The Fairytale House Shaped Like A Shoe

ever so often we're fortunate enough to discover places so magical that they almost exist on the fringes between reality and fantasy and that is exactly the case with this property where we have found some truly the wildering homes [Music] hey Steve hey how you doing bro good mate great to meet you nice to meet you what is this it's big boot size 318 and it's a boot that you've made into a house I was a bit we made as a house from the fairytale there wasn't a woman who lived in a shoe essentially and we're kind of like fairy tales and the whole romantic thing about it except that she was so wicked we had to evict her because she whipped her children and send them to bed and gave them broth with no bread and you know she was a terrible woman really so yeah we kicked her out and now it's a lover's retreat well you can't have any of that can you and a lover's retreat is definitely very suited to the style of this place you've absolutely hit that whole fairytale theme on the head how on earth did you achieve this yeah make a plan and then you work out how to do it and then you just do it really yes I mean it was quite a probably a year or so in building because we drank too many bottles of wine I think and next thing you know we're building a boat yeah why don't we build a boot yeah that was the best sort of shape and then it was after a couple of years of why don't we build a bill it was okay look we got to either shut up about it and forget about it or get on with it don't so we chose the second yeah James yeah got on with it and it was a big job Duane was working on it for years yeah he was really pedantic about details and that's why we've got all the beautiful stitching lines in the holes for the eyelets and he insisted on a lace and yeah I had to make the copper rivets for this yeah we would have probably not gone to the mountain this is not you have to have it he's going to be a boat has to be a proper boat yeah the stitching lines are in the soul and they look they're even the little curved pieces over the top of the windows and just the the lines of it he was yes so every little bit had to be just perfect yeah and yeah there's no choice because it is it's the shape is perfect and so this was constructed using ferro-cement right yeah what's that process like so essentially building a steel frame we hit this got steel ribs so we had another friend who was a boat builder who was able to loft the shape of the the ribs essentially sets an upside-down boat that the tow part of it and then steel the other way thinnest steel and the chicken wire and then a concrete plaster had plaster with somebody standing on the inside to push it through the mesh and then another another layer and then a spray insulation on the inside and then another layer of plaster so you end up with a sandwich insulated sandwich with the steel on the outside of it and one of the really unique characteristics of working with ferro-cement is that you're not locked into a square building by any means really creative not in the slightest I mean you can do it with other techniques as well I mean you can build round things with earth without too much trouble but if you want actually get a curved roof like that in Ferris I mean definitely is the way to go don't trouble with furiously their guesses the weather proofing and so you've got to be really onto making sure that you've got a good quality paint and that you keep it painted because that's what you're relying on for the weatherproof now before we go inside can you tell me a little bit about the land that we're on right now and how this whole place came to be so you're at the jester house Judy and I bought this property in 1991 it was just beer land six acres three acres of flat three acres of hill and we came to make a place where we could call home and our children could call home started with the cafe in 1991 in the little house that we had been and then started building really and this was 1999-2000 that we built the boat so yes 18 years old now and still looking pretty pretty smart it certainly is and so you actually built your family home out of mud brick didn't you yeah Matt bookend rammed earth and pressed bricks and wattle and daub actually but a lot yeah so lots of clay techniques one of my design criterias you have to have a swinger cat because being a tall person I like to have a bit of Headroom so you know three meter studs and stuff which you don't see very often in modern houses well should we go see if you can show you a cat in the boat yep absolutely come on in so this is this is the boot this is absolutely brilliant yeah it's it is it's nice and there's same thing with not having corners there's no energy cord so it's it's kind of feels soft and very human yeah and almost big enough between your kick isn't the target and walking in here it really is just incredibly cozy isn't it it does have that fairytale home feeling yeah well that's that's what we want because it's for two people is we really design it just for to get onto the couch and you're just in front of the fire and it's it is it's it's lovely do you need I can move occasionally not very often anymore but when we first built it we stayed here a few nights date night in a shoe is definitely a really interesting proposal but I can really see it working here especially the way that you've got this beautiful table set up but just once you kind of like yeah couch four to two seats by the fire outside you know shower for two everything's kind of and