells a paper log maker: "Free heat from old newspapers...just thoroughly soak and squeeze the paper, place into the mold and dry. You'll have a log that will burn as well as wood". I'm going to have a look and maybe order one, Dave might like it for the little outside fire.

When it's the end of the summer season, to ripen the last tomatoes on plants rip out the whole plant (roots, soil and all) and hang upside down under north facing shelter... the fruit will continue to ripen for the next month or so even as the weather turns, although the skins will get tougher the longer you leave it. (nb: guessing that in the UK we would replace "north" with "south")

There were a few ads for Australian companies who make natural and non-toxic paints. http://www.naturalpaint.com.au and Biopaints (who stupidly didn't list a website, but phone number is 1 800 809 448)

Awfulness, an article talking about snakes getting into enclosures and eating chickens! And how snakes get into everywhere, you find them on kitchen benches, in the toilet, etc. I *so* do not want this. I didn't think snakes would come into the house; we shall just have to design it so that they simply cannot. Every window must have mesh, etc so that nothing can sneak inside.

There was a good article about how to pickle your own olives... maybe we can start doing that sooner than we thought considering that there are already olives on our little trees! Also, in a sidebar they mentioned the problem of "feral olives", where birds eating the olives and then dropping seeds in native forest lead to olive trees growing wild and taking over from other trees. I don't quite know how we're supposed to stop the birds eating some of the olives, I'm not going to net all the trees, and besides there are other olive plantations nearby. But it's something we'll have to think about if the birds prove to be too greedy.

In the regular section about poultry, they mentioned that there is a homeopathic way to worm chooks. Apparently you crush up one clove of garlic per bird and put in in their water for a few days. You do it on a regular basis, traditionally at every full moon! This may be a good thing to try with the C's. Also there are some herbs like wormwood that if you finely chop in the tips into wet mashes can help, but I don't like this approach as if you do it too much it can be toxic, and how much is too much? However, maybe in Amherst we might be able to grow some as according to this it "succeeds in any soil but it is best in a poor dry one with a warm aspect. Established plants are very drought tolerant. Plants are longer lived, more hardy and more aromatic when they are grown in a poor dry soil... Wormwood is occasionally grown in the herb garden (although) the growing plant is said to inhibit the growth of fennel, sage, caraway, anise and most young plants, especially in wet years. But wormwood is a good companion for carrots, however, helping to protect them from root fly. This herb was at one time the principal flavouring in the liqueur 'Absinthe' but its use has now been banned in most countries since prolonged consumption can lead to chronic poisoning, epileptiform convulsions and degeneration of the central nervous system"

Oasis Windmills (again unfortunately no web address) make windmills that they say are very affordable. Best of all they look like the old-fashioned kind of metal windmills on stilts! They say they are simple to install, able to pump to 80m head, low maintenance, no expensive rebuilds, able to pump up to 4 gallons (18 litres) per minute, and with auto-turnoff in high winds. They come in towers that are 3m or 4.5m tall. They're based in Dookie Victoria tel: 03 5828 6452. Another wind generator that is not as nice looking is from Precision wind technologies

First of a two-part article about how to make a cheap dry composting toilet, like the ones that sell for several thousand dollars. Unfortunately not accredited yet but who knows in a few years... worth remembering about anyway if we want to ever add in an extra toilet to a shed or something.

Weekend hippy person mentioned tree onions... Onions that grow at the top on stems, and when they get fat fall over to the ground and start growing a new bunch. Sounds interesting, like a cross between a normal onion and a spring onion. Apparently they are good especially because they're not fussy to look after, can cope with not being watered except at weekends. I just found a herb nursery in the UK - on Ebay no less - that sells them, so have ordered a few to try them out along with some Angelica that have been meaning to get for ages, and Comfrey for the compost.

Schnitzer sell very nice looking mills for making your own flour, grinding grain etc. I think the idea is that if you ever need flour you can just make it on the spot from the raw grain, as much as you need for cooking. It is really nicely finished in timber too.

More ideas

We went to Mallorca for a long weekend last week, plus a few new books arrived. Combined, they sparked some more thinking and ideas about the house and garden design. Nothing that's inconsistent with anything that's gone before I don't think, but it all adds to the pot! Here's the latest set: Additional ideas (Feb 2005)

Greene & Greene

Eric, our architect, recommended we take a look at Greene & Greene who were famous Arts and Crafts architects from California. I ordered some books which were really interesting... some parts of their work I just adore but others seem bizarrely 1960s-ish to me, which considering it was all built around the turn of the century just shows how long it took for their style to make its way to Australia!

