...The task of being my own builder was an enforced one, for the hope of possessing a cot in the hills was likely to be postponed indefinitely by the very high cost of labour and the expense of carting material to the spot where it was needed - a bare hour's train journey from Melbourne, but right in the open country on a hillside. The more I thought of doing the job myself the more I liked it, and with the idea of recommending the building of a country cottage to readers of "The Home Beautiful" I have jotted down the following notes:-

First of all, of course, I laid down my ground plan, having quite definite ideas of what I wanted, but leaving open certain possibilities for 'progressive alterations'. (This is where one has the advantage of the architect and the hired builder, whose plans are like those of the Medes and Persians.)

Then came the selection and collection of material. I considered dressed timber, hewn slabs, sawn logs, and finally decided upon stone. From the moment of discovering that I could do the work in that most picturesque of all building material I fell a victim to the fascinating pastime of 'collecting stones', and the only ill I suffered was to my patience, for I was all agog to be mixing the mortar and starting to build.

It appeared as if there would be ample stones in the vicinity, and it became a matter of gathering them, sorting them and heaping them ready to hand. Here's where the fascination began. How one's eye instinctively wandered over a hillside picking out the most promising rocks for building with! By instinct it seemed, though really by practice, one picked out the suitable walling stones from those with no face - likewise colorful pieces, corner stones and rubble for the centre. Special stones were lugged for miles, but most of them were piled on to the sledge and hauled to the site by Adam.

A word here about my team of helpers. The most regular was my four-legged friend Adam (who was succeeded by Dan, who was succeeded by Blackberry, as they say in Genesis). The most resourceful was the Chief Mate - a young step-nephew who spent countless weekends with me while the building was going on. The most amusing were the stray visitors who offered criticism: good, bad and indifferent, but who frequently caught the stone-collecting germ and would bring along useful pieces of rock that had attracted them by their colour or shape.

When the stone-gathering was well advanced I went after the sand, and found plenty of a good building variety on the nearby road. Every heavy rain washed down loads and loads of it, and when it was mixed with cement in the proportion of one in six or one in eight it made excellent mortar that has stood the weather equal to good lime mortar. For the necessary timber we could go to the bush hard by.

Presently the time arrived for the cutting out of the foundations and the placing of big stones for the base of the walls, and incidentally entering upon the most enthralling part of the whole building - the stone work.

The erection of the walls and the chimneys held no terrors. To fit in the stones and keep the walls true was nothing less than an intriguing game, and it is no Irishism to say that they set as they rose. It is true that the chimneys all smoked, but they won't fall down - and after all: that's the main thing! But my troubles began when, the local supply of stone having proved insufficient at the moment for the walls of the big room, I decided that it would have to be temporarily constructed of wood. Then my ignorance of building methods and principles produced all sorts of weird errors and wonderful effects...

Meanwhile the infinite pleasure one derives from being in possession of one's own hearth whereon logs of no mean proportions are burnt; the realisation that the exterior of one's abode is not a blot on the landscape, into which I flatter myself it melts; and the companionship of the animals that share it with me compensate for a great deal. And I flatter myself that disintegration of the stone work won't set it in for many decades!

...

A room 18ft. x 10ft. with double glass doors leading on to a piazza overlooking a little flower patch and nursery garden is the main room. Off this is the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. You go up two steps into the bedroom, because it is built on the side of a hill.

There is the stone chimney in the kitchen, bedroom and main room. Domesticated relations regret the absence of a range in the kitchen. I, however, prefer the open fire, not being domesticated. Soon the cottage will be closed in amongst lots of trees, mostly deciduous: Liquidambers, Golden, Silver, and Italian Poplars, Lime Elm, English Ash, and lots of others with a sprinkling of evergreens. It is in fact, developing into a nursery for trees and shrubs.