What started out as a far fetched dream when I was 25 years old, finally became reality in June 2012 fourteen years later. After many years of waiting, many years of searching, and many years of building, my life's dream finally came true, and in style! I don't have the words to describe how I felt for the first month after ALL the madness finished and everyone had left. I spent many hours and days looking up at the roof in awe. Whilst the whole Earthship did look beautiful, there was something about that huge tall 32 Foot high roof. The skylight let in so much light that the entire house was constantly lit up! I even had built in sun dial as the skylight let in a visible circular disk that moved as the sun tracked over the roof in the afternoon. I was in love with the planters, and even though the plants were still quite small, I could see great potential for them to flourish. I had a bamboo plant, a few bananas, some aloe vera, and a few ornamentals to begin with.
The finishing work took about six months in all, which includes all the detail work and artistic touches. I spent about a month with the Auroville team and we polished everything up very efficiently. It was really easy work as they were basically sanding, varnishing, and most importantly getting the flooring done! The ground was basically still literally the ground! I noticed that it was dry, and it was also VERY compacted and had large areas that were mostly concrete after so much cement mixing. What I decided to do was to level the whole area with a minimal amount of gray cement to provide a solid base. We then added a white cement finish that was mixed with brown oxide powder which gave it a very natural appearance. I chose this option for several reasons. One of them is that I wanted a low maintenance and strong house that would last many years before it needed any maintenance. Whilst true earth plastered floors are very beautiful and eco friendly, they are quite vulnerable, and you need a skilled mud plasterer and the right soil to do the job. The task of finishing the floor was definitely a challenge, and we stayed up ALL night long under torchlight whilst they waited for it to be just dry enough to start the finishing rub. To their credit, they did an amazing job of the floor and I haven't had any problems with dampness or cracking. We sealed the entire floor with floor-wax mixed with some coconut oil. It's good to re polish it once in a while. The technique my guys used to do this was quite entertaining. Since we didn't have a nice polishing machine, we made big wads of coconut hair and sat on them. Then the guys would drag each other with one guy pulling a rope whilst the other held the other end whilst sitting on the coconut wad on the floor. They basically played human bumper cars and after about two hours the floor was shining!
When they left I had an almost finished home but with some finishing touches to add! I knew of a very artistic woman called Chloe who had visited Karuna a few years before. I had kept in touch with her very loosely on Facebook. I saw many pictures of her artwork, and she worked with many materials including wood, tile, glass and more. I had always thought of her to be the perfect person to do the tiling in the work in the Bathroom. I knew I wanted tiles, but I needed some genuine talent to make it look good and not just a plain ol tiled bathroom! I emailed Chloe just before the Auroville guys had left to check out whether she might be interested to come ALL the way over here from Holland and take on a paid job. The timing couldn't have been better! She responded right back and said that I wouldn't believe it but she had just landed in India and was looking to do an art commission. LOL! These things are synchonocity at their best!
Chloe was VERy excited to come and help me and she was here with me within a week. Chloe stayed for about 6 weeks, and in the end she did much more than just the bathroom tiling. She also finished off the entire spiral staircase in a funky art-form, and taught us how to do it at the same time. Chloe drew the lines and we filled them in with bits of broken tile that we had random pieces of. She also ended up painting a Huge mural on the wall. This happened quite by accident one day as I was looking at the wall. There was this one strip from top to bottom that looked a very different colour and tint to the rest of the wall. I'm not sure how it happened, but it looked pretty obvious and I was trying to think how to fix it. Then as I was looking at it I thought it looked a bit like a long dropping water fall. I looked at Chloe and asked her if she fancied painting a waterfall mural. I wanted some animals and for it to be funky rather than like a painting. She took that idea up as quickly as I could say it, and within about a week I had a fully fledged waterfall mural adorned on my brown wall. It was a bit nuts,, but I really liked having one element that was totally extravagant. What Chloe did was just amazing, and everyone who sees the work she did always comments how beautiful it is. Please, see for yourself!
When Chloe left things felt almost complete. The last main tasks was to install a simple wooden floor for the kitchen area. Since I had really spent more than could afford I decided to use very thin 8mm pine wood planks. I literally just cut them and glued them down. A bit of sanding and varnish and they looked pretty OK! I also made the wooden kitchen counter which has proven to be a very useful piece of furniture! We have plenty of space to cut, cook, and wash in this space!
The whole house was shiny new, and thank God I had nothing to do for sometime whilst I recuperated and let the profoundness of what I had achieved sink in. It's fair to say that you didn't really want to come and visit me for a few months after I closed the door and settled in! I was, as you can imagine, completely fried and pretty burned out. Nevertheless, Earthship Karuna was looking after me SO well that it was an utterly delightful experience to just shut the world out for a bit and enjoy all the luxuries and comforts that the Earthship was providing me with. Please have a look at my favourite photos of Earthship Karuna!
