Hey there! I’m Lisa, a proud sustainable housing nerd, rural-living mum-of-four and head honcho here at Booken Blend.
With my hubby Steve (aka Boots), we’re on a mission to move purposeful homes into the mainstream, and help everyday people build affordable planet-friendly houses that are a joy to live in.
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Featured in
Realestate.com.au
Inside Out Mag
Herald Sun
Sustainable House Day
Homes to Love
Our Home Magazine
Schoner Wohnen Magazine
Realestate.com.au Inside Out Mag Herald Sun Sustainable House Day Homes to Love Our Home Magazine Schoner Wohnen Magazine
From our kitchen bench to a global audience
It's hard to believe we started this wild Booken Blend ride right here at our kitchen bench in lil' old Kyvalley, a tiny village on Australia’s east cost (town population: 328 humans and many, many cows).
Back in 2016, Boots and I owner-built our sustainably designed off-grid home — and discovered a massive information gap for ordinary folks with limited budgets who want to live more lightly at home. But eco-design isn’t rocket science, nor does it have to cost millions.
We saw a huge need for 100% independent info, delivered in simple terms that anyone could understand… and pretty quickly, our passion project turned into a global DIY sustainable housing movement.
A down-to-earth quest to make sustainable house design available to the masses
When we everyday folk commit to building a home, we’re gambling our hard-earned cash. There’s a lot at stake. I keenly felt the pressure of making good decisions during our builds or renos, conscious that it was my money, my future, and my planet I was messing with.
We weren’t exactly rolling in wads of fresh dollar bills (if you are, click away now… you don’t need me). So building our eco-friendly home had to make sense on every level: it had to benefit my family, the planet AND save us money. So, I researched. Then researched some more. Then researched even harder…
Our Approach
These days, I firmly believe that it’s possible for every person building or reno’ing to incorporate some level of low-cost sustainable design into their home — even the most challenging one-bedroom west-facing sh*t shack in inner Footscray. And if we all build a little better, then collectively, we significantly impact the health of this planet.
Practical Experience
We’ve now renovated and built using sustainable design principles four times. The pain, frustration and joy of each build are seared deep into my brain. As are the lessons. If you are going to make a mistake during a reno or build, we’ve probably already made it — in multiple. We share our ‘warts and all’ war stories plus tales from other ‘almost-eco’ homes around the world, to help you learn and build better.
Simple Science
We’re not architects or building designers — that’s why we can share practical, jargon-free info. Despite what you might have been told, you really don’t need millions of dollars or a perfectly orientated site to make sustainable housing work. We focus on sharing the dead-simple, low-cost science (some of which has been around for 2,000+ years) that works in ANY location.
100% independent info
During our builds, we just couldn’t find good, simple, practical and independent info for designing and building eco-friendly homes that don’t leave you up to your eyeballs in debt. It was all so complicated and also felt, dare I say it, kind of elitist. Booken Blend is our answer to this conundrum — no sponsorships, affiliates or brand ‘bonuses’, just straight-talking knowledge sharing from us to you.
Connective community
A big part of Booken Blend is our rapidly growing community of everyday folk who genuinely give a s#*t about creating better homes for themselves, their families and the planet. We connect via Instagram, our email community and inside the Booken Workshops, sharing ideas and learnings so we can all build smarter. We’d love to have you join the tribe!
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"It's a sincere and generous movement to help people into the homes they dream of,
and the community spirit behind it is completely heartwarming - especially now."
~ Eliza O’Hare, Editor, Inside Out Magazine
It all began with Boots — and Booken House
In 2010, I married the hot boy from high school who I never dreamed of hooking up with in high school because… too hot. Boots and I took the long road to get here, meeting up later in life as divorced singles with three kids in tow. When we blended our two fams, our friends began affectionately referring to us as The Bookens (Steve Booth + Lisa Hawken = Booken), and it well and truly stuck.
A few years later, we noticed a rundown 22-acre former sand mine for sale and went for a look. We stood atop the last remaining sandhill and thought: ‘Imagine if we could purchase this land, regenerate it and build an eco-friendly off-grid home?’ It was a ridiculous, whacky dream … and I pinch myself every day that it’s now our reality.
No bills is great, but knowing our home has very little impact on the planet is even better.
Choosing to owner-build our home (no, we didn’t build it with our bare hands, but we did manage and coordinate the build from start to finish) saved us a truckload of money. And incorporating sustainable design into every corner of our home has slashed our ongoing bills too — we haven't paid an electricity bill in eight years!
Booken House isn’t built to be perfectly 'sustainable'. But it does connect us to nature, unshackle us from the bank, keep us comfy, and create the kind of everday low-impact life our planet so desperately needs. If we can do this, you can too.
How we got here
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![The sun sets behind the white weatherboard shitshack that Lisa renovated]()
2006
I did a thrifty reno of a white-weatherboard, leaky, sh*tshack as a single mother of two. This was to help reduce my bills because, frankly, I didn’t have two bob to rub together after having to leave my ex-husband.
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2007
Started dating Boots. This is the first photo we have all together.
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![Lisa and Boots on their wedding day with their blended family of two sons and a daughter]()
2010
Married the love of my life and ‘officially’ blended our two little families together.
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![Backyard, swimming pool and verandah at the house Lisa and Boots renovated using passive solar principles]()
2015
We sold our home ‘Bullara’, which we had renovated and extended together using passive solar principles. We’d learned how good it ‘felt’ to live in a well-designed home.
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![Cows graze on top of a grassy hill where where Lisa and Boots plan to build their sustainable home Booken House]()
2015
Purchased the 22 acres now known as ‘The Sandhill’ and discovered a large and frustrating information gap for everyday peeps wanting to build using sustainable principles.
