At the end of the season and as covid restrictions lifted, Holly and I flew over to the UK to spend some much needed time with her mum, family and friends. On my way home, almost exactly a year after Dad passed away, I received a message from Deborah that so too had his soul […]

We took another big step towards our dream of operating the Nook completely off-grid; installing a 4.5kw solar system with high output panels. This system covers 50% of the Nook’s yearly electricity requirements. After this slower winter, I continued working through my fourth fire season (2021/22) and slowly ticked things off the list. I found […]

The recycled ironbark timber side entrance to the house. This was made using the remaining timber from our friend’s pig farm as well as some identical timber I miraculously found on Gumtree that an older bloke in Ararat pulled from an ancient farm house out near Tatyoon. Getting a heavy ironbark truss structure more than […]

It was at this point that my mum and her special little man Byron moved back to the block in her camper van. This allowed us all to be together and support one another. Mum and dad had been separated for nearly 20 years but it was important to us all that we were together, […]

We started the 2020/21 fire season – our third – I was already exhausted. Holly and I slowly moved from the shack into the Nook. During this season Holly switched roles, moving into one focused on community engagement and partnerships for the department in our district. I always admire her thirst to challenge herself and […]

The lesson? Have good people in your corner, whether they are directly involved in the project or not – let them in, be open, talk through your ideas and emotions with them. Sometimes we are so fixated on one thing that we need someone else, with fresh eyes, to break through our perceptions and help […]

For the first four months of this gruelling six-month period, Dad’s health appeared to be stable. The treatment at the beginning of the year had thankfully slowed the growth of the tumour on his kidney. Unfortunately, however, a scan then revealed that the cancer had spread into his lymphatic system. When I asked a dear […]

Like most things on this project, I heavily underestimated how long it would take to cut, join and assemble over 30 drawer boxes for the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Each of these were made almost entirely from recycled floorboards. In hindsight, I’m actually astounded at the speed at which I managed to get these boxes […]

The continuous ironbark handrail was built in situ, requiring lots of patience, deep breaths and delicate massaging (we’ll get to that in a bit). Finally the staircase was capped off with the installation of the LED strip lights on the underside of the treads. A giant jig was made for the assembly of the balustrade, […]

Bar one… the tiles for the bathroom had eluded us for the entire project so far, everything so far had missed the mark and didn’t fit the aesthetic we had in mind. Finally, after a year of searching, we had a breakthrough and finally found them… full credit goes to Holly on this one, what […]