River standing in the morning light, he's almost always awake before the first rays.
Mist down in the valley
This is the front of the house, and the verandah. The kitchen is to the right, the livingroom is inside the large glass doors, and the bedroom are in the northeast and east to take advantage of rising with the sun.
The profile as seen from the north west side. In the winter the suns rays stream in through the windows all along the top (clerestory) windows, warm the pavers on the verandah floor, and shine through the doors and windows. The bedrooms are all on the north face, and act as solar heat collectors. The last light of the day comes in through the side kitchen window, and fall across the livingroom. In the summer it's the opposite. At the height of summer the strong rays don't come in through the top, and they stop at the start of the pavers, so the verandah stays nice and shady. I'm growing more banana plants to block the hot eastern morning sun, that hits the kids rooms and heats the house. The concrete slab and walls hold the cool temperature of the earth and nighttime air. On really hot days, we open the whole house up at night, and the shut down some of the windows to keep out the hot wind. Then we take off down to the rainforested creek to cool off.
We still need to finish the rendering, the other side of the house and half of the front is still just the block work.
We finished the bathroom a couple months ago, but it still feels new! Many of the materials are secondhand. The floorboards are salvaged old growth timber, they needed a lot of work to come up nicely. The french doors we're given to us by a friend, and the sink vanity is recycled. David built the whole bathroom, I sanded back the doors and painted them, we both worked on the floorboards, and I tiled the whole inside. It looks kinda flash, but it really didn't cost much to build.
