- 2 days ago
We are sisters, Julia and Anastasia Vanderbyl. A few years ago, we began a journey to live a life in perfect harmony with nature. A life of caring for animals, growing fruit, planting trees, gardening, cooking, creating, building and learning to live with the land.
In this time, nature has taught us more than we could have ever imagined.
Our environmental films document the landscape, the lessons we’ve learnt and our work as regenerative farmers here on Bundjalung Country.
We live on the land of the Arakwal and Minjungbal People of the Bundjalung Nation. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Country we live on and recognise their continuing connection to the land and waters. We thank them for protecting this rainforest and its ecosystems since time immemorial.
Chapters:
0:00 Julia health update
2:00 Harvesting avocados and healing food
3:40 Rare rainforest fruits
5:42 Baking a cake for Julia's birthday
8:12 Cute ducks
10:17 Homegrown bananas and a healthy pancakes
12:26 Running with the goats
13:41 Julia's surgery updates and thank you!!
In this time, nature has taught us more than we could have ever imagined.
Our environmental films document the landscape, the lessons we’ve learnt and our work as regenerative farmers here on Bundjalung Country.
We live on the land of the Arakwal and Minjungbal People of the Bundjalung Nation. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Country we live on and recognise their continuing connection to the land and waters. We thank them for protecting this rainforest and its ecosystems since time immemorial.
Chapters:
0:00 Julia health update
2:00 Harvesting avocados and healing food
3:40 Rare rainforest fruits
5:42 Baking a cake for Julia's birthday
8:12 Cute ducks
10:17 Homegrown bananas and a healthy pancakes
12:26 Running with the goats
13:41 Julia's surgery updates and thank you!!
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00So this is our art studio and the story of this place is a little complex.
00:04It first was a farm shed that our dad built probably about 20 years ago.
00:08When he died it was full of his old tools, it was rotting in the weather,
00:11he never built walls on it so it was a bit of a mess.
00:14So almost 10 years ago we started the first renovation which was this side of the shed
00:18which we turned into a little art studio that protected the shed from the weather.
00:22We built walls which was nice and the rest of the shed stayed as a shed protecting the tools
00:26and at that time it was mostly a donkey shed.
00:28Then we both moved home about five years ago and it was getting pretty cramped with
00:32all of our creative hobbies in the one little space.
00:35I was sewing out in the shed with the goats and they would eat all of my fabric.
00:38It was such a mess so we decided to extend the studio out this way
00:42and with the help from our uncle we built this space and it was perfect, it was so beautiful.
00:47But then after a few years of record-breaking rain the wall to the south became pretty wet,
00:53pretty moldy and it actually had mushrooms growing on the inside of it.
00:56It was not ideal so we realised that it was time that we had to renovate again.
01:01This was the first time that I got to really understand the building and I did a big percentage
01:05of the work all on my own. I built a wall and then I built another wall and we put
01:10windows in
01:10and we restored them from scratch. It was all glowing and that brings us to now.
01:15We're super happy with this place and we love it but maybe we realised that along the way of
01:20renovation and then another renovation and then another renovation some spaces could flow better.
01:26There's a lot of doorways. There's this doorway and this doorway.
01:31There's this doorway. There's this one and this one which is maybe my most favourite and then there's
01:37this one which is maybe my least favourite. So getting from one space to another can be a bit of
01:42a maze.
01:42So I'm putting another doorway in. I'm going to put one in right here but then I'm going to close
01:48up a few of the other doorways and I think it's all going to flow a lot better. So my
01:52first job is
01:53to demolish this wall and of course I'm using all my dad's old tools that were once stored in the
01:58shed and I once had no idea how to use and ironically in the process of turning the shed into
02:03an art studio
02:04I learnt how to build and now I'm kind of like, should I have kept it a shed? Hi. Hello.
02:11Hello. Hi.
02:17I of course want to try to keep everything kind of intact so I can reuse the building materials
02:21and make use of them but it might be harder than I thought.
02:31You're helping. That is so satisfying. Pulling a nail out, I feel so strong.
02:42So I guess the main reason that I'm doing this renovation is actually because I want to do it
02:47as a little kind of surprise for my sister. My sister's been especially sick for these last few
02:51months and she just had surgery a few weeks ago so she's in full recovery mode so she's
02:56not creating at the moment but normally she's making these big beautiful paintings all the time
03:00and so I want her to, when she's well enough, be able to just come here and be so inspired
03:07by the
03:07place. I just want it to be glowing for her. So it's kind of a secret, I mean she knows
03:11what I'm
03:12doing but she doesn't know kind of the extent of what I'm doing here and I'm not allowing her to
03:17see it until I'm finished so I'm excited to show her when I'm finished. I also want to thank
03:21everyone so much who bought a print from Julia. She was so thankful to see all of her art get
03:26out
03:26into the world and just imagining it hanging in all of your homes so thank you so much for that
03:31and the print store is still open so if you haven't already you can buy prints there and they're
03:35amazing fine art quality. You can buy them framed or unframed and you can have a little piece of
03:40julia hanging in your home. Now it's time to get rid of the bottom border.
