We are busy with a building project at the house to add an extra bedroom for our baby boy who is due at the end of September. As with all building, it was meant to be a quick little project, but largely thanks to my fuzzy pregnancy brain it now feels huge! There just seem to be too many things to think about and organise and the clock is ticking away very loudly in my head. The existing structure – previously used as a kids playroom and general storage space for sports equipment and outdoor stuff – has been broken down and it seems to be taking ages to build it up again into a wider more functional space.
Part of the reason why it’s taking so long is because we are building with 13 x 13 inch sandstone blocks to match the rest of the house. Decades ago my father-in-law had a full-time stonemason working on the mountain to cut blocks for his various building projects. We used most of the left over blocks for our last renovation, which left us in a bit of a predicament because the new sandstone blocks one can buy are much smaller and look a lot more like bricks. Fortunately, Quentin was able to track down a team of craftsmen trained in the old techniques to cut new blocks for us. They have been busy for a few months already and it is painstaking work. Everything is done by hand with special tools. It’s incredible how they cut such straight and perfect blocks out of huge chunks of sandstone that have rolled down from the top of the mountain without shattering. The cutting site is carefully selected to make sure they use only the hardest and best quality sandstone. We hiked to the cutting site a few weeks ago to check on their progress. So far so good, but now we need to get those heavy blocks back to the house to get on with the building… otherwise this preggie lady’s nerves will shatter!
Vastrap Farm 
will be awesome when done… x
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