Some of those columns were local Celery Top Pine, which required endless days of preparation such as debarking with a hammer and chisel, angle grinding and sanding.
Which can have quite an effect on the mental health of even a strong man like Ben…
Our trusted excavator operator, Bob, then helped us raise the poles into position.
Ben used his magical welding skills to cut the steel columns and weld all the cleats into position, meaning that we could raise the steel members at the same time.
Once the Celery Top poles were in position, John did a final touch up with the sander.
Carly and I applied two coats of madison oil.
So bush poles that started off like this…
Are now works of art.
Until Ben nearly caught them on fire!
While all this was going on, our retired friend Jack (who runs a Model Shipyard in the local village and built the clerestory model for us) was building the curved top and bottom plates for the clerestory wall in his workshop down the road. It was a real joy for him to construct the real thing after building the model, which has sparked a new passion for sacred geometry.
At this point we could only hope that a) Jack was building the top and bottom plates to the correct proportions and radii, b) we had erected the columns and beams in the precise locations to support it, and c) the damn thing would fit. So Karim and I marked the location of every column and beam and the curves of the clerestory on the slab, including the centre points and each point of the spiral where the radius changed.
When Ben delivered the plates to site we were thrilled to see that Jack had also marked all the changes in radius on the plates, meaning he had paid very careful attention to detail.
And we all rejoiced when the plates fit inside the lines perfectly.
Even still, Jack tried to stop us from looking when making crucial cuts that meant “no turning back”.
Hurdle one was over, we knew the curved plates had been constructed to the exact proportions. But we couldn’t risk going ahead and constructing the whole clerestory wall only to find that the columns and beams weren’t in the right place. To confirm that, we had no choice but to lift the bottom plate into position, then take it down again. After many moments of scratching our heads trying to figure out how on earth to go about building this thing...
It fit!!!
During the process our designer, Graham, talked us into building the entire clerestory in one piece on the ground (rather than in four sections), then lifting it with a crane. As daunting as that sounded, it made a lot of sense considering that every stud, piece of wall, window opening and rafter was different because of the curves, which would take a lot of time trying to measure and construct once it was in the air. The studs were constructed first and we could start to see what the clerestory was going to look like. Here's the proud team, from top left to bottom right: John, Jack A, Jolly, Jack B, Karim, Penny and Ben.
Then the wall bracing was installed.
One week later all the rafters were on, it was primed, the crane was here and it was all hands on deck. Nervous owner builders positioned themselves on the viewing platform.
Then up she went! 
A bit too close to the rock wall, yikes!
The audience were holding their breathe as it swung around in the air...
Then cheered as the wall spun around and a little (ok large) message of love was revealed.
At the end of the last blog update we said it would be truly wonderful if the clerestory wall was in the air by the end of February, and here it is... 
Thanks to this awesome team, passionate designer, group of great friends and some extra girl power.
And you’ll be glad to hear that the garden is not suffering through lack of TLC, it is truly thriving. In addition to eating loads of fresh organic food, Carly has already stocked the shelves with preserves.