03:44Hey, hey, hey, hey, hi, hi, sorry it's the only way to get you, thank you.
03:56My problem is is that it's obviously tight on the bottom, tight on the top and then it's also
04:01I've glued and biscuit over there so it won't come out. I don't know how hot I try. I think
04:13this is
04:13the solution I'm gonna cut through the wall so that it stops sticking. Also the rain has hit so it's
04:19kind of cozy in here.
04:35The rain just got so heavy and it's the perfect moment because I think the drama is about to happen.
04:41I think that I'm about to get this wall out.
05:15So as I'm building you may have noticed these bottles that have
05:19just been stored here and I kind of I forgot about them. They've just been in the corner of the
05:22shed
05:22hidden by junk until I cleared it all out to build and this is our dad's old homebrew. He used
05:29to make
05:29homebrew beer and this has been sitting there for probably 20 years. I'm kind of intrigued. Should I
05:36taste it or is that dangerous? I want to know what it tastes like. Apparently he used to make like
05:43kiwi wine
05:44and all of these like different alcoholic beverages from all of the fruit on the farm. He had a still
05:49and so I've been always really intrigued to try it and I didn't know there was any left.
05:55I kind of want to taste it. I wonder if as a celebration at the end of the build
05:59me and Julia can have a little taste of the homebrew.
06:07This is gonna look so good. I'm really excited. It's all coming into place now and I'm really keen
06:11to see how it works out. I'll show you from the other side as well. It's really beautiful.
06:15These doors I collected for free so they're a bit rough but they're so cute and I love the color
06:20so
06:20I'm gonna do them up and I'm gonna try to keep all of the color and I'll just have to
06:25replace the glass
06:25because it's very breakable and maybe do a varnish over the top in case it's lead paint.
06:30My next job I have to frame up the doorway so I'm gonna have to get some timber but
06:35after that there's not that much to do. This is gonna be pretty easy I think.
06:39So I've been sleeping here while I'm renovating and that's why I'm so excited to introduce the
06:43sponsor of this week's video DJI. This place is completely off grid so there's no phone reception,
06:48there's no wi-fi, there's no insulation that keeps the outside from coming in so there's a lot of
06:54snakes. There was one right here on the veranda yesterday. It's a lot and it's almost like a forced
06:59digital detox when I'm here which I kind of love a lot of the time but sometimes it gets a
07:04little bit
07:04too much but with the DJI Power 1000 Mini I feel like I'm able to just live a bit more
07:10luxuriously.
07:11It's so lightweight it's actually the industry's smallest one kilowatt unit so it means that I can carry
07:17over one hand and it's no heavier than carrying a water container so I take it with me everywhere.
07:22It means that I can power on lamps when it starts getting dark at night, it means I can charge
07:26my
07:26power tools for tomorrow's job but it also has a 1000 watt max output so it can power select 1200
07:33watt appliances like an electric kettle or an electric mixer so I can cook whatever I want here. It also
07:38has
07:39a direct port which you can plug straight into the drone battery hub so it can go from 10%
07:43to 95% in just
07:4530 minutes so when I accidentally leave all of my drone batteries on flat I can quickly charge them
07:50up and I can still capture the last light in the mountains or the beautiful mist in the morning
07:54and share it with you guys. You can charge the power box at the wall outlet with your car charger
07:59or the solar panel so there's lots of options and my favorite thing about it is it has this retractable
08:04design so this is a USB-C and it comes out and you can charge whatever you need and it
08:09just doesn't
08:09make your workspace all messy and then when you're done with it you just put it back in and it's
08:14so
08:14neat I reckon that's going to come in handy when I'm camping or when I'm road tripping especially
08:19and it also has this light which you can dim or brighten depending on what you want the mood to
08:24be
08:24which I think is really good when I'm camping I always like golden light but sometimes you need bright
08:29light for different things so I think that's going to be really handy you can check out the links
08:33in our description to learn more these look so good here but I'm going to move them out for now
08:42because I need to replace the glass before they actually go in this glass at the moment is
08:48threatening to fall out any second so today I'm going to try to frame up the doorway and I've never
08:55framed a doorway before so I'm pretty excited and pretty scared I don't know if I know how to do
09:00it
09:00but I think I'll find out along the way so the first step is to pull out this old framing
09:04and
09:04I'm going to move it all backwards I think I'm not going to have to use any new materials in
09:08this
09:08whole build it's all going to be secondhand things or just things that were already in the build
09:19yes
09:24so we've been finding so much old junk just stashed away in the shed and my mum said that
09:29this suitcase is probably my grandmother's from the 50s or 60s I have no idea what's in it
09:35there's often when you get a box down from a shed like this there's often a snake in it so
09:39I'm a bit
09:39scared about that but I think it'll be okay I found a snake skin before with no snakes
09:57hello snake
10:01oh if there is a snake it's going to be angry there's nothing in it there's some hornet's nest
10:30I think the wrecking bar is my favorite tool ever
10:36I feel so strong and powerful
10:41leverage
