What’s in Store for 2017

Happy New Year’s from the House that Worked Out!  We realise a photo on our property would be more appropriate, but it’s raining, so a holiday snap from a couple of weeks ago when we were happily nowhere near the House that Worked Out will have to suffice.

2016 has been a nicely productive year for us at the House that Worked Out.  Having recovered from the mammoth effort of building our house two years ago, we have worked on fencing, paving and creating outdoor sitting areas.  Out in the garden, we installed irrigation systems and provided our chooks with their luxury chookhouse, The Four Seasonings Hotel.  We spent some time on fitness-related projects, including building our pommel trainer and parallettes, and we fulfilled a lifelong goal of Blythe’s and built a giant spider prop for Halloween.  And somewhere in there, we released our ebook Wilderness Life DIY, the story of the beginnings of the House that Worked Out.

We (by which I mean ‘Peter’, because I did not help in any way, shape, or form) also completed this:

Yes.  It is a SERIOUS pizza oven, so serious that it is almost insulting to use it for pizzas. We have tested this baby out a couple of times, including our New Year’s Eve meal, and we see MANY a happy woodfired meal in our future (we will ignore the fact that almost all of our meals over the past 7 years have already been woodfired since we cook on a woodstove…).  For details and many, many photos of the build, you will have to wait for our next post.

So, what wonderful projects do we have on our wishlist for 2017?

1. a natural swimming pool.  The hole has been dug for 3 years.  Maybe this is the year we will actually build it.  We hope so.
2. a sauna? a Japanese onsen/jacuzzi?  For years, we had planned to build a sauna, but now that the time is right, we are not sure we would get enough out of it to justify a sauna.  But the idea of sitting in a steaming hot bath under the stars is still very appealing, despite our experiences with a wood-fired bath in the early days of being here (read our book).
3. water pumped up from our creek. All of our water comes from rain collection, which will always be our main source of water, but it would be great to have a bit of extra water for the garden, and we already have two non-electrical pumps acquired years ago to get water from our creek which is hundreds of metres down the hill.  There is a lot of infrastructure to put into place before this project can happen, but it would change our quality of life a lot.
4. an upgraded power system.  OK, this one may still be wishful thinking, because a new system will be very, very expensive.  But we have lived on a not-quite-1kW power system for 7 years, and while we as a family have become very comfortable with it, our visitors don’t always enjoy sitting in darkness after sundown, having a TV-time-limit, and only opening the fridge once per day.  (I jest.  A bit.).  We are hoping that 2017 will be our year to host a massive rave party heard for miles around.  More power required.
5. a concrete half-basketball court.  One would not think this to be high up on the priority list, but I’m willing to bet this project reaches fruition before any other on the list.  50% of our household, including the main builder, is most keen on this project.
6. an Alcatraz-style vegetable garden, fully enclosed to keep out wildlife.
7. a carport.  Not much to say on this one.  Our car is vital since there is no public transport where we are.  It is probably a good idea to shelter it from the elements.
8. Cover our patio with laserlite.  We have a pizza oven, and we will get far more use out of it if the adjoining area is sheltered.
9. Of course, we will continue with landscaping the gardens.  That’s an ongoing, probably never-ending project.
10. Gravel our driveway.  I would be more excited about this project being completed than most of the others on our list.   Our driveway has become so rutted, we may soon need to consider drone deliveries and helicopter travel.
11. Publish a second book, the tale of our two-storey cordwood house.
12. Convince some cool people to move to our area to challenge themselves on our Ninja Warrior course, eat woodfired pizza with us, and sit in a Japanese bath afterwards, looking at the stars and keeping an eye out for the Tasmanian devils that have been recently roaming our property.

So, that’s it.  Probably an overly optimistic list, but it should keep us out of trouble.  Anything you think we should add?