Limestone walls

An important element of the passive design of these buildings was the creation of a thermal mass within the building envelope, to act a temperature moderator between seasonal and night day cycles. Wanting to use a masonry product with a low carbon footprint, we sourced some salvaged limestone blocks from Richmond in Melbourne.

Some of the blocks with tags and art retained.

Salvaged Blackbutt re-purposed as shiplap cladding

Considering the bushfire BAL 12.5 applied to the development, we needed to source a cladding that meet the requirements of the attack level. Choosing timber cut that choice down to a few species and blackout was one. This cladding material had been used by Tubemakers in Port Kembla as pipe stacking bearers, until reclaimed and milled into shiplap profile. We love the look of this special material.

Blackbutt cladding on the end gables.

From seabed to High Country

Limestone blocks salvaged from a Richmond (Melbourne) factory need refacing to remove grime and wall paint. Antonio was keen to help and got through about 2000 big blocks in few weeks. He even uncovered a few fossils of sea life.

The block master, making short work of the ancient seabed.

My winters art work for the accommodation

Four down two to go! My mosaic tables for the private garden area for each room. They are all salvaged tables from an auction house in Melbourne. $10 each and now priceless! LOL 

The fold up iron chairs were $10 each too from a coffee shop in Albury that decided on new plastic ones and were throwing these one away! Love them they are perfect for all weather and strong metal frames. This table has a brass sea horse in the centre, it broke off the end of a serving spoon. The spoon was a gift from my friend Viv Bright it broke about 10 years ago, I could never throw it away and finally I set it into the centre of my work! 

Frustrated Rock Climbers!

The rock climbing harnesses have come in handy for the monkey's on the roof!  Lin and Clay have finally got the safety message!

Spring and progress

Sorry for the slowness on our Blog! Its been a big Winter and building is progressing faster now that Spring has Sprung, the finer weather is finally here! We have achieved so much really Steve has not only moved into his 6th decade but has been building and project managing the New Spring Spur Riders Retreat.

We are all very excited to announce our new online booking system! 

The olden days checking the Post Office every day for booking forms mailed by the POSTIE seems a thing of the past like the delivery by horse and cart of BOTTLED Milk, Yes I remember those olden days as a kid hearing the clip clop of the Clydesdales massive shoes on the newly made tar road!

Our dreams are coming true the final stage of our infrastructure and a place we can share with our family and friends long into the future.

Framing the view

Now that the framing is complete it is time to frame the view, the mountain landscape that is the destination for our renowned Packhorse Expeditions.

Big Hill fills the sky line, looking out to the south.

Roof over our heads

A fine stretch of weather helped get the first stage of the roof on. Then.... wet, wet, wet winter brought progress to a halt.

Flat roofs over the studio en suite rooms.

Framing contractors complete the light timber frame

The out of season Ski Patrol chippies have completed the wall and roof light timber framing and timed it well with winter snow and patrol commitments just over the horizon.

All framed and ready for a roof

Up go the roof frames

Hired a crane for the day, had the bolt holes all pre-drilled and from dawn to dusk got the whole frame

tied together before sunset. 

The Barwon Heads bridge timber settling into it's new role.

The final piece slips in on dusk.

Kitchen frame

Before the heavy trusses can be placed into position, the support structure needs to be braced, by leaning on the braced up light timber kitchen frame. By next summer this will be the engine house for the some great meals and long lunches in the completed riders lounge.

Kitchen frame takes the load

View from the staff room

Putting together the big frame

Working with heavy salvage timbers can still be an exercise in carpentry. As my chipie mate Andy says, carpenters work in millimetres and plasterers in centimetres. Joints are checked out to allow for variations in timber sizes, steel plates bolted on and the whole thing bolted together like a portal frame.

Posts are checked out to a common thickness

Plates bolted on with M20 bolts

 "Roger" the beam to the left is named in honour of the source, regular rider Roger the Gippsland Dentist. 135mm x 390mm x 5400mm solid WA Jarrah.

Plates of steel

Our special heavy timber trusses, built on site from the Barwon Heads bridge timbers, are to be assembled using 10mm steel plates cut to engineers plan using laser cutting technology.

Plates made from black steel and allowed to rust.

Toolbox

Because we are heading into winter we have created a little toolbox to keep the tools dry when the weather comes in. It will probably retire to a second life as a new chook shed.

The little toolbox that will be a chook shed

House of sticks

The arrival of the framing timbers marks the beginning of the next phase of the building. Going vertical. Framing is always an exciting part of the build, as the spaces, views and scale all take shape. Apart from the the large span trusses in the lounge area which feature the Barwon Heads bridge timbers, the bulk of the framing will use locally sourced plantation pine from Carter Holt

Packs of timber ready for framing

Clean up the timbers

The Barwon Heads bridge timbers came complete with the remnants of the road surface. Before cutting the timber to construct the lounge area, the tar and stones were removed with a hammer chisel and wire brushes. We found the task was reasonably easy to do on a hot day when the tar was soft.

Timbers cleaned up and ready to cut to size

The little tractor

After old mate Jed ripped up the front lawn to lay irrigation drip pipes, we had to do a heap of raking. To the rescue came the lawn mower with a custom blade fitted to make easy work of pushing soil back into the irrigation trenches. With a bit of a top dress in spring this garden area should maintain a green fire resistant swathe right through the summer months.

The little tractor

Raising the bar

Kath spotted a small advert in the local paper. Someone was selling a slab of timber that had been the workbench in the Yarrawonga Coachbuilders shop for 100 years. Close to 5 m long and 1 m wide this chunk of equine history had BHA written all over it. Now back at Spring Spur and awaiting a bit of a tidy up, this piece of timber will become the centre piece "bar" in the Riders Lounge.

The workbench awaiting it's new purpose.

Consulting the poofessor

Being entirely self sufficient on our own water resources, a key component of the project design was to recycle the waste water generated from the buildings as garden water. After considering various worm and reed bed systems we opted to install twin Taylex aerated treatment plants, which deliver all our waste water back into sub-soil irrigation fields. The first irrigation field waters the central garden areas between the stables and the other buildings, maintaining an important green band right through the summer months and acting as part of our wild fire  management plan. The second field will be installed in plantations to be planted along the colt paddocks, to create shade and suppress summer dust from the lane.

Clay checks the levels in the hole

Taylex plant in, filled with water and backfilled.

Barwon Heads Bridge

Our heavy timbers for the trussed area in the Riders lounge arrived today. Long straight sections of 200mm x 110mm stringbark, salvaged from the "infamous" Barwon Heads bridge.

Our supplier, Mark from The Beauty of Timber, a Kinglake business that was devastated in the 2009 bushfires, has put together this order for us from his re-emerging business. The timber was delivered by their new truck. Looking forward to working with this heritage timber and giving it a new life holding up the roof rather than the traffic.

Offloading the bridge

New Elevations

Spent a wet Saturday rendering new elevations of Spring Spur building cluster, using Google Sketch-up. Helps put form into the working drawings and even resolves a few details around roof lines etc.

West Elevation 

 South Elevation

East Elevation 

North Elevation 

View from above - NW 

View from above - SE