Fourteen-thousand glorious Canberra red bricks will be the stars of an upcoming episode of the ABC's Grand Designs Australia. Plus some old wooden floorboards from the Canberra Centre.
When Sam and Selina Hardwicke decided to build their new home in the bush just across the border in NSW, they decided the celebrated red brick offered exactly the right look and exactly the right functionality: they look good and they offer durability and good insulation. On top of that, they were recycled.
"They're an iconic brick," Sam said as he held two of them outside the house which is featured in the ABC make-over show that airs on Thursday night.
"I think half of Canberra was built out of them."
He's right: Old Parliament House used four million red Canberra bricks. The older suburbs ate them up, too.
The Hardwicke's new family house near Sutton would continue the love affair.
So the couple scoured and searched, both physically and on internet sales sites like Gumtree. Sam saw piles in backyards and knocked on doors.
He found some people clung to them as though to a dear memento of a past life. He found one person who collected them.
But many gave them up. "There was a lot of Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace and scouring. We needed thousands and thousands of them," he said.
"For a while there, you could pick them up really easily. Now, they're getting really hard to find, and they're expensive because I think people are starting to see their value.
"We've gathered them from a myriad places."
The table was easier to find. It's the centrepiece of the central, living room of the new house - and the top turns out to be made from the floorboards of the Canberra Centre.
Sam bought it on Gumtree from a local craftsman who had found the boards in a skip and turned them into a thing of beauty.
"He was leaving town and I picked it up for the bargain price of $100, thinking that it would be a workbench for the shed.
"But it was far too beautiful for that so it's found a place in our home, and I can't see us ever replacing it."
Creating the house has been a labour of love and is documented in the ABC program.
The bricks and a lot of wood give a dated, natural patina to what is in fact an ultra-modern home. The windows are of a special insulating type. It's all off-grid so there's a battery of solar panels plus a real battery.
It's also a creation of deep emotion for Sam. He grew up a stone's throw away and his parents still live in the nearby childhood home. Other members of his family live on the wider property, too, so the new home is part of a close family community.
"I grew up in the house on the hill over there," he said as he sat at the table. "My brother and his wife and two kids live across the road. My mum and dad live on the next hill."
The move to the new home means Sam and Selina's three children will be the eighth generation who grow up on that bit of land. Sam's family goes back to convicts and settlers who migrated (by choice or not) in the 1830s.
They are pleased with how the house and its building have been portrayed by the ABC. "It's a beautiful keep-sake for us and for our family," Selina said. The family has a memoir written by one of Sam's ancestors so the program will seem like the next chapter.
So for Sam there is a deep familiarity. He is returning to his roots.
"It's the same creek that we played in as kids," he said.
"The land hasn't changed much. The trees are all slow-growing. Some of the trees are 150 years old.
"It looks and feels much the same."
Except for an ultra-modern house built with very traditional materials.