The parts we loved were especially the verandahs and some of their finishes, e.g., the shingles on the house sidings. (Why do they never seem to build with shingles in Australia?) The way the houses flowed was brilliant too, they seemed like they'd be nice to live in. We also loved their stained glass and lanterns.

Here is a link to download some more pictures of things we like, taken from various books about Arts & Crafts style including the ones on Greene & Greene. additional pictures.pps

Miniature cows

I've always wanted a pet cow but Dave had nearly talked me out of it because he said one cow would make too much milk for the two of us, and of course you can't just keep one cow you need at least two so they have a friend. Then I discoverd this.
All About The Kyrhet Australian Miniature Cattle Stud

wonderful russian house

I can't stop thinking about the Russian wooden house in Archangel that I stumbled across when researching the chest. I really like itfor two reasons... first, because it feels like a rustic version of all those "icing cake" houses you see in places like Salzburg, you know, all painted in sugary colours. I've always loved those houses but I never even considered them as a possible influence for ours until seeing this picture as I'd thought it would be totally incongrous to have them in the Amherst setting. Seeing this picture makes me think that maybe I was wrong... Second reason is because it's so cute how it has the little third storey with the window, just seemed a fantastic idea for an attic area to let in light.


I've ordered a book that will hopefully have more of this kind of thing: "From the rustic simplicity of wooden cottages to the gaudy glitter of imperial palaces and estates, this intriguingly illustrated survey of Russian houses filters social
history through architecture. Timber cathedrals, manor houses (all nationalized after the 1917 revolution), Peter the Great's wartime cabin by the White Sea, eclectic villas of the 19th-century bourgeoisie and fisherfolks's clustered dwellings evoke a panorama of Russian life. The homes of famous people shown here duly reflect their
personalities. Words and photos invite us inside Lenin's monastic three-room apartment, the cozy corner flat of Dostoyevski's last years, painter Ilya Repi's hexagonal studio with skylights illuminating the interior, and dwellings of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gorky, Pasternak, Stanislavsky, Chekhov and Tchaikovsky

Farrow & Ball fantastic paint

One last thing for today... I wonder if you can buy Farrow & Ball paint in Australia, or if not if there's something similar? We were introduced to it by a friend over here and couldn't believe the difference, now it is my first choice, except for places like the bathroom which need specialist paints, we have Farrow & Ball paint everywhere else that we've redecorated in London now. It's kind of chalkier than other paints, hard to describe and you might think it wouldn't really be noticeable vs modern paints but it is. I wonder if specialist environmentally-friendly paints are like this too? Welcome to Farrow & Ball

US furniture shops that deliver internationally

I'd hope we never ever have to use this but just in case, it's good to know that a few really nice US furniture and accessory shops now deliver internationally, or at least, are very happy to help you arrange it.
Room & Board
Crate and Barrell

Sadly though, some of my favourite places still don't do this... Restoration hardware and Pottery barn, get your act together!

the most detailed brief ever

According to Eric our architect, we take the prize for the most detailed collection of thoughts about what we want in our house that he's ever seen. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad sign! But it's already been useful as in the process of writing it I discovered my taste wasn't exactly as I'd thought it was. For instance, at the beginning I'd thought it was probably 95% "heritage" with a few smatterings of modern-ness; but going through this process and especially picking out photos, I realised that a) the "heritage" bit is a lot more eclectic than I'd thought and b) there is a lot more about "modern" that I like.

If you didn't see it yet, it's here. If you think of anything else that might be a good idea to have, let me know via email or add a note(there's a little link at the bottom of every blog entry that lets you comment on it)

Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems

This is only tangentially related to Amherst, it must be said, but it was something that Dave talked about in passing a few days ago. In the sense that he said first he wanted a car that ran on diesel because it'd be cheaper to run (and of course we'll have to worry about that when we live there, no public transport, lots of driving). And then jokingly said maybe we can even make it run on vegetable oil... but turns out, it's no joke, it is actually possible! Greasecar Vegetable Fuel Systems
I wasn't looking for this by the way, it just turned up in another site I was reading

Preventing bushfires

I find the whole thought of bushfires terrifying, I remember Ash Wednesday too well, I was living in Ringwood then so safe enough, but even there the air was smoky and ash everywhere. But, as Dave pointed out, it's no worse than living in London waiting for the inevitable terrorist attack. At least the thing about bushfires seems to be that if you're prepared and brave enough to stay in your house and fight the spot fires around it, you have a very good chance of surviving and saving the house too.

