House of straw

 

 

A truth window may sound like something out of a fairy tale but in straw bale building terms it’s a very practical tradition. It refers to the framed, glass-covered opening in a wall surface that shows what’s behind the facade. In the case of Krysia Grant’s house in Gladstone, 15km south of Masterton, that’s golden Wairarapa straw.

 

When it comes to sourcing building material, there can’t be much that scores higher on the “think global, act local” scale than getting it from a farm down the road – except perhaps growing your own, which Krysia did consider.

 

She also incorporated thousands of bottles from the local tip into an environmentally friendly heat sink beneath the living room floor. The newly oiled matai floorboards were recycled from a neighbouring shearers’ quarters and the windows came from a recently refurbished local heritage hotel. The roof cladding is corrugated Onduline, a bitumen-soaked recycled paper and card product. Macrocarpa timber – a signature of the home’s designers, Wellington’s  Melling:Morse Architects – came from a mill in nearby Carterton. The roof batting is, of course, New Zealand wool.

 

 

 

Melling:Morse’s design is a variation on the classic farmhouse – a long, lean, clean-lined structure with a central corridor linking the living areas with the bedrooms. All walls are white though the ceiling and woodwork are macrocarpa and the lounge area is big on glass. It looks out on to an alfresco sitting and dining area that sits within the roof line and features nifty wood storage beneath built-in seats. Stable doors help with ventilation in the hot Wairarapa summers and wide eaves protect the walls.

 

The back door sits neatly within walls that are one bale wide but, internally, there’s only one straw bale wall. It’s between two bedrooms at one end of the house, creating a noticeable hush.

 

Krysia, who works in Wellington, lives in an apartment in the heart of the city and crams her working week into four days. “On Thursday night I take off my Minnie Cooper shoes and put on my gumboots and head out into the garden.”

 

She certainly makes the most of her three-day weekends. Her projects include developing a farm-style garden complete with large orchard.

 

“There’s no question about it in my mind: this is home,” says this daughter of Polish immigrants, who was inspired to build her retreat after attending a continuing education course on alternative building run by John Storey, an architecture associate professor at Victoria University.

 

 

Krysia had never built a house before, let alone one on a bare paddock. Did that faze her? “You don’t know what you don’t know,” she says with a laugh. “But people were receptive to teaching and explaining things to me. And I have very supportive family and friends.”

 

Her architects and builder were also new to the technology of straw bale building and they were all learning. As a commuter, Krysia couldn’t always be onsite, so whenever builder Dale Finlay phoned her with a query she simply asked what he would do.

 

“And I’d go with that,” says Krysia. “It always worked!”

 

One of the downsides of building with bales is that the house must be kept under wraps to protect it from the elements until the walls are plastered – a job that kept the tradesman busy from April to November. And so it wasn’t till the day before Krysia moved in, when the tarpaulins and recycled corrugated iron sheets were taken off, that she discovered just how light her new home really was.

 

The house was virtually designed around its windows – elegant floor to ceiling double-hung units from the refurbished 1880s Martinborough Hotel. All but two, that is – a fire wiped out the joinery workshop where they were being restored and destroyed the pair destined for the dining room. But reconstructed replicas in recycled timber look exactly like the genuine heritage numbers.

 

A reclaimed church window frames the view from the bathroom’s clawfoot bath – found in a friend’s backyard – and internal doors from the old Dannevirke Hospital are used throughout.

 

 

In keeping with her philosophy of using New Zealand-made, locally sourced and reused products wherever possible, much of Krysia’s furniture is pre-loved. Old oak pieces, such as the dining room sideboard, came from Dunbar Sloane’s Wellington auction rooms, which she haunted when working nearby.

 

A Masterton joiner made the kitchen cabinets from recycled kauri, using untreated pine rather than plastic for the inners. He also made the dining table and bookcase, tailoring it to follow the uneven wall surface behind.

 

To complement her new, wool-covered classic couches, a favourite old armchair has been re-upholstered in bright green wool and its mate in a spare bedroom awaits a similar transformation. A clutch of classic Esther Diamond and Native Agent cushions pep them up.

 

Inspired by her mother, who has always sewed, Krysia has hand-stitched her way through many quilts – the latest a pair of traditional, whip-stitched patchwork bedcovers. Her handiwork features in every bedroom and there’s always a stitching project on the go for relaxing with in the garden.