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![A giant tree overhangs the track leading up to Booken House]()
2016
Built Booken House, our 268-square-metre, four-bedroom, off-grid home, designed around the sun.
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![Boots and the kids sitting in the light-filled kitchen at Booken House]()
2017
Settled into our new home and started sharing our learnings on this new fandangled app called Instagram that my teenagers encouraged me to get on.
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![Front porch of the white weatherboard heritage home (*shitshack) that Lisa and Boots purchased]()
2018
Purchased and flipped another white weatherboard heritage home (*shitshack) on a town block and tested all the same principles for a fourth time — yep, they def work!
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![Lisa sits in the Booken House office nook, answering emails]()
2020
Our social media exploded and I spent hours each week answering questions to try and help other families build the same dream.
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![Lisa teaches a group of workshop participants about sustainable building around the Booken House dining table]()
2022
Interest in our home and eco-housing info grew so strong that I quit my job and fully launched Booken Blend.
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![B Corp certification logo]()
2023
A very proud day when Booken Blend officially achieved B Corp certification.
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![Magazine feature of Booken House]()
2024
Booken Blend is being featured all over the world and we surpass 5 million views on socials - whaaaat?! This is all thanks to you - the Booken Blend tribe.
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2024
The joy our home continues to bring our family is immeasurable.
More of Lisa’s story
Achey bones
Winter and I aren't friends. Cold dark places make my bones ache due to my stupid autoimmune condition that, on occasion, robs me of my positive outlook on life. (I’ve had Ankylosing Spondylitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis since I was 26.) So I’m extra grateful for our purposefully designed sunny home, which keeps me warm and helps all those aches disappear a little.
Caravan adventures
In 2023, we bought a caravan and hit the road for a year. We travelled 36,500km, venturing to some of Australia’s most remote and untouched corners. We climbed mountains, swam with giant sea turtles, walked on Country with Elders in Arnhem Land and trespassed to swim under a million stars. It was a wild and wonderful ride.
‘Almost-eco’ homes
Hands down, the highlight of our trip was was documenting real stories of everyday folk living and thriving in purposeful homes, within every far-reaching corner of this great country. These homes stand out not only for their beauty, but also for their commitment to working with nature, showcasing the magic of simple passive design principles.
Keynote speaking
In my ‘spare time’ (ha, what’s that?!) I love tailoring presentations and mini-workshops on topics such as sustainable housing, purpose-led business, resilience and resourcefulness, grassroots leadership in a time of climate crisis, and storytelling to create change — all aimed at accelerating the world’s transition to low-impact homes and lifestyles.
Connecting with the tribe
Booken Blend has become what it is today because YOU folks championed it. Our incredible, supportive tribe has grown to 11,000+, our Sustainable Build Workshops sell out in minutes, and our Design Packs are being used to create unique versions of our simple energy-efficient home all over the world, including in South Africa, USA and New Zealand. The support still blows me away.
How did I become a raging sustainable house design nerd?
It probably started in childhood. Like many country kids, I was raised fairly free-range on a farm. I rode my horse in the bush, went ferreting rabbits with my brothers and wore flannelette shirts. (Actually, I still rock a good flannie.)
It was here, in my grandfather’s stockyards made out of recycled metal and junk, that I first learned the values of resourcefulness, resilience and caring for Country. After high shool and uni, I spent two decades focusing on work with a strong sustainability focus that connected me back to the land.
So it all kinda makes sense that when I hooked up with my hot husband, a man who will have a go at anything (except fish; the man will not eat fish), we would be cray-cray enough to believe we could design and build a planet-friendly, off-grid home on a modest, achievable budget.
Booken Blend's evolution from passion project to thriving business has been like catching a tiger by the tail (exhilarating and terrifying all at once), but we couldn’t be prouder of the community that has gathered here and the positive ripple effect we’re collectively having on the world.
Together, lets move purposeful homes out of their current niche — the very unhelpful and limiting ‘for hippies or rich people only’ niche — into the mainstream
Qualified
Qualified
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20+ years experience
I’ve spent more than two decades working on home and community sustainability projects in both government and private sectors. I have specialised training in Building Thermal Performance, Home Energy Assessments and Energy Rating. I also hold a Bachelor of Agriculture Science (Hons) and a Postgraduate degree in Education.
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Global educator
As a graduate of the Fairley Leadership Program and an experienced science educator within the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) system, I’ve honed my skills in leadership and education. I’ve even toured the Midwest USA on study exchange, sharing my experiences with Australian community sustainability initiatives to an American audience.
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BCorp & 1% for the Planet
We believe business should be a force for good. Booken Blend is a certified BCorp, meaning we meet high standards of social and environmental impact and are part of a global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy. We also donate at least 1% of revenue to environmental causes.
Get Lisa in your ears
Connect with Lisa
Connect with Lisa
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I love being part of a community where I get to watch folks all over the world create their own beautiful, simple, sustainable homes and lifestyles. Don’t be a stranger!
Start here: our Sustainable Build Checklist
After reno’ing and building using sustainable design principles four times, we know firsthand that it can be tough. We’ve also learned that a bit of key knowledge can help avoid (or at least minimise…) tears, tantrums, and budget blow-outs.
So, we’re sharing the exact checklist we created to guide the build of our planet-friendly home, Booken House. More than 11,000 people have already downloaded and used this helpful 12-step guide! Go grab yours now — it’s completely free.
Lisa chats with Australian of the Year for Tasmania, Stephanie Trethewey, about her rural roots, which have both broken her and pushed her to rebuild after rock bottom.