I know that Amherst is at risk because it's so close to the forest. Also, I think it was part of the area that was burned in the big bushfires during 1985. So, in the planning of the garden and house we'd like to do whatever we can (without sacrificing the look and feel too much) to reduce the fire risk. Here are various leaflets I downloaded from various government and CFA sites:

vegetation for bushfire prevention.pdf
livinginthebush.pdf
cfg_newsletter_feb04.pdf
landcare article about designing to avoid bushfires.doc

dry gardening and interesting gardens in Australia

As part of researching the kinds of gardens that might be possible at Amherst, I came across a lot of books and websites which I sent to Mum. Here are some of them:

Markdale is an 8000 acre sheep station, but has a 5 acre garden around the house. If you look on this page you can see a few photos of the garden, including one great aerial shot. http://www.markdale.com/garden.shtml It is interesting because it shows how you can have lots of buildings, actually reasonably close but all would feel quite separate. This was designed by Edna Walling.

Redesdale in Heathcote http://www.redesdale.com/home.html is a winery with gardens and olive plantations. It's in goldfields region apparently and describes itself as a "dry climate garden". I thought it might be nice to see to get ideas on what could be possible. The gardens are part of the Open Garden scheme but they offer accomodation as well so perhaps we could stay there and see the gardens that way even if it wasn't an official time? e.g., see the picture of gardens and the cottage here http://www.redesdale.com/auberge.html

Bringalbit is another big property not far from Kyneton http://www.bringalbit.com.au/bringalbit_a_brief_introduction.htm which is open every day. It's 410 acres in total but has a big lake and a very traditional 10 acres garden, so about the size I was envisioning for ours. Here is the page on the garden and it sounds a bit similar in climate to Amherst: http://www.bringalbit.com.au/bringalbit_garden.htm except perhaps it gets a little wetter in winter?

Chesterfield house http://www.chesterfieldhouse.com.au is an upmarket B&B in Talbot, which is about 5 minutes drive from our property. They've obviously got really nice gardens so perhaps if you're visiting our property you might fancy popping in here to look too? Perhaps you might even be tempted to stay over, it definitely sounds like a lovely spot. It also gives me hope that we'll be able to have some of these English plants because they wouldn't have survived as long as they have there in similar climate conditions... although of course, they've got access to town water!

http://www4.visitvictoria.com/displayObject.cfm/ObjectID.0009AA62-E012-1EE7-97D180C476A9055B/vvt.vhtml
this lists lots of historic gardens in the macedon area and it says that Sept - Nov is the best time to visit so it actually fits in well with when we're thinking of coming back.

http://www.bestgardening.com/bgc/design/styledrygarden01.htm
This is a NZ site, with an article about how to design gardens in a variety of styles that can withstand drought. It also has some pictures of Beth Chatto's own dry garden in which she's used gravel as mulch and for paths, etc

http://www.abc.net.au/walling/designer/default.htm
I just stumbled across this when looking for information about landscape design in Australia on Amazon. I'd never even heard of her before! I really like the style of her gardens if you have a look at the pictures... it's the kind of feel that I want to create. Best of all, apparently Bickleigh Vale is in Mooroolbark and according to http://www.opengarden.org.au/regions/vic.htm it says that the gardens will be open to the public on April 18th (just the one day). Do you want to go along? If you take lots of pictures for me and upload it to ofoto, then I'll pay yours and a friend's entry fee. Bickleigh Vale Village, Bickleigh Vale Rd & Edna Walling Lane, Mooroolbark (park in Pembroke Rd), OPEN Sun. 18 April, 10am-4.30pm. $20 for 7 gardens

http://www.statelibrary.vic.gov.au/slv/exhibitions/treasures/walling/
Apparently this is a book she never had published (and I can understand why, it's not very well written...) but it is interesting. I especially like the description of digging out a level area for the lounge room and finding a big stone... and deciding rather than move it to use it as the base of an armchair! I think they must have been a bit made though. It also doesn't explain at all why they decided to leave it, unless it was only ever meant to be a summer house?