I loves those niches to pieces

Window seat area with windows old and new and a niche - it's shaping up well, yes?

Working on the very shapely north wall and window seat means that every one of those little details that we've been planning for months or even years comes to life.

The latest bit of fun is the niches.  We planned two - one with shelves and one with just a ledge at the bottom.  The challenge was to create some niche-shaped formwork that could sit there while I made a wall around it, then removed later.  I'm not the world's greatest carpenter, so I sweated and worried and procrastinated.  Eventually, I did what comes naturally - improvised!

Wheely good formwork for niche with ledge

The wheelbarrow wheel exploded that day when all the infrastructure failed.  It turned out to be just the size and width I needed for the curved top.

On the last day of our summer holidays we mudded the first niche into place.  That day was a real slog and it was sad letting go of the summer hols, so pulling out the wheel at the end of the day and revealing the niche was a bit special.

Freshly minted niche - still wet, with bamboo in place

I buried lots of bamboo in the wall to hold the curve and support the structure.  I also used three or four strong pieces of bamboo as a lintel buried horizontally above the niche, to spread the weight of the full-thickness wall above the niche to the columns on either side.  But once the wall is dry and set, it takes its own weight nicely, so I snipped out some of the bamboo.

Partly dry, with some bamboo removed

The rest of the bamboo will stay buried in the wall and I'll render over it.  The key-hole shape is accidental, but I kind of like it.  Later on I'll decide whether to snip out a bit of straw to make the walls straight, or leave it like that.

Last weekend we finished the last full-height wall of the building (whoo!), which contains a matching niche with three shelves.

Wet wall: niche with three shelves all wrapped up, ready for the big reveal

The shelves are meant to look like they are just sitting in mud, but really they are attached to a strong framework buried in the wall.  The photo at the top of this page shows the niche in the wall, and the context.

It is soooo hot here.  I'm writing this in the shade, waiting out the heat of the day so we can work again in the evening.  Hopefully it will drop below 30oC because we are putting a ceiling on the window seat area and it is very exposed work.