then an yeah BB in obviously but it's all about together there's no internet and here is terrible there's no TV so really it's about connecting it spending time together a talking in it seems to work got to talk to each other and key in again sorry sucks yeah and you've got a really nice kitchen in over here as well yeah unfortunately I mean the regulations local council regulations because it's a sleepy art it can't hear that kitchen per se but you could have a bar so it's got a kitchen sink in it you know mini bar and a kettle and stuff so you can't cook but it you know it does everything else the kitchen does and from the cafe we do make platters for people as well so I don't have to go out if they want to just enjoy the whole evening experience here and it seems really popular as well and then in the heel you've got the bathroom yeah so it's just it's only the third the sort of accommodation it is it was important to have a like a big bathroom so yeah they say shower for two composting toilet will the toilets your drag toilets and yeah vanity pretty simple but it's yeah everything that you need and you can have two people in it the shape of a boot it's just so unusual to work in and I'm really impressed with the way that you've actually laid out everything within its footprint to make it all very functional and have all very good-sized rooms but to me it was actually really quite a normal shape if you think about a we've built a tower so just two stories ending with a theatre straight gable roof off there that's essentially a boot and so then you just round there and shape there and essentially it's that two storeys with a the end so it's your that part of it I guess the internal layout was you came quite quickly in the design really how it all fit it together in the asite spiral stairs because they don't take up very much room upstairs or downstairs and talking about the staircase this really is quite a centerpiece of the home isn't it you know together with the fireplace it's really does lead you out it's it's inviting I think to have a spiral staircase like then it certainly as did you custom build it for the space no I found the the steel frame I saw it lying in a paddock over in the MU teri and then got a lot of trailer got at home painfully not made new steps yeah it was all just came together what a lucky find should we check out the upstairs sure come on up so what size is this home actually exercise 218 which was extrapolated diamond size 13 on my boots and I just kind of measure them and sit down made 318 but it's about 34 square meters on the ground floor and then maybe 15 or so up here this is beautiful I really love how it kind of mixes the earthy feel of the ferrah cement with the gable roof it really does give it that extra fairytale feel isn't it you know just a little bit of carvings in the few little details you know the handmade wrought iron for the curtain rails and the chairs and stuff they're handmade feel as well and then they're all power poles that were there was the main tower that we built in the beginning built a roof and the floor and then the concrete kind of came to it after that and you've even got a little balcony look yeah well you gotta be able to tie your shoelaces absolutely yeah if so view of the pond in bootlace and you can see in the in the courtyard that's the shape of a footprint so you know the giant stood here took his boot off lift as many Footloose oh I'm gonna go barefoot thinks this is just so cool you must have had so much fun building this space yeah I mean it's that's if it's worth doing it's worth doing humorously so that's the idiom for everything it's not funny why are you doing it really I mean this days when you're just doing a big job like there there aren't fun per se on the day but the whole project was fun for sure I mean sometimes it's just you've got to mix more concrete and can I ask what it actually costs to built this I'm not really sure I think I mean I was in 1999-2000 and I think it was about $60,000 $2,000 a square meter so you're not I mean no buildings cheap no interview yeah better because it's not very big it's not too expensive but that is still actually a really great price considering how experimental this was and how unique it is because this is not an easy it's not easy to build with these shapes is it you're not doing we hit a boat and you can hold the boot up and you stand away and you know just being that a little bit more like this or a little bit more like they just get the Guinness it's all about fear curves and I'm with fill the boat builder as well you're doing the ribs and then it's it's just about for your curves like building a boat you know had points no flat spots and then it's just time you once you've got there's lots and lots of time and you've actually got another really unique earth building just up the hill don't you yeah I've got the little one that we've done more recently called the chestnut lodge which is a standalone autonomous building yeah and it's only four years old now great can we take a look at that one absolutely so what was it that inspired the chestnut lodge uh I just love building things and really wanted to make an autonomous house something that didn't need to be connected to the grid but actually was sustainable in the long term like it would collect enough water it would collect enough electricity it would get rid of its own wastes it's got a dry toilet yeah there's been a couple living in it now for a few months and they seem to be doing really well so yeah