10:47yay so easy
10:59so my next step is to cut away this little doorway thing I don't know what it's called but it's
11:04in
11:04the way because it was here from when it was a doorway before it wasn't a doorway and now it's
11:08going to be a doorway again but it's too small a doorway and it needs to be a bigger doorway
11:12if that
11:12makes sense so I'm going to firstly try to cut it away with this tool which I call nyeh nyeh
11:17because I don't know its real name and it's the noise that it makes nyeh nyeh
11:22so I'm just going to try it with this and if it doesn't work then I can take this whole
11:26board out
11:26and replace it but I thought it's worth a try to see if I can do it neatly and if
11:31I can't then I'll redo it
11:36I've had a long hard think about it and I think what I was doing was silly because
11:41it's going to be pretty messy because the floor of this place stops here so I think I should take
11:47this whole board out which was what I was going to do if it didn't work but stop trying to
11:51find out
11:52if it's going to work or not I think I should just do it because I have spare floors so
11:57then I could
11:58just put a beautiful nice floorboard in there and it would be neat and I need to learn to do
12:04things
12:04neatly the first go not the easiest way the neatest way
12:14oh my gosh I need to learn to do things safely as well back to my favorite tool the wrecking
12:21bar
12:27yes look what I found I think this is like a doorway thing I'm going to assume it is
12:33it looks like it it's it's going to be cute so I'm just going to chop this to size and
12:38then squish
12:38it in there so one of the goals of this little mini reno is that it clears up this space
12:44this is
12:44like our our workshop space but at the moment it just like stores so much junk that we've collected
12:50from mostly like the rubbish tip over the years and we've thought oh we could use this one day and
12:55then we don't use it and so the plan is to clear out this space and actually use it as
12:59a workshop
13:09so when we were first nailing this floor down originally I was so bad at nailing that I had
13:13to give up and our uncle did all of it basically because it took me so long so this is
13:19hopefully
13:20my redemption but it's probably just going to prove how bad I am again
13:47my next step is that I want to know the curve of this beam so that I can sit this
13:53in there and then nail it up into the beam so I'm going to try to trace it
14:12I'm going to make some big bangs now and I don't want to be around
14:15I don't want to be around
14:21so
14:47Clover does this thing where he's hiding in the grass and he thinks that no one else can
14:50see him and it's so cute. I've been thinking about this doorway for way too long and procrastinating
14:59and it's time that I just do it and if it doesn't work then I'll redo it. I'm just gonna
15:03do things
15:03sometimes. Come on, always keep thinking. So the next step is to move this whole bookshelf which
15:14is gonna be pretty heavy and I'm kind of sad because I love it here so much but it'll be
15:18beautiful where
15:19it goes to. That's so heavy. I just need to move it a tiny bit. Just a few centimeters. Oh
15:35it's screwed in.
15:39Yay! Oh I found my back. Okay. Okay that'll do for now. That's all I need. Ow! Ow! Oh my
15:53god.
15:57I am strong. I can do things. These are affirmations that are true.
16:12Getting close now.
16:23So before I started this, me and my mum were talking and she was saying that you know when
16:28you make a bottom plate you make it go the whole way and then you cut out the door and
16:31I was like
16:31that's so silly. That's such a waste of timber. I'll just cut it out and and then do it up
16:37so not have
16:37this bit and then I've just realized that there's definitely a reason that I do that and that's so
16:42that it all lines up and now I have to try to line it up without understanding which direction it's
16:48actually going. So always listen to what your mum says.
16:56So I'm kind of realizing I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what order you're supposed to
17:00build a wool in but I'm just kind of going for it.
17:14So I've got to the stage where I can't move on without buying more timber so next thing I'm going
17:19to move this out of the way so I can really see what it looks like in the doorway here.
17:28I'm going to finish this wool today. I'm going to do it super quick. I've decided that I want to
17:32use
17:33this door that I found second hand and it was really cheap. It was like $50 for four of them
17:39and I thought it might work for panelling because I don't have any more of this panel left but I
17:44thought it kind of matches. So I think that's a really good idea and I'm going to put it in
17:48here
17:49and I think it'll look similar and I'm excited. I just need to kind of patch this up so that
17:54it fits because it's a bit too small so I'm going to put two studs and then it'll fit but
18:00I don't think it'll work.
18:25I finished the wall. I'm so excited. I'm very proud. It looks great. It's very sturdy.
18:30Look at this. My next step is that I need to hang the doors but before that I need to
18:37refurbish them so that's what I'm going to get up to next week. I'm excited about this project. It
18:42already makes the space feel so much bigger. I just like having them separate. The doors here
18:47are going to be so cute. It's a little bit chaotic. There's furniture everywhere but this is what it
18:51looks like from the other side and I love it. Oh I'm really happy with this. Thank you so much
18:57watching and thank you to our patrons and I'll see you next week when I do Up The Doors.
19:27and I'll see you next week.
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