Five years ago, my husband Phil and I embarked on building a solar passive, off grid, architecturally designed minimalist house in a paddock in rural NSW, Australia. I know what you are thinking: “a life in the country” means a big house and lots of land. Well, not so much. We have a bit of land and started out with a paddock consisting of two trees and a whole lot of grass. 

This story documents the experiences of two folk, a dog and a tractor, and what we achieve as we build our house, learn to manage our land and realise the 100 Good Things that have earned their place in this adventure.

It has taken some years, but I've realised you don't need lots of things to have a good life - and it turns out there are many folk out there who already know this! There is an entire movement called minimalism with some amazing speakers and promoters (see The Minimalists blog), Brooke McAlary has written about slow living on her blog and in her book Slow, Live Life Simply, and a guy called David Bruno wrote a book about how he changed his life based on a strict interpretation of the idea. So it's not a new concept and whilst it is affirming that others have reached similar conclusions to me, what stands out is we can all have different techniques and reach the same outcome: a less complicated life.