Darryl's log home

Building in Glencairn. We started by digging two trenches that would eventually be filled with concrete and be retaining walls. The retaining walls would strengthen and anchor the structure especially because of the slope. The big trench depth was 41/2 meters in depth and 21 meters in length. a lot of digging! The view from across the valley of our empty, sandy plot. Now begins the steel work (Expensive) Then the shutter boards and boxes... And finally the cement. (Also expensive.) Our amazing crew of builders was headed up by John and Dicky. They are from Malawi - men of caliber, integrity and strength. Preciouse, Lobson,  Timothy and Steve. Finally, sfter a LOT of concrete - the main retaining wall is finished! Mischa is watering the cement.

 Our plot is on quite a slope so the building will have to stand on pillars.  We will one day have the most wonderful view!  We started to clear the plot in preparation for the building.

 Darryl cut the logs into 2.8 meter lengths to be collected and taken to the sawmill to be turned into planks for flooring.  The ends had to be painted to protect the wood from bugs.  Some logs, particularly the pink gum, cracked a bit.  The white gum was way more dense and seldom cracked.  The truck picked up 30 tons of logs to be worked into planking. Here you can clearly see the two different colour planks.... pink and white gum. :

 Darryl made peelers for taking off the bark. We learned a few tricks  by trial and error... like peeling the log immediately otherwise it became a HUGE mission!  Once the logs were peeled,we sprayed them with a Boron, boric acid and glycol mixture that we cooked up. This is an anti-bug and fire retardant.  Painting the ends with old engine oil to keep the insects from getting in. Freshly peeled logs before they were treated and tagged. Once the logs were treated with the Boron mix, we  tagged them, logging their circumference measurements at both ends as well as their length and a detailed description of each log to assist us later in deciding which log would fit where in the structure of the house.