We first spoke with Anna and Sean in mid 2023. They had just finished building their home in Petulu, north of Ubud. It was clearly a labour of love as they literally built it themselves, avoiding using external workers as much as possible!
We recently caught up with them again as they had just completed their swimming pool, and have a new project in the north of Bali that, once again, they will build with their own hands!
Last time we spoke, you had just finished your house and were about to build your pool. Did you get it done quickly?
It did happen, it just didn’t happen quickly! From the time we started, until the time we finished, it took us about 10 months. It took longer than we expected, but it’s amazing! It came up really, really nicely. We’re super happy with it!
Did you enjoy the process of building it yourself?
I think we fell in and out of love with the process a few times! We did all the work ourselves, except we organised someone to dig the foundations for us, and we had a contractor come in and pour the concrete for us. But we did all the steel work, and all that kind of thing. We put all the steel in place and wired all that in, and put all the formwork for the walls.
Had you done that sort of thing before?
No! I just said to Anna one day “How hard can it be? It’s just a bit of concrete in the ground, right?” As a kid, I remember that in my family homes, we had swimming pools, so I kind of knew how they were put together. But this one was a bit of a challenge because it’s up out of the ground, as our property is over two terraces, so it’s sitting on the lower terrace, but it comes up to the height of the house.
What size is it?
It’s seven and a half by three metres.
I know you have some land up in North Bali in Tejakula and you’re building up there. What is your schedule like?
We go up for a week or 2 at a time. But we’ve had a pretty hectic rainy season this year so we’ve just hunkered down here in the Ubud house. We stopped going to Tejakula on a regular basis in early December last year when that rain really started to hit.
Before that, we hadn’t really done much work. It was more like getting to know the land and thinking about where the house is going to go.
Did you recently increase the size of your land?
Yes, the first block was 10 ara, and the second block is 17 ara. It’s all beachfront. It’s far more land than we need, but it also gives us quite a bit of peace of mind!
We used to have the most amazing Jungle views from our house, until one day our landowner suddenly chopped down a large portion of this Jungle to build a Joglo. He didn’t give us any warning and so it came as a huge shock to us. We didn’t want the same to happen to us in Tejakula, hence decided to lease more land
Anything’s possible and you have very little control over what somebody else is going to do. You have to prepare for the worst and kind of insulate yourself as much as you can, so that if something does happen, it doesn’t affect you to a large degree.
Do you think that one day you may live permanently in the Tejakula house?
Yes definitely, that is our plan. We have seen how the vibe in Ubud is changing. And especially in our area, there is only one little access road for everyone. We see the trucks going in and out every day.
At first, we didn’t know if we would move north because I like access to my Pilates studio and to the cafes and that sort of thing but I think we’re going to create a bit of a sanctuary for ourselves up there.
How long did the first house take you to build?
Not including the pool, from the time we started until we moved into was six months, but it wasn’t fully finished then.
Do you expect Tejakula to take the same time?
No, it’ll take longer. The Ubud house was all prefabricated offsite, and then we had it bought in. Then Anna and I assembled it. But for the new place up at Tejakula, the build will be made entirely out of timber. We’re going to do it out of ironwood. We’ll be hands on with every piece of timber that we use. This one will actually be starting from scratch.
Will you do it yourself again?
Yeah, absolutely. Fortunately, we’ve got some help. We’ve got one employee now. He looks after the property because it’s a very big plot of land up there. He’s spends most of his time there at the moment. Just looking after the chickens and looking after the property. He’ll work with us. And Anna will also film it for our YouTube channel. If we need extra help, we’ve also got another guy that we know up there.
Will you live onsite?
We’ve already built a little five metre by five metre cabin workshop space up there. We built that back in February 2023. It was a prefabricated steel structure like the Ubud house. We’ve got a toilet in there. We’ve got an outdoor shower. It’s pretty basic, but we’ve got an outdoor kitchen as well, with a gas cooker and we bought a proper fridge.
Have you got plans for it?
Yes, the house is fully designed! It’s got to go to the architect now for his final approval to make sure that I’ve got all my ducks in a row. Actually, we’ve changed it since we got the second piece of land. That land has lots of palm trees so we want to use them. The new design has actually got an atrium in the middle of it with a big palm tree. So the house will have a palm tree in the middle of it, which is really cool.
We’ve planned it in a way to not cut any more palm trees. We had to cut 3 that were sick, but now we won’t cut more. We can build around them.
When you plan to start?
We’d planned to start now but we pushed it back a month because of all the rain. We’re just waiting for the property to dry out and things to kind of normalise a little bit with the weather before we start. It was too wet, too many mosquitoes, very unpleasant.
We’re going to take our time. There’s no contractor, no company waiting for us. So it’s just going to be another slow process.
What do you plan for it to look like?
One bedroom with an attached bathroom. It’s a very open plan design. Lots of glass on this one as well. Aesthetically, it’ll be clad on the outside with a textured pattern through it.
It’ll be a dark house again. We’re going to probably stain the timber or do that Japanese process where they burn the timber. It’s 120 square metres. So it’s 12 metres deep and 10 metres wide with the atrium in the middle. And it’s going to have a natural swimming pond, sort of half inside the house and half outside, filtered by plants. That’s the plan!
What will you do with the other part of the land?
We’ve been mucking around a little bit with a vegetable garden. I want to put a couple of shade houses in because it is very hot up there. We already have some eggs. We’d like to get a little pig as well
It’s hard to know what will happen in the future. We may put a few cabins on it, or a little café. Who knows!
How long do you expect it will take?
First up, we will build a workshop. And after that, the main house. So I’d say probably 18 months.
That’s a conservative estimate, maybe it may happen quicker. But we made the mistake of just sort of pushing ourselves too hard when we built our Ubud home. We don’t want to do that again. We just can’t. We’re both exhausted.
We’ve are fortunate enough to be in a situation where we could build our own home ourselves, and then to be in the position of being able to do it again. We want to slow down and enjoy the process.
And what’s next after you finish Tejakula?
I think the next project after this one will be probably a renovation of a place somewhere in Europe, Perhaps, in Italy. We love Bali, but thinking very long-term, we may want to live in Europe.
(Interview edited for clarity and length)
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