A day in the island life of us...
Good morning Mummy
Cheers Filly. Cheers. Cheers
[Jase] Good morning Jimmy
[Katie] Two giant sand-based lasagnas hey
[Mirriam] Grey sauce on top
[Jase] The real digger's in the bush there
[Arlo] He's going to bite your finger
[Jase] He won't bite me, he's a nice hermit crab
*Arlo and Ophelia giggling*
[Jase] So what are we up to
WOO!
Cool man. Building hardwood cabinetry is not a fun job. Um going to sand it all back
and we're going to paint this bottom unit and then the slab is just
finished timber which loks awesome!
Okay
Good luck
Alright, off to our new house
Can you take my laptop?
Thanks let's go
All right we're up here and we're just going to
unload these timbers and what are we doing today Kemuel?
*Jase laughing* You just wake up mate yeah so we've actually just realised we forgot to, we haven't actually
squared off the house yet so we'll do a little exercise just to square off on
top of the joists. We've kept the house really square as we've gone at every stage but this is
like the final check so this is actually where the frame so the wall is going to sit on top of
so we're just using a bit of old-school maths.
one six what
[Kemuel in the distance] One, six, zero, nine, zero
Using a bit of *pygrous / pyagorus therum*
to square off the building to make sure that we've got our corners in exactly
the right spot. It's really really hard to show this place um even just with a GoPro
and a wide angle lens but where I'm standing now you might be able to get a bit of a vibe for
just how much time we've taken to not just fit a house into the terrain but build a house
that fits the terrain. So we've got trees like completely surrounding the house now they're
all determined to be safe based on their size and the direction which they're leaning and
the direction of prevailing winds but essentially we've got an L-shaped building which focuses the
whole center of the house around this big deck here and that is what's going to keep this house
ultra cool and give us that really beautiful indoor outdoor space so it's pretty cloudy to
start this morning so you might actually be able to see a bit better how close these trees are to
the building so we've got this massive screen here which is really important to us because we
really wanted to fit into the landscape and you not to be able to see the house from the ocean
but that also provides shade up until about what time is it now like 10 o'clock yeah um 9 30 10
o'clock you're not actually getting any sun on the roof yet even so that's really really important
so I guess from a materials perspective we've been really really focused around making sure
that we use materials that will last that are termite resistant that are durable suitable for
this climate. So we've used a lot of natural timber species from the area. So we're using two species
of timber here the delinea or kappachu which is for the framing it's got a lot of silica in it a
lot of sand so the termites actually physically can't eat it and then we've got vitex for
the subfloor and the deck which is better in wet areas but it also has a sap which is termite it's
poisonous to termites so it's termite resistant. Yeah making sure that we build a cool house
that is really energy efficient so we don't need aircon is really important making sure that we use
materials that are long lasting and are going to be here for the next 100 years is really important
making sure that we built a building that fits into the landscape and complements it but also
we designed the building because of the trees that were in the vicinity and
making sure that we didn't just build what we wanted maximizing even the ocean views
but then destroying a whole bunch of habitat and rainforests that didn't need to be destroyed
Um so we've actually chosen the site also because this is an area that was devastated by cyclone
about seven years ago so all the big trees have been taken out virtually and there's two rotten
trees that were standing on the block which we felled there is the top sections of those
which was still good timber we are using for furniture so we're doing some nice um cross-cut
log furniture yeah basically everything else was left is this sort of stuff this really small
sapling stuff that we just cleared out. That was another reason behind the design of the building
and making sure that we didn't take any more if we had gone another five meters or seven meters
in either direction then we would have had to fell another four or five big beautiful trees
we just didn't want to do that. I touched a little bit on the terrain yesterday but to give you guys
a bit of a look, not yesterday last week, this is the pitted limestone that we're building on
okay so this is super super harsh terrain. Yeah it just took a long time to achieve anything until we
got up to this sort of bearer and joist level where you're actually on the subfloor and you're not
touching the ground. As a few people might have noticed no one's actually commented yet why we
have half of the deck up and it just looks really random how the building has been built so far and
that's because again we just wanted to minimize our impact. We literally have a 1.6 metre wide
road that comes into the block here and then we have the actual space of the house plus one meter