The greatest day during the finishing stages was having the solar power and water heating systems installed. I had ordered a pretty beefy 1KW solar photovoltaic system, as well as a solar hot water heater that could provide around 400 Liters of piping hot water each day for most of the year. The story of that whole installation could easily be a very long post in itself. My god, looking back I am laughing now, because we had SO many problems and issues, and many entertaining days work to fix them all. These guys were 'Pro's' from Tata and were scheduled to come and fit and install everything in two days max. They arrived with a small truck load of huge heavy batteries, inverter, solar water tanks, 6 huge solar panels.. and much more! It was a massive delivery of sustainable off-grid delights, that would put a smile on the face of any eco friendly folk. We had around 12 Nepali workers who got everything to the Earthship, which was no small task in itself.
In the end they stayed nearly 10 days! Just for starters the whole orientation of the site for the panels was facing the wrong direction. Some major miscommunication there, and so we had to start by digging and cementing a new base for the whole solar array. Whilst the maisoner did that, we set about installing the solar hot water heater. It transpired that I was supposed to have a plumber ready to do this work, and they seemed surprised that I didn't know this. The good news was that, by now, I was the plumber! The local plumbers are among the worst of all the local skilled labor we get here. Everything they do is bad, and leaks, its that simple! So I learned to do all the plumbing myself once the bulk work was done by my workers from Auroville. They were OK but they had to travel 800 KM to be here and even they kept messing things up and I would always have to guide them. So I explained to my Tata engineers that I was the plumber. They seemed surprised as they already thought I was the electrician, since I had told them that I helped do all the house wiring and seemed to know about photovoltaics. As we worked together we had so many beautiful sharings. These guys had a life altering experience with me, sharing our ideas and knowledge. They seemed in awe about what I had done, and was doing. Finally after 10 days of none stop problems and issues we got there! When they left they said many beautiful things to me and one even called me his Guru and touched my feet. This is customary in India and is a sign of great respect. It not the first time this has happened, and whilst I am a little uncomfortable with it, I feel so much love coming from the people who do this that I don't want to stop it.
The power system allowed me to test out my Internet. This was one of the first things I did. Until that point, I had been making do with an incredibly slow 20Kb/s 2G connection that made doing just about anything significant quite slow. There was a 3G network around at that time, and I was always on the edge of getting that signal at the dome. I was hoping when I tested it that it would be at least as good as that, or hopefully if I was a lucky man I might get the 3g tower! Guess what!!?? Bearing in my that my job was as a web developer, and I spent a LOT of time waiting and suffering lost connections, you will appreciate my utter joy at getting a full 3G signal. I can't remember being that happy since! I did a speed test and got a cool 2Mb, which by todays standards is pretty poor, but compared to 20Kb is a rather big boost.
It was VERy clear to me the Earthship was performing better than I had hoped. It held a very constant 21 degrees both during the day and at night. One of my FIRST visits was from 5 young European children and also lived here at that time. They all came in full of energy and excited, as kids always are.. Of course they all said WOW, and looked very impressed. Then one of the first things they noticed was how WARM it was. Uri explained it " It'th th'ow warm in Here" (he was 6 years old with a lisp), and he immediately undressed down to his underwear. All the other kids agreed and they all said together "Yes. its so warm in here!" and then all of them took their clothes off. Then they did what healthy and happy kids do in a huge and totally empty round house. They all ran round and round the house in circles many many times and totally exhausted themselves. It was quite funny to watch, and probably the best reaction I could have hoped for.
I love to play the guitar and sing Bhajans, as well as to Drum. The acoustics in this Earthship are just perfect for both, and I continue to enjoy this space in so many ways. This is one of the potentially great things about self building. You CAN make it just how you want it! I think that all of the things that I had desired and planned had happened, and then some. There are several things that I would do differently, and also I have had a few issues with some of the wood rotting. I will talk about these things in the final part of this Remarkable Diary next time.
After a few months, when I was able to open my doors to people again, I had a very steady stream of visitors. Since Karuna is also a guest house and popular location for Indians and International travelers I would get many visits. Giving the Earthship Tour is something that I found very hard to refuse, even though it meant stopping whatever I was doing and inviting anything between 1 and 25 people into my home and explaining everything. I kept on doing that for around 3 years, almost every day, such was my passion ;-) Today, 5 years later I just let them look and don't spend half an hour explaining it all ;-)
Thank you so much for joining me on this penultimate part of this most epic adventure of my life! In the final part I will write about several things, including what I learned during this process that may be of help to you. I will also give you a five year update and let you know how the Earthship is holding up and any issues I have had. That and I'm sure a lot more! If there is anything you would like to know about please ask in the comments and I am happy to explain.
MISSED A PART?
CATCH UP ON PARTS 1-10 HERE:
Part 1: The creation of my life's dream, a totally off-grid self sufficient home - Earthship Karuna
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Part 2: The dream was born.
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Part 3: How to accomplish anything in life!
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Part 4: Finding My Spot in India at Last! The Journey Ends and Starts!
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Part 5: A plan and vision was born
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Part 6: We Start Building!
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Part 7: The 200 Ft Tree Challenge!
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Part 8: The Show Must Go On!
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Part 9: I love it when a plan comes together!
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Part 10: Interior Design!
