I’ve been away from hobbithaven too long! Art and other diversions…(started a blog for my art if you’re wondering what could possibly be more important than doing hobbit havens! – www.altarsofart.com) But I’ve just done a door and window prototype in the recycled chipboard I’ve scavenged from a transport place in town – they need rebating and glazing and painting and fittings of course, but it is important to try full-sizes models. The hobbits, aka grandson Bruno and daughter Anna, visited for lunch yesterday and loved it. (Door is only 800 mm – fine for Bruno, but in the real children’s cabin it will probably be 1200 mm (4 foot)) Ferrocement will follow, with all the curves and carved features of brick and stone.
Also planned for the inside is good wood – elbows of beautiful driftwood pohutukawaka or red birch or totara; shelves and furntiure of recycled native wood or old oak if we can get it… There won’t be a shred of chipboard in the hobbit havens, of course. I actually got a hangover from routing and sanding this stuff – there are traces amounts of solventy things in chipbard I gather – from the glue. I really am a canary in the coalmine nowadays. Raewyn thinks this is a good thing – I will HAVE to use natural wood!
Watch this space. It is high Srping now and time to start Bruno’s cabin in the ‘deep dark woods’ at the bottom of their garden. I will document progress and follow up with a ‘how-to’ ebook, assuming it goes to plan, or better!
Dreamhaven 