Abstract: Responding to concerns about adverse environmental impacts of amenity migration on the rural-urban fringe (Abrams et al., 2012), this paper poses the question: is the rural residential estate (RRE) a settlement space where humans can improve ways of living with nonhuman nature? I address the question by identifying zones of traction and zones of friction: opportunities and threats towards a more convivial living relationship with the natural environment and its nonhuman residents (Gibson et al., 2013). The study site of Nangarin Vineyard Estate – located near Picton, NSW – evaluates the RRE. The materiality of this setting incorporates residential land use and remnant bushland, facilitating interactions between humans and nonhumans in a rural setting. This paper is framed by a relational ontology, acknowledging the co-constitutive role of humans and nonhumans in shaping space. Semi-structured walking interviews with residents, and regular self-tours were used to enrol the surrounding environment in research design. Findings focus on how residents negotiate ‘outside’ nature in the private lot, exploring frictions and tractions that are produced. There are still ideological and practical frictions expressed by residents that inform how they negotiate their living environment, resulting in the creation and enforcing of borders against undesirable nonhumans. Ultimately, living with nature is selective, contingent on whether the nonhuman in question has a native status, or whether or not their interventions adhere to fixed notions of comfort and cleanliness. Acknowledging such frictions begins to unsettle our normative, mundane relationships with nature, towards producing more convivial outcomes.