We are beginning a brand new project. 
Can you guess. We are still in the planning stages. I will need your help. 
I am sure we will manage to make a great big mess first. 
Yes. It is a building project. My first big building project was the large deep Kiwi verandah on the West side. The second one was taking out the ceiling in the living room to incorporate the attic into a loft study and extra bedroom. 
The third one was the converting part of my basement into a large cellar that is filling with food for the winter.
This one is even grander. A Gingerbread House, in the garden, as a retirement home for The Matriarch. A perfect little self contained miniature home linked to the main house with a glass corridor. All I have so far is a complete vision in my head, a couple of drawings and some paint and sticks on the lawn. 
We will build it right here under the cherry tree.
Naturally it will be built using recycled materials, clever use of angles and windows to maximise the sun or shade, environmentally friendly principles, perfect balance and in a form that will allow it to blend with the house and tuck in under the existing trees. It will be well appointed and quite quite beautiful. It will be light, with high spaces above the head, and interesting windows framing her favourite views. There will be a deep loggia so she can sit outside in the rain or watch the sun go down with a glass of wine and company. And a verandah out to the East for sunrises.
It will have a tiny kitchenette with a beautiful hand thrown pottery basin and a window that opens to the loggia. There will be an inside bathroom and washhouse with an extra outside barn door onto the deck for summer accessibility. The small double bedroom will have a Japanese screen door and I am eyeing the floor of an old abandoned schoolhouse down the road. The main room will be two stories high with a tiny loft for her young visitors, high windows to catch winter sun and a wall full of her books as high as the loft floor. A ladder will access the loft and the books. She will not be alone you see. Her grandchildren and their friends will flock to their favourite Nan in her Wendy house so close to the pool.
There will be a sitting area that has tall windows out to her North/ East courtyard for the morning telephone conversations and late Television watching.
I am still working on where to put the writing desk with her computer.
Everything will be on one level, and joined to the house through a glass corridor that will double as a glass house in the spring, with room for a lovely comfy chair for sitting in the spring sun.
The Matriarch is not old enough to step into that calm period of her life yet, but she is planning ahead. Until she moves in, it will be the perfect guest house for the summer people! A writers retreat or a farm stay cottage. 
My new fire hydrant, Madonna eat your heart out.
Good morning. So here is our homework. I would love you all to put your thinking caps on. At the moment the area is 18 foot square. Once you take out the loggia you have a very small space. We need to work very hard on maximising the space without losing the grace in the lines. Remember light and air! This has always been my mantra when working with a building. I am sure that you have come across some fantastic space saving techniques. I would love to hear about them.
Although The Matriarch is paying for her little house with money that is returning to her purse soon, after a long stay in the hills, we still need to be very careful about the cost. But budget does not have to be ugly.
This weekend The Tall Teenager known now as Triple T Sid and I, are going to build a cardboard model of the Gingerbread House Project. He likes to work in miniature. I will show it to you. I can show it to my builder next week. And I will show it to the junk yard man whose property I will be combing for materials.
Have a lovely day. I had better get a wriggle on and start mine! Daisy is calling. Life is so exciting.
celi
On this day a year ago. introducing the worm farm.
The Kitchen's Garden 
87 responses to “And now for something completely different”
What a marvelous, multi-use project, C! Soon asmy brain returns to normal, I’ll try to come up with a few ideas! 😀
Oh no, your poor brain, i shall pop over today and see how you are doing after your WEEK! c
Nothing to see yet Sweetie – I’m off until Monday!
Good girl..
I think Madonna would be quite jealous! LOL What a cool project. Small high functioning spaces are the hip thing here in HK. We have no extra space so everything is multipurpose. Take care, BAM
That is true Bam, being in a hugh rise in Hong Kong I bet you see some very interesting uses of space.. c
I’m in love with your vision! This is so exciting! I love light and airy spaces – lots of white, windows, (books), and NO curtains or blinds in my house. I can’t wait to see your glass hall way.
Standard bookshelves are space-hogs. I make my own bookshelves exactly 1 book deep, 6-8 inches. Also, when inches matter, I hang the bookshelves 3-4 feet up on the wall so that furniture can back up all the way to the wall.
Very good suggestion, i also am thinking of sinking the book case into the wall. It will in fact BE the wall. Very true about making the shelves i book deep. I have a bookcase that is two books deep in the loft and weirdly it works very well. c
I also have no blinds or curtains, we are so far out in the country and I cannot bear to block out light! c
Have you read “A Place of My Own” by Michael Pollan (better known for Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Rules, and The Botany of Desire). It is his second book, all about creating the perfect writer’s cottage on his property…building it with help and himself…I think it would be fitting accompaniment to your beautiful project!!!!
Oh Natalia what an excellent idea. i shall order it today. I did not know about this one. his others are so consuming.. thank you.. c
Let me know what you think!
Perhaps you can look at floor plans of yachts. Seriously. Yachts are built with space saving in mind and have ingenious ways of using space in double ways. Great idea: the matriarch must be so excited!
