Small but perfectly formed

About two years ago, my friend Gail and I started to talk about the idea of finding a house to share. We wanted a place that would give us room to spend time alone, while also giving us some shared spaces. We wanted a small house, with room to build a little garden, in a pleasant part of Canberra.

We looked long and hard at established houses, but we found nothing that would suit our purpose. Most houses are built for parent/s + children. Some have granny flats and some have more than one bathroom, but we found nothing that was set up for two people sharing. It was as if the houses were saying "one of you is more important than the other, and will have a larger bedroom". That didn't suit us, as you might imagine. We started to explore the idea of building a new house. Land for new builds is scarce within the ACT borders, but Gail discovered that the Land Development Authority was about to release some new blocks, so she signed us up for the ballot. I was pretty sure that with our allocated number (176 or something similar), we had no chance. However, not only did we get to pick a block, we were able to select our second preference. We signed the contract before I had time to faint, and that set us on our path. That was just before Easter 2012.

The block

Once we had the land, we had to find people to design and build us a suitable house. During our many investigations and explorations, we came across Jigsaw Housing, a local company committed to building sustainable, energy efficient, small houses. I heard Tom and Andy speak first, and Gail attended one of their workshops some weeks later. Although we hadn't settled on them at that stage, we made an appointment to see Andy, who came up with a concept design for us.

Andy's concept drawing

It's the perfect layout for a small house for two people.

The final design has changed, but not dramatically. We've discovered that we can't afford everything we would like to include (so no underground rainwater tank, the underfloor heating is restricted to the bathrooms, we haven't put a door on the garage, and we probably don't have enough cupboards), but our final plans include just about everything we talked about in our first meetings with Andy.

We have a building project! Our greenfield plot is in the middle of a cleared space that was a large pine forest (which burnt down about ten years ago). We've borrowed a very large sum of money (or so it seems to me, at least). We've found a building company with three principals - an architect, an environmental scientist, and a builder - who are committed to quality and energy efficiency. We have a design for a small but perfectly formed, energy-efficient house designed just for us. It has two bedrooms with their own bathrooms and study nooks, two sitting rooms, an eat-in kitchen, a pantry-laundry, a patio, room to park two cars, and room to build a small garden. It has an energy rating of 7.2, so we will be cozy in winter, and cool in summer. In refining the design with Jigsaw, we have chosen every element of the house: colours, bricks, the style of roof, the appliances, and the fittings and fixtures. While it has taken us a very long time, the selections were surprisingly easy. Today, we made one last modification: a larger, more powerful rangehood with those very important buttons on the front.

Most importantly, after all this time, building has started. So here we are. It's not really at the beginning of the project, but the house is starting to seem real. We have a finish date - the first week in August - just in time for Gail's birthday. Now we have only to wait patiently until it is built. This week, excess soil was excavated to prepare the block for the slab.

Excavated block, ready for the slab to be poured.

Jenny, our environmental consultant, drives the car in the photograph. (Our architect is Andy, our builder Tom, and the site manager is Tim.)

The next time we visit, I am expecting to see the fence that will surround the site while the building is being erected. This blog will be updated weekly, so our friends and family from beyond Canberra can keep up to date with developments. Those of you who live in Canberra will be able to drive down Ulysses Circuit and peer through the fence.

When I was a child, my grandmother had a wonderful ixora hedge at the front of her house. It looked a bit like this one, only taller. At certain times of the year, the large red flowers attracted the most beautiful large blue butterflies - the Ulysses Blue.

Hedge of ixora plants

Ulysses Blue butterfly

There won't be any Ulysses Blue butterflies or tropical ixora hedges at the new house, but it pleases me to think about the way our lives loop around the same ideas, people and creatures.