excellent I can't wait to see it so it's this way up the hill it's a walking access only and it really is a beautiful property yes I mean in permaculture terms this is zone four and five so intentional forest in wilderness whereas the flat land is more than intensively places where you're going every day a little bit different now there's people living up here but you know it was amazing opportunities to move to a property that was bare land and have a vision that you could plant tens of thousands of trees make forests and then years later be walking in the forest be of planter's yeah that's very cool that must feel really amazing yeah and even to the point in our you know milling timber from here Inge it's only that we've been here 27 years so it's not long yeah so this is the front door looking pretty much do whist - sorry papa no no and dear really with the snow on it last week it just this is a spectacular place to be up here and so this one is totally off the grid up here then yep so yeah solar panels on the roof yeah and the core teams steel roof I really like yes this flat flat sheet steel bird and then the progression from one sheet is on this link to and then two sheets on that wing - and then idly how many sheets on that on the main roof which is there's an inverted V so it collects the water the whole thing is of le I mean it runs off to the water tanks at the back there's a drainage around the front of the flat spot here and then the solar hot water pumped with a 12-volt pump for the power shower and yeah the whole system seems to work really well excellent what size pharmacist this about again I'm not exactly sure because it's a five-sided about 33 square meters and what was this one made from so this is like if so this is the newest about you a new old new to me with technique that we learnt since hit building our house so it's a mixture of straw and clay still but the proportions are quite different it's more like 95 percent straw and 5 percent clay it's a very light mix that you picked like grounder that packet just by hand into formwork and you end up with something that looks quite similar to a straw bale all the fibers are covered in clay so it's it's and you can do it these walls are 150 millimeters thick and so you can do it whatever thickness the wall is and then just this window right straight on to it it makes a great substrate for the for the earth render well should we have inside sure it's just so homey in here isn't it yeah the same thing with the softness around the posts and the fact that you've got these outside corners which should in your mind be lower than the front actually being higher because it the way the roof runs and so you get this unusual feeling of uplift at the sides and from a design spective it's worked really well because it just encourages you to look up into this part of the home and then just out Lister we heard that those doors were kind of one of the starting points as well so I knew that the the entrance had to be big enough for those and yeah then we needed a small kitchen and in a bathroom and I'm really happy with it with the design and the the livability you know the couple who are living in here are really happy with it you know there's a toilet this hot and cold running water everything you know all mod cons really and one of the really interesting things about you is you used to be involved and the McGillicuddy serious party can you tell me a little bit about what that party was and what you guys represented here in New Zealand sure so in the most Ian from the 1980s and 1990s the McGillicuddy serious party which was the political wing of the clan McGillicuddy so I'm still a McGillicuddy but we had a political wing and it was an absurdist party it was an anarchist party but it was also furnished paddy so we espoused fun ism is the best way forward if you like so the greatest amount of fun for the largest number of people that's what we were saying if you could have that then you know what more you need from life as opposed to capitalism which is the accumulation of wealth for individuals and we were going to do that through the great leap backwards so that was kind of the really stack people so things were always better in the past so let's you know take a great leap backwards and see how a 500 year plane so year back to a sort of a clan based society post technological society one of my favourite policies with it was the defense policy we were going to shift to New Zealand a thousand kilometres east electronically so it's not very not very much of a thing to do these days particularly when everything's electronic is just to move the coordinates of New Zealand 100 kilometres east you safe forever never find you over there and so as the McGillicutty serious party you actually had a concert didn't you for a small affordable home I had a concept like rides hovels the content was to build a house for less than a thousand dollars and it's when we build Wiggly can we check that out sure all right so this is the low-rise hovel that was built for less than $1000 or mud bricks and uncut firewood essentially so I talked to a fire with Mitch and I said you know I want Monica sticks and I want robinia sticks but I don't want you to cut them up for me just deliver them like that and so he was happy got firewood prices and I got the timber that I needed and yeah a little bit of sawn timber then secondhand windows and doors yeah eighth floor to a proof simple and just a nice oval shape again they're kind of weird there's no energy