A builder describes constructing a hoop-style tube house in the remote bush using salvaged wood, thin wire, and button screws. He lays carpet directly on dirt to reduce dust and spot snakes, and uses simple screens instead of full walls to let air move while keeping rain out. Limited supplies forced smarter choices than urban building allows.
There she is, Little Miss Painter, doing some watercolor stuff while I'm putting in the final panels on the, uh, on the wall to keep the rain out. This whole project with the tube house has taught me a lot of things. How to look at resources and how to— just a lot of things. I think one of the ones I was struck with today was How to do more with less. I think when we live in big cities like Dallas or Sydney, we have a habit of doing less with more. We just have crap lying around and we don't really think about it. Let me show you an example of it. So when we start to put the screens up, we're putting them up to stop the rain. There's no point building full walls because you really need the wind to come through. So when we built these ones, we had a lot of wood left around. You can see the pile of wood there. We picked it up for just about nothing in town. So we put these uprights in. We don't need the uprights because it's not structural, so we ended up having to put the uprights in. Well, we didn't have to, but we put the uprights in. Then we created battens on the outside to hold it all. Now the one thing it does do, it gives a sense of integrity that way, which I I have to find out whether or not that's what we need, if that's needed. But then over here, we're on the way out with wood, so instead of putting the battens in, I've just hung this. We're going to wire these together. You can see the overlap. We're just going to wire it together with a thin, like a thin bit of wire like this, just this thin, uh, like fencing tie wire. You can see. So then my thought is, if that's the case, Then it's gonna— it might visually be a little bit better looking at the view, but also saved us a whole ton of material. And it's just part of my thought process is, as we've started to do these things, and, and, and, you know, this is the, the 3rd hoop house my brother's built and the first one I've ever built, is that it's just the ability to be able to, as I said, do more with less. Because ultimately what you've got is what you've got. You just can't run, because even if you do run to town to the hardware store, there's nothing there. Like, it's all sold out, or they've got to wait a week to get there. It can be 2 weeks before it gets there. And so if you've got it, you've got it, but you may need it for another project. Or so anyway, so it's just been an interesting reflection, because just because you can run down the street doesn't mean you should. And just because you can buy something doesn't mean that you, you know, you need to. And just thinking about that level of resource and then looking at different things in different ways and seeing, well, what can I do? And even it came down to some screws. Like there's tiny little button screws that I've got that instead of putting batten boards in, I've just used those to peg up the wire and they're working brilliantly so far. We had our first wet rain last night. It was only light, but the floor was completely dry. The carpet was completely dry. And people look at it and think, well, you got carpet down, well, that's just silly in the middle of the dirt. Yeah, no, it's really not. It keeps the ants out. It gives you something you can sweep it off. You're continually fighting the elements in putting it back, but it actually makes a massive difference to dust. With allergies and asthmas and stuff like that, it keeps it down a little bit. Also easier to see snakes and spiders.
