Tim talked us through the house plans he’d drawn up and we really really liked the whole layout overall. Lots of things to mull over and me being me, I like to get out the measuring tape and compare the sizes of things we have now with things in the plan to try and get an idea of how it’ll be. We’re going to pore over the plans this weekend and show them to a few people to get some ideas and thoughts from them too.

I’ll write a lot more about the plans and our thoughts on them once we’ve had a bit of time to think it all over. It’s really easy to just compare floor sizes and not think through room organisation too, so I’m trying to think about that side of things.

For example, our current house’s two bathrooms don’t feel well laid out. There’s not much storage (and under the sink you’re always trying to avoid the piping) and the showers are tiny – they’re not even a square – they have one side which has a wedge cut out of it… if that makes sense? It seems to make more sense to have a shower and bath combined, so you can have a bigger shower (ours are cramped!). Thoughts on that anyone?

If the weather was nicer, I’d want to go and push some sticks into the ground with some brightly coloured tape up at our land and see rough layout in actuality to help me think through everything.

We’re trying to decide if we want a projector or a flat screen TV. I hate TVs being the centre of attention in a room and have quite liked having a big projector which can be totally out of the way and is a more deliberate act to turn on and watch. It is nice having a big screen, but projectors do require a certain amount of darkness in the room – more than TVs.

Another thought is if we really need a wetback if we are going to have solar for hot water heating. We’re leaning towards probably not. While we love having a fire, it’s not used for the vast part of the year in our climate so all the trickiness and inconvenience of needing the fire near the hot water cylinder might just not be worth it.

There’s so many things I really like about the layout though, so more from me soon!

(Side note: was impressed that their company car was a cute little one rather than some fancy schmancy one. Being a cliche girl, I couldn’t tell you what actual make and model it was but it was a little compact one. Toyota?)

We laughed and at the same time were impressed that Tim had his pants rolled up and was barefoot wandering around in the mud when we arrived. When I saw his shoes later, I wasn’t surprised that he took them off, that’d be the end of those fancy canvas shoes!

We wandered around the land for a bit but we could all see the black clouds rolling in and the rain started falling heavily and I was worried that Mr. 9 month old would get soaked. We raced back into cars and made a quick decision to relocate to DD’s Country Cafe in nearby Waitoki. Mr. 2.75 played on the ipad (erm Angry Birds) and Mr. 0.75 crawled around while we sipped coffees and talked about what we were looking for. Tim drew little sketches on paper about possibilities.

They gave me some food for thought such as: what’s the purpose of a garage and is bigger really better?

I loved that they like Ikea. We’ve often dreamt of bringing in an Ikea kitchen but haven’t gone as far as figuring out all the import/shipping costs involved. I love that they love simplicity but still are classy.

We talked about lots of other things too and perhaps this will be a good fit. What’s most exciting is that perhaps we’re only 9 months away from moving into our new home up on our land!

In short: we’ve gone through the phases of dreaming about a perfect house and then coming back to earth with a thud. Building a house is so expensive! You think of all the many things you’d like in your house. You think big and start to believe that bigger equals better. You think about having a media room, a room for every single child you might have one day, a massive scullery, a wet room, a …. the list goes on.

Then you find out there’s a thing called cost per square metre and it keeps going up each year. So you wonder about alternative building methods – like building from dirt or hay or anything that doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount. Then you worry about how much man-power is involved, how many millions of decisions you need to make in order to get the house you’re wanting.

Then you come back to earth and start asking the big questions. What’s important, really? Can you choose to be happy wherever you are? What’s the most important things in a home? Square meterage or a warm dry house in winter and a comfortable place in summer? Having everything perfect and a massive mortgage or having money to give to others when they need it, and some spare to do fun things in life?

Back to square one. Time was ticking by. A desire to be living on the land grew by the day.

I spent many evenings Googling away for alternative options. Regan spent time reading a book on alternative building methods. We’re both just so busy that we needed to find a solution that wasn’t going to mortgage us up to the eyeballs (even though we could get the money from the bank, should we?) but would be something customised for the land we bought. Something which was unique and we could have a hand in the end result, but without having to project manage the whole thing. Something which was a good combination between what we wanted and someone else’s good design taste.

In my endless searching I came across Box Living which seemed to embody the traits I was hunting for: something somewhere between a fully-architectural designed house and a building company design where you don’t get too much say. Having built my web design business on the phrase “clean, clear and creative”, Box Living seemed to be an answer out of the blue: modular design, architecturally inspired, environmental considerations, certainty of cost and flexibility.

After reading absolutely everything that their website had to offer and Googling every single reference to the company, we gave them a call and met with them two days later.

I was expecting to go into their offices, but Dan Heyworth was keen to come out to our place and chat over a cup of tea. He was fascinated by all the variety of books on our coffee table that we’re reading – from “The Shallows” to the new Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. We talked for an hour or so about things like Natural Flow, leaky homes (my dad is worried about a flat roof) and TV projectors! It was nice to talk with someone who also had a young family and didn’t mind our little 9 month old needing a bit of attention during the meeting.

After talking through lots of bits and pieces, we arranged to meet up a couple of days later at our land with Dan Heyworth and Box Living’s architect Tim Dorrington…

“Wire netting is also a good option for containing sheep. Sheep netting is usually 800 – 900mm high, and has stay wires (the vertical ones) 150mm or 300mm apart. Use the 150mm wide option if you’re going to have lambs on the property.” (Source)

Advice on spacing for posts

Sounds like 6m is fine if it’s nice and tight, otherwise 4m between posts.

Pricing

The wire itself seems to be about $2/m in 100m rolls on Trademe, need to check other places like RD1 too.