All posts by Estwing

design principles, Eco Thrifty Renovation, wanganui

Nature as the Model

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We’ve thought long and hard about what makes an eco-thrifty renovation. I say it is mindfulness. Specifically, we are trying to be mindful of energy, materials and toxics. To help guide us, we have adopted 7 guiding principles that we have drawn from nature. We’ll be providing plenty of examples in blogs, videos and podcasts to come, but for now, here they are:

  • Solar Gain
  • Thermal Mass
  • Insulation
  • Reduce Waste
  • Reuse Materials
  • Recycle Materials Not Reusable on Site
  • Minimize Toxic Materials

We hope that you’ll visit us regularly to learn and laugh.

Peace, M.C. Estwing

contests, our story

David Byrne: Time traveller and Biographer?

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You may ask yourself: well… how did I get here?

Some times, when I sit back and take stock, I just have to wonder. How did we end up in this hundred year old villa, in a decile-one neighborhood, on the shores of a tiny island in the pacific? Is this my beautiful house? Is this my beautiful wife… err, husband? And where is that large automobile anyway?

A bus pass and folding bike will have to suffice for now.

Here we are at the start of another huge leap of faith. Having just married, we grew out of the shotgun shack-truck and have found ourselves a bit further down the west coast of lovely Aotearoa. Whanganui will be our home for the near future as we embark on a project in building community, building awareness, and re-building a house.

This project is about the process as much as it is about the final product. While we aim to end up with a beautiful, warm home that has benefited from an eco-thrifty renovation, we also aim to explore the junction of where our ideas of eco and thrifty meet the council’s ideas on safety codes and inspections. We aim to learn heaps, and pass that knowledge onto others as we dispel the myths of consumption-based green marketing campaigns and prove that you don’t need to be rich to be green. Eco-thrifty is indeed a possibility.

Once in a lifetime…
Letting the days go by…

-June Cleverer