Meet Amy Elleway and her recycled timber dream home
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Sustainable living starts at home. That was Amy Elleway’s motivation as she built her 9-star energy-rated, recycled timber home stick by stick.
With no design or architecture credentials but a passion for sustainability and a mind full of inspiration after living in Japan—known for its intersection of minimalism and timber—Amy set out to create her dream home.
Drafting and designing her home from scratch with drafter Peter O’Sullivan, Amy gathered inspiration from her experiences with the natural world and her love for Japan’s clean lines.
“I have lived in Japan and enjoy the Japanese aesthetic of the simple lines and the black,” explains Amy. “I had a collection of ideas, but no qualifications and just thought I’ll do that, and I’ll do that, and I’ll do that.”
Originally from a farming and commercial fishing background—and as mother to two children—Amy recognises the vital importance of sustainable living.
“We all know that humans are killing the world. We are killing the world because we are consuming too much,” she says.
“It’s not about working out how to recycle our over-consumption. It’s about how to put less pressure on the Earth’s resources, which means using less.”
To put this into practice, Amy knew she wanted to source quality sustainable timber for the build, so she approached timber supplier Thor’s Hammer, who helped her navigate various timbers to bring the design to life.
A joinery, sawmill and recycled timber yard based in Canberra’s inner south, Thor’s specialises in recycled and therefore sustainable timber.
Amy was initially drawn to the Japanese technique of Shou Sugi Ban for its longevity but was introduced to recycled Blackbutt (an Australian hardwood) perfectly suited to withstand the harsh Australian seasons.
“Those older timbers have more character in my view,” says Amy. “I find beauty in that idea of longevity and reusing—not throwing away. Why make something old look new, when what you appreciate about it is its oldness?”
But the timber was just the beginning. Amy wanted to go further, stretching the boundaries of modern sustainability.
“Don’t just put solar panels on your roof and go great now I can consume a whole lot of energy,” she says. “How about you build a house that doesn’t consume a whole lot of energy in the first place?”
“When I say, ‘sustainable house’, it was about using recycled and natural materials, but it was also about passive house theory and building a house that was thermally stable. What I was aiming to create was a 10-star rated house—energy neutral. And the way you do that is by building your house on passive house theory which is what they’ve been doing in Europe for years and years.”
With the Australian Blackbutt from Thor’s, the project came out better than Amy could have imagined.
“As I hadn’t employed an architect, nobody ever drew me a picture and said ‘this is what the building is going to look like’. So the final product was a real surprise— looking better than I’d imagined it in my head. I’m glad I thought to myself ‘Just jump in the deep end, what could possibly go wrong’.”
Photography: Rohan Thomson/Pew Pew Studio
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