There's a gardening show here called Gardening Australia and they had a segment of this lady's house and garden and some of the stuff she did is right up this joint's alley! I had posted this on the GJ forum, too, cuz she's also a sculptor.

Anyway, I'm just waiting for Spring so I can get back to my mosaicing my bench!! The hyacinths are blooming so it can't be too far away - except that snow fell in the mountains around my town yesterday which kinda ruined my desire for warmer weather! HA!

ENJOY!
Cait

I absolutely love everything she did. that is my idea of a beautiful peaceful space to spend time in. WOW. i'm going back and check it out again.

How is your bench coming?? Hint hint.. soon it will be spring

Irene lives about 8/9 hours from me. Her garden is part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme and it will be open the beginning of October. Maybe we'll go. I think it would be a lot of fun.

I found this about the house: "In 1998, Irene Stone Pearce purchased a 50,000 gallon concrete tank on 450 square metres of land. The tank was built in 1944 as water storage for the old town of Tinkleton. It is10 metres (33') across and almost 4m (12') tall. When Irene first saw it, she climbed down the old rusty stairs, jumped in and had a swim in the beautiful, clean water. She had already decided to make it her home.

Getting started

Irene and a few friends spent several days siphoning and bucketing the water from the bottom of the tank. Irene then hired an excavator to remove 20 truckloads of soil, as three quarters of the tank was buried underground.

The main tank became the kitchen, dining and family room. Three additional tanks (3,000 and 5,000 gallon) were purchased and lowered into position by cranes. They were transformed into a bathroom, laundry and a small room for Irene's grandchildren. A concrete cutting contractor was hired to cut holes for the doors and windows.

Once the skeletal structure of Irene's home was complete, she set up camp outside. She designed, landscaped and did all the physical work on the house and garden on a very low budget. In October 1998 Irene moved in, nine months after purchasing the property. She decided to call her home Tickle Tank because everyone is 'tickled pink' when they visit."

I'd love to see inside her house. Really cool idea she had and it didn't cost much at all. So you get an idea of how big the land is, 450 sq meters is roughly a plot of land 50 feet by 100 feet. Not very big but enough to create something fabulous on.