Latest developments

Although having a lot of work with planning and sometimes wracking my brains with all the necessary research and thoughts, where to get the right materials f.e., making floor plans, electrical plans, plans for the vegetated leach fields and septic tanks for the waste water, piping and so much more things I have never done before, (not to forget about the gardens...) everything is running very well.

With Gede Oka we have a great local builder from Kalisada who is a real multitalented guy working very good in the more usual concrete and brick construction like Brigitta's house, but is also familiar with western standards and luckily does not get scared either when trying other more unconventional things like cobbing, earth pipe cooling etc. Great guy and also very fair with regard to prices! The word we would hear most often when confronting him with more questions, proposals and ideas usually is - "Bisa" which means "can do":-) coming out of his mouth in a very comforting chest note accompanied by a big smile. His lovely wife Komang is taking good care of the "catering":-)



The bamboo shingle roof of the cob garden hut is finished, as well as the earth plastering and I am very happy with all of it.



After laying the earth pipe for cooling



we did the foundations for my next mud building - the future farmshop and office. The bamboo for the poles and roof construction is soaking in the river for 10 days to get eventual bugs out. The foundation has been made and the windows and door frames of coconut wood are fixed in. I think it looks very nice already:-) As the building is pretty close to the water front we decided to use some concrete in the stone foundation but only on the inside of the stones so it will not be visible.



Finally also the wood for the restaurant's and kitchen's roof construction and all the poles have arrived and the roof is getting up. The roof tiles are painted in a light color for keeping the head of the buildings - and mine, too - a few degrees cooler.



And - Brigitta's house will be finished in about 3 week's time and as she is so kind as to offer me to stay in there until I will have my own we will finally be able to move full time to KEV about the middle of July:-) I am so much looking forward to it!!!
P.S.: The cows are the neighbour's...

Rainy weather again...

We had to have a bit of a break - at least at the cob building - as the weather played crazy and it started to rain again...had to cover the building with plastic tarp and wait...

Concentration went on the gardens where we planted more fruit trees and I started to move some of my nursery pots to their final destination. They seem to like their new surroundings the same as I do, look healthy and start growing:-)

In the meantime the roof of the garden hut is nearly finished, we make bamboo shingles. The locals say the building looks "antique";-)



I prepared the plans for the next building - farmshop and office - hope we can start next week. It will be a combination of cob and bamboo. I plan to integrate an earth pipe cooling system and a thermal chimney for natural "air con", very much looking forward to how this will work...:-)

Brigitta's house is coming up amazingly fast! Only 10 days ago the ceiling has been concreted, "cor" (tschorrrr) as they call it here. What an action - a team of 30 workers started working at day break until 2 o'clock in the afternoon with only one very short lunch break, bringing up bucket after bucket of mix in a row...
Luckily - or thanks to the priestess - we will never know...it only started raining at 2:30:-)



By now the window frames are in already and in the next days the roof will be started.

Let's get dirty;-)

Started "cobbing" 2,5 weeks ago. What a great experience!:-))) Hands and feet, mud, water and some rice straw and you are ready to build a wall. It is very satisfying, easy and basic and going along very well. And - as the Balinese would never miss a chance to make a joke - the job is a lot of fun and in times pure slapstick;-)



I decided to build a garden hut first as our trial project. If everything runs well until the end - which I am pretty sure of by now:-) - I will go ahead with this technique for the other buildings as well. Great room climate which you can feel by now already, no single piece of steel, no concrete;-) Love it!




What's next - the vetiver grass is drying in the sun to be used for the roof, I do some further research on a "recipe" for the plastering. The building and the vibes in it give me a very special, absolutely pleasant feeling:-)