It took three men just three weeks to build the outside shell of a new rammed-earth house in Alexandra.
Derek Shaw and his partner Rachel Petrie wanted to build a house that fitted into the Otago landscape and they liked the idea of a rammed-earth home.
The couple built their previous home, with a modern design, in Hawea and Ms Petrie said it just didn't feel right when they moved in their large wooden furniture.
She had friends in Hawea who built rammed-earth houses and she had watched as one was being built.
"I decided that's what I wanted and I knew it would be right for us," Ms Petrie said.
While she was set on the idea from the start, it took a while to convince her partner.
He finally agreed, and their friend Jimmy Cotter from Hawea said he would help.
The walls are built by setting up two parallel shutters for each section of the wall.
"We had a young guy called Shane who ended up being inside the shutters with a tool to ram the earth down. Derek kept shovelling the earth and concrete mixture in, virtually on top of Shane, and he worked away inside making it solid and secure."
Ms Petrie wanted lots of small alcoves in the walls to use for storage and she admits that caused a few headaches for the guys.
The floor is polished concrete aggregate and is very easy to look after, a real bonus with three young children in the house, she says.
The final result is one that is in keeping with the surrounding landscape of rocks and tussock.
Ms Petrie said it was a warm house and, once the radiator in the living room heated up the rammed earth bench nearby, the warmth stayed even when the heater was turned off.
"I like how it feels and, when you see all the really old mud brick and rammed earth houses around Central Otago, you can see how well they have stood up to the test of time."
Keen to make the house their own, Mrs Petrie convinced family and friends living in other parts of the country to each send a little memento, which she put in a huge old preserving jar she got from WasteBusters.
The jar was embedded in the wall, along with a metal cylinder Mr Shaw's father put together containing the family history. It is plugged with an old penny. The third memento is a mold of a red heart which Ms Petrie made.
Mr Shaw was worried what would happen if they wanted to sell the house and the new owners didn't like the mementos built into the wall.
But Ms Petrie convinced him that "a lot of houses are built just to sell. This is our home so it had to be about us."
