Birthday Group

Family members visited the solar-passive house in Monash Street, Manilla, NSW, in Mid-winter 2016. The date of their visit is shown on the graph in this earlier post. This photo shows us dressed for comfort at 17 degrees indoors.

Interviewer:
What do you think of Grandpa’s house in winter?

Grand-son (10):
I like Grandpa’s house. It’s nice. Except there’s no wifi. But apart from that, it’s good.

Grand-daughter (13):
Grandpa’s house? It’s cool. It’s interesting. Awesome curtains – I get a shock when they move because I’m not used to it. The garden is cool too – it’s pretty.

Daughter:
I love winter. And I love visiting my Dad. He built this really great house in Manilla nearly twenty years ago. Prior to that, he was tenanted in an old office space above the newsagent. I loved visiting him back then as well, even if his flat was super hot in summer and not at all cosy in winter. The house he built is wonderful all year round.

Even if there are only a few hours of sun each day in the depths of a NSW winter, that is all you need to warm my dad’s house. You can find yourself a chair in the sun, sit for a while and imagine you’re on vacation in Hawaii. Only with much better coffee. As the sun goes down, the sound of noisy birds settling in for the night comes through from outside.

Kitchen view SW

The kitchen is well-stocked for preparing dinner (especially after we restock it) and, once the stove is on, it’s toasty warm in there. There is a curtain that closes the kitchen off from the rest of the house, but cooking time is social time for us, so we leave it open – which also helps flood the house with the delicious smells of curry. The house finally gets coolish sometime after dinner. That’s when we don the cardies and fluffy slippers and pre-heat the beds. The electric blankets, even on low, manage to warm the bedrooms all night.

Next morning, on a strict schedule, the automatic curtains fly open to announce the new day. Not being an early-morning person, I make good use of the curtain override button. At least, until I get the first whiff of toast.

Son-in-law:
Having grown up in India, I find summer is a breeze and cold weather is a challenge. After a couple of decades in Canberra and almost a decade in Switzerland, I have finally realised that dealing with winter boils down to managing the environment in the house and wearing the right gear.

I have stayed in my father-in-law’s house in Manilla several times, in summer and in winter, most recently in the winter of 2016. The house is comfortable in both summer and winter. I remember feeling colder in winter when I first stayed there compared with now – I am not sure whether the house is warmer, or I have more layers of fat to protect me as I get older. Maybe I just dress more appropriately now for winter thanks to my time in Switzerland.

The place where we hang out the most is the kitchen, and around the kitchen table, over cups of coffee or improvised meals, catching up on left and right leaning newspapers. The kitchen is very cozy in winter, especially when there are multiple dishes cooking away on the stove.

A memorable feature of my father-in-law’s house is the automated curtains which felt space-age when I first experienced them, but now I am used to them. They are like a bell-less morning alarm. Being a morning person, I beat them to it, and am awake before they start moving and letting in light.

I love the balcony on the first floor. It is well protected and I can sit there for hours with a cup of coffee and a book, and listen to cockatoos and other birds, and watch the paragliders in the distance when they are out. In winters the mid to late afternoons are the most comfortable.

In the garden

As the trees and shrubs in the evolving garden have grown and the paths have become more structured it has become a wonderful place to walk around and to relax. The garden bench is particularly inviting. This man is as passionate about his garden as he is about his house. The guided tour of his garden is one of the highlights of our stay there.

Interviewer:
Thank you all for your answers.
Goodnight, everyone.

Recent photos of the house and garden are here.