New plans.

So...we have been very busy of late.We have been discussing ways to move forward with our building. We have set the foundations for the bathroom tower but building with cob is a slow process and uses up lots of earth. To actually dig up the earth ourselves and wheelbarrow it to the site adds more time to the process. It would be much quicker to get someone with a 'bobcat' to pile some earth up for us but that 'someone' is very busy rebuilding their own house at the moment. (Can you believe that they are fitting their kitchen in this weekend? It is quite incredible how they have rebuilt their home after the fire in October.)After the intense heat of the Summer the garden suffered and quite a few fruit trees and berry plants withered and died through lack of water. I suggested to Will that we leave the tower for now and we build something higher up the slope, above the garden, from which we can collect water off the roof and use it to water the berries and fruit trees.The idea was a kind of Summerhouse which we could use as guest accommodation for visitors.So...the idea is that the building will be circular to mirror the garden beds and will have a diameter of 6 metres. It will be a wood frame built mainly from cypress trees from the property and the posts will be set upon metal stirrups set in concrete to prevent damage from termites.We have been given lots of large windows which will be perfect for it, and we also have a pile of louvred windows to add for ventilation. Between the windows and louvred sections we will build with straw bales which apart from the rendering will allow us to build quickly. We are going to have double doors at the front and above these, as you enter, will be a clerestory gallery for the bed, leaving the ground floor for living space.The front of the building will be 5 metres high and the circular roof will slope down to 3 metres at the back.We are still thinking of it as primarily guest accommodation and a water collector but it could easily become our standby home should our present house collapse.Things are moving on quickly. Yesterday we measured out the site and set pegs to mark where the posts will go. Today we bought cement and 9 metal stirrups and then cut 6 cypress trees for the main posts. (We still need 3 more.)It's getting exciting!