Reawara Research: #5 Week Three Photo Essay Part Three

The House that George and Mary Built

Building site viewed from the South. In the background you can see the Hill that is called Mount Direction. It's the Highest point between George town and Launceston.

During the early days of colonisation Mount Direction was where a semaphore station relayed messages to the port of Launceston the arrival of ships coming up the Tarmar River.

The buildings from left to right in are Workshop, caravan and storage shed. We lived in the caravan for the time we were constructing the house.

The road that borders the west of the property, (see Satellite photo from part two) when Tasmania was still a colony, (currently the Old Bangor Tram Road )was a narrow gauge tram track that was used to transport slate from the mine that was about 10 Km north of our building site. The line ran down to a jetty on the Tamar River where it was loaded on ships or barges to be split into shingles for roofs in Launceston Town.

The mine was abandoned around 1938 or so as most of the larger chunks of slate were depleted. There was one fella working the smaller bits and spitting for floor tiles etc. We did take advantage of the good price of the slate tiles and used them to tile out the bathroom floor and walls.

Having worked at the wood-chip mill left me with connections and I was able to have about 150 tones of spoiled wood-chips brought to the property to use as ground cover where the excavation work had been done on the site to keep the dust down.

The timber for construction of the house was harvested from a local forest and milled nearby. The mill was a little 2 man operation and I was able to get all the timber I needed from them. At the time the price of green cut timber was $22 per 100 super feet. A super foot is measured as a board 12 in. long 12 in. wide and 1 in. thick. 100 board feet equals 150 ft. of 4x2, 100 ft. of 6x2 etc. etc.

The framework for the house was made up of 4x2, 6x2 and 10x2 The floors were of 1x3 in. kiln dried hardwood seconds. The whole house was hardwood floors for under $700. I was able to get blackwood wall panels that were remodelling from a remoulding of a kitchen manufacturer sales room. That was used to panel out the bedroom and to make kitchen cabinets and benches. The remainder of the house was panelled in ½ x 8 in. planed air dried fence palings ½ x 6 or 8 in. used here to build fences.

In the process of building the house we did all we could to recycle whatever we could. I consider that as as a very green house.

The windows were all double glazed and the walls were insulated.

The temperature inside was 10 degrees C different than outside: cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

The links below will take you to a few more photos of the house and then it will end my little Photo Essay.

Mary and a friend of ours washing up after the meal. Behind Mary is the walk-in pantry. The sink Ray is wiping down I made from an old copper hot water cylinder.

That's me preparing a meal. The gas stove top was on casters under the work bench and was pulled out to cook On the right of the bench you can see the smokestack from the combustion stove. That stove had a hot water manifold in it and the feed to the electric hot water cylinder ran through it. That was a booster for preheating water when it was cold and used less power to heat.

Our dinning table built in and constructed from Tas oak. Note the post on the left was a wattle tree growing on the property. On the right is the stairwell to the bedroom.

Mary in the bedroom. The blackwood panels were recycled from a remodelling job to a kitchen manufacturing showroom.

Landscaping at the back (east side) of the house Using the woodchips.

Mary's oven out the back of the caravan. She baked in it for 3 years until she had the idea to use an electric fry pan as an oven. It worked very well.

Here we are sitting at the table hamming it up for the camera. Behind us you can see part of the Blackwood cupboards.

Mary with Baccus the cat sitting in a blackwood chair I built for the house furnishings. You can see the gas top put away under the work bench behind her.