sometimes not even one metre either side so we've got nowhere to actually build the frames we've got
nowhere to build the house. I hate building houses on joists because it's just not safe and I decided
that we'll do things a little bit in reverse and would actually build this deck section first which
we could string up a tarp as well which gives us a bit of coverage and protection from the sun
but we can frame yeah efficiently on the deck here then stand our frames up and slide them back onto
um the rest of the house so that's gonna be really really crucial. Yeah get this job done quickly
but without having to clear a whole space here of this beautiful bush just so that we could assemble
frames and carry them up onto the building so also with the timber this is all harvested on
the mainland where there's the big volcanic forest not on not on the island here which has
a much more fragile and slow growing forest so it's harvested using uh local sawmills. We have
a couple of operators who have their own little businesses who take these portable sawmills into
the bush fell the tree on site and mill it on site so are very low impact as low impact as you can get
when it comes to timber harvesting. And it's a a form of harvesting which favours the local resource
owner so it allows them to make the most amount of money per cubic metre off that tree possible
versus the devastating alternative of commercial logging which is rife through this country
it's another way of supporting the local timber production and get some more money
into the local communities and means that we get a beautifully produced local product that
you know is designed to survive this area so if you bring a piece of pine into this area
or even bamboo you know the mold grows all over it the rot's insane because yeah this
environment is just a little bit different to what we have back in Australia and elsewhere
[Katie] Lunch time is that is that one better there you go
We're having wraps kids are having bread leftover beans from last night yum yum yum yum
We had a bit of a brain fart or I did. Um we didn't actually put in the frame
for the window so we've just done that now we just put in the last
\Mark twice cut once
*hammering*
That was meant to be a video by sliding it frame out but
it was a photo um super heavy frames because this is all hard wood
First wall is up
All right so we managed to get a couple of frames up it's uh we knock off a little bit early well
I am. The boys have got some other stuff to do but um Katie and I just need to get in the water we've
been in the water flight 10 days like properly so yeah we're just going to jump in on Uepi Point
and see what's around because this is what happens you get busy and then you realize you haven't been
in the water for two weeks when you live on one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world, it's crazy!
I'm heading up top to um get some things ready for dinner. We've actually been going up to
the new house up to the deck we've done it a few times now where we've gone up and had like an easy
dinner up on the deck so we decided that might be fun to do that today since we're vlogging so
I'm gonna go up we're making sushi for dinner we're gonna do some crayfish and some tuna yeah
get that done so that I can get in the water with Jase this afternoon and go for a free dive
on Uepi Point. We've finally got clear beautiful water the jellyfish have cleared out and there's
huge tides so we've got beautiful clear incoming currents yeah go get this stuff
done so we can go and have some fun. Turns out my sushi rolling mat is really mouldy it's gross
anyway I think I'm gonna have to I don't have an alternative so I'm gonna have to use it
I'll clean it somehow. I've just come out of the kitchen down to the welcome jetty to get rid
of some scraps in the ocean just things that we can't compost um so there's things like onions and
citrus and chilies and things and the water down here looks amazing. I'm pretty keen to go for a
nice dive this afternoon so I just need to go and get Jase and get out there but look at this water
[Jase] All right we made it out. The vis probably isn't gonna be as clear as it could be but
we're gonna go for a swim anyway and show you what's down there let's do it!
We made it. Huh?
We made it. There's our new house over there. Hello!
I think it actually makes a difference to put your head underwater and just like go face to
face with the fish every now and again. *fish noises* We've got like a crab salad which is crab with chopped up
green peppers and spring onions and some mayo actual crab real crap yeah real crab meat
[Jase] Some serious amounts of salad in that roll there. Yeah they're Katie ratios
[Jase] Don't throw that (sushi roll) too wildly *Laughs*
We're standing in our room we have one of our walls one wall mainly windows two
frames have gone up. Pretty productive day all right it's been a crazy day
um but we got in the water which is good yeah I've hardly seen you no I've hardly seen anyone
I've just been running around like a maniac all day but. But um yeah hopefully we've updated
you on a few little things and there's a lot more to come so we'll see you guys next week
and make sure you subscribe if you haven't already um and like the video that's all. The end. Bye bye