You are a star. Here is me grew up on beside the sea and did not even think of that! I have always loved the interiors of yachts.. c
and caravans, which have similar restrictions on cupboards and sinks etc. At least you won’t have to cope with curved surfaces as in boats. Make sure you build in a good level of insulation – your winters are mighty cold and your summers boiling hot. Have you thought of building a straw bale house? Rendered outside and in with lime mortar? Odd shapes and angles are formed with a chain saw, and it would easily accommodate integral bookshelves! There are quite a few examples in France.
Heating: we have geothermal heating, which takes the heat from the earth, 1 metre down, and spreads it under all our floors, ujpstairs and down, by way of a heat exchanger. It is an exceptionally economic way of heating, and for a small house you would get away with a small length of pipes under the soil.
yes looking at those caravan plans is a good idea.. To keep it all on one level the little house will be raised at least 18 inches so heating will be a problem unless i heat the crawl space as well.. I love the idea of a straw bale house though.. I love those deep walls.. but Minus TEN cracks the mortar evidently.. poo.. c
The other way of doing it is to encase stones in wire caissons. I’ll try and find the site where I read about it.
Miss C, I saw a straw bale house being built in Danseys Pass NZ, in the Kakanui mountains. On the old coach road rom Duntroon to Ranfurlyand Naseby. Elevation 3,6068ft very cold in winter. I’ve popped back a couple of times over the years to look at the cottage.
Do you use a different mortar for colder winters?
Its the preferred option for the next house.
Hmm I wonder what they clad it with. I would adore a straw bale house. I just love the depth of them and those lovely shapes, i am not sure how daisy will feel if i start nicking her straw though. One of my objectives is to marry the little house to the big one so it looks as though they belong together.. and were in fact always together.. it is a fun project even from that angle! c
Such a wonderful project! I looked at Natural builders of the northeast http://www.nbne.org/ They use natural renders not concrete; not sure if your climates are similar?
Had lots of interesting information.
I saw a program on house building with glass that is heated from Germany; very cost efficient for heating.
Ooh what a fabulous and fun project although I doubt I could be of any help – my brain doesn’t really think like that. Tell you what, I will bake the cupcakes for when the Matriarch moves in.
🙂 Mandy xo
Ah yes, the cupcakes and a cuppa would be just grand. In fact cupcakes are a perfect miniature cake, so they would be perfectly appropriate. c
Prexactly. 😉
Good Morning, Celi. One of my good friends is an architect. He lived for quite awhile in a small cottage in Oakland (now he lives in a grand old farmhouse in New Hampshire). I’ll forward this to him and see if he has any ideas for you. I already want to come stay in the Matriarch’s house.
It will be a perfect jewel with all our ideas decanted into this space. Thank you for asking your friend, you never know what small gems of wisdom can create a spark in a project. c
maybe take a look at Dwell magazine…I used to take it and it very often had tiny living spaces that had ingenious methods for space saving. They often had more of an urban apartment vibe, but I’m sure there would be helpful tips. I don’t know if there’d be someone to recommend specific back issues or if they have things like that online-but they definitely think “small”. Another possible resource is the “not so big house” stuff. Those books are wonderful, but are sill too large for what you’re looking at. But on their website it seems like they had links to other “not so big” type of sites/architects where you might pick up some ideas.
Thank you Melissa, i shall go and search for Dwell now. As you have guessed my first job is to compile a board of ideas and influences so we can get a feel of how it should look. I am using my PINTEREST board to compile online images too. c
Cannot wait to see the miniature, C! What a fantastic project, I can see it so clearly after your description.
I can see it clearly it is just so hard to explain it clearly in words but writing it down does help to crystalise an idea.. . c
I love this idea – you are so jaw-droppingly innovative Cecelia!
Morning Julie! We can decorate with peacock feathers too!! c
In the Kitchenette build the cupboards comfortably deep, but leave off cuboard doors, this will allow more ease of movement without ‘tripping’ over doors when being opend and closed, also allows corners to be used. Small fixed counter for kettle and toaster but have a rolling butcher block with built in cuboards (baskets?) that can be used for extra wokspace/storage and double up as a breakfast nook table thingy 🙂 Laura
I hate cupboard doors too, have you been peeking in my kitchen? Now that butchers block idea is a very good one.. but first i want one in MY kitchen!! love this already.. c
Sounds an exciting project. You have very cool ideas which I’m sure will work out as you’re so positive.
Europeans are used to using small spaces, you may even have some ideas roger! c
good luck and have fun with your new project!!
we can always find a bit of fun can’t we terry! c
Speaking of butchers block, that is what I made my counter spaces of (for I love to cook and bake and chop). Wonderful Ideas, C, I can hardly wait to see what you come up with. One note of caution, if you did around the base of trees you will kill the trees. Tree roots are as wide as their tops are wide and as deep as the tops are tall. If you wish to keep the tree you will need to move the house. If you don’t mind the tree being removed do it first before you build.
(from a Former Horticulture instructor)
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
How exciting—I’m going to surreptitiously query my Architect husband for some ideas. I know that’s a lot easier to experiment with space and design on the computer than on paper, so if you could get access to some software that would be great…
oh that would be great, thank you.. i will see if there are any simple and free software programmes.. what an excellent idea.. c