getting caught it's a very gentle little space about twenty-one square meters or so it was actually funded by the government which is very kind of and they don't probably know that but the work based training scheme we had a guy who was living here and I was chained him to do with building and the government paid a subsidy and that's what paid for the materials so that was the that was the thousand dollars budget came directly from the government so the government is investing in innovative power well should we check out the inside yeah come on in some people say it's like being inside the belly of a whale it does look a bit like that eh it definitely has that very hobbit house feeling doesn't yeah this is you know before before they were trained E as it were yeah so we built this in 1995-96 and yeah so it is very hobbit ish tell me about this roof this is really cool how you've done this yes I can cut firewood for the the moniker the robinia posts I mean these are really interesting that the little sticks so that was Monica sticks that had been used in the tobacco kilns is deceiving actually it looks very simple but each one of those sticks only goes between each rafter so some other ones where they're coming up to the points only very short and they had to be drilled at each end and nailed reteamed and that was actually added quite a lot to the cost that I hadn't affected in the number of drills and the number now it was ten they were needed to to make all those little short pieces and then that's how you get them close together and how you get the look yeah and then on top of the sticks there's carpet under felt and then the plastic membrane on top of it and then the two on top of it and then tell me more about how you actually did the wall structures of this home sorry once we've built the frame so posts beam's roof and so it's like a gazebo then we poured out a concrete ring foundation just use some thick cardboard to make it a shape border a narrow foundation paint at the top of that with bitumen so too is the damp roof and then mud bricks so 150 millimeter mud bricks same as we'd used for the house and then ya play render and then the paint is just jib compound so straight from the bag mix it with water slap it on with a whitewash brush after the house it was the first small building I designed I still saw it as it ever real self spot for it and it's your people have lived in it pretty much continuously for the last 20 years I'm you know for varying lengths of time but in his being has been well used and so tell me what what do you think is next for you on this property there's a few ideas maybe a crooked little house they took a man who walked a crooked mile I quite like that like a post and beam type but small probably 24 square meters about two stories I did have a place and restoring some plans for an acorn so to put on the platform in an oak tree or a black box so 3.6 meter cube which will sit on the platform we've got a platform in an oak tree that I need to build something on so we're just kind of working out exactly what you know what that will be if it's worth doing it's worth doing humorously yeah there's the basis of all of it yeah from the beginning there's been a plan that it was going to be somewhere different that when you're here it was gonna be somewhat different than it was what we wanted that it was you know that when we came here it was like and we're not moving this is it we're not going to paint it beige because we're going to sell it in five years time though they're going to do it as we want to live and that gives you a lot of freedom in scope because you're not thinking that you know you have to restrain yourself because someone else might not like it you know we're gonna build the gardens how we want them we could build the volunteer village how we wanted us now you can have some crazy idea to build own just up marginally and don't do it yeah I love every morning i opening the curtains in our bedroom upstairs in the house and looking at and you know that everything you can see is your creation that's yes it's exactly how you made it and it's you can't see any other houses there's the borrowed landscape of the of the neighbors trees but all the foreground all the garden and it's it's what we've made and it's it's a real treat a stamp you know I am just so excited to see what you do next in this place I think you've constructed such a treasure here every place that you've shown me today has been unique and beautiful and it really is absolutely breathtaking thank you so much it's a pleasure to see the people see what what can be done with imagination in in a bit of time what I love most about Steve's philosophy is there's an emphasis on just having fun and building things that put a smile on people's face life is short and the more things that we can build out there that are just fun and beautiful and make people happy the better and that is certainly what he has accomplished with this place [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 2,116,855

Rating: 4.9015589 out of 5

Keywords: tiny house, tiny house movement, small house, small home, ferrocement, fairytale, storybook, old woman lives in shoe, shoe house, boot house, boot shaped house, natural home, earth home, natural building, light earth, light earth construction, earth building, permaculture, fairytale house, storybook house, living big in a tiny house, unusual home, hobbit home, experimental housing

Id: 3dvfzquDJfE

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 27 2018