Home Stretch (For the plaster at least...)

Playing a little bit of catch up with the posting, as there hasn't been a whole lot of visible differences on the site in a while. The crew has been hard at work finishing up the plastering, which has proved to be one of the more grueling projects on the house so far.

Dixie brought the sprayer in for the last time, finishing the coats on the upper east and north walls and the upper south side which includes the bathroom dormer. The walls really look fantastic. We ran into an issue on the lower section of the west wall, which unfortunately has set us back and will have to be re-done. The sand in the mix for the final coat of the earth plaster was too fine, causing the layers to crack. Too bad, cause man it looked nice and smooth before it dried! The crew will remove the last layer and reapply a rougher mix. We're hoping to have all the walls complete in the next week or two.

Other exciting projects have been completed recently. We now have electricity run in the house and we've installed a few lights in the kitchen. One of my favorite recent advancements has been the installation of the staircase to the second floor (pictures coming soon) It's amazing how it changed the look of the space.

Piper has been working hard planing down the redwood planks from the old silo to get ready to install as the second story flooring, the next project on the list after the plastering is complete.

Finished Stucco

The east walls are mostly finished and boy do they look fantastic! The interior needs another coat upstairs and the exterior between the windows need done by hand. The south walls are also looking great, we can really get a sense of what the rooms will look like. The picture shows the south wall of the living room. We also are a few days away from getting power at the site! Moving right along!

And the stucco continues...

The house is really coming along, and cloudy misty days made for a perfect climate to spray the stucco walls. With a crew of 5, we've spent the last few days spraying the lime and portland cement mix to the interior and exterior of the north, south and east walls.

There's certainly a science behind the process, some walls receive just the portland lime mix, while others will only have the earth plaster. It a seriously messy process but all we can see is the beauty the form is taking. Piper made sure I took pictures of just how messy the site was.

The sprayer shoots the mix out onto the walls like large curd cottage cheese and then gets a troweling to create a smooth and beautiful surface. Piper manned the sprayer hose, which when filled with concrete weighs about a whopping 60-100 pounds. Good thing he's a professional strongman.

Hopefully we'll be wrapping up the remaining walls in the next week or so and then on to the interior!!

Lime Plaster: First Coats!

After lots of prepping, the crew arrived this mornign ready to spray in the first coats of lime plaster. Sprayed on in thin coats, the lime will create a durable finish coat on the house, sealing in the straw bales. The walls are grooved to create a better bond between coats. After teh final coats are done we will be able to tint lime to any color we choose and paint it on. Plaster gun action shots coming soon!

work party: earth plaster

It always amazes me what a group of friends can accomplish in a day. After spending the last week prepping the straw walls for plastering by filling in the gaps and cracks with a slipstraw mixture, several shifts of friends helped us cook along by applying the first layers of earth plaster to the bales walls. We spend the afternoon working a thin mixture of clay, sand and water into the bales and following up with a thicker mix to build up the low spots and even out the surface. We made tremendous progress and are so thankful for all of our friends who came to lend a (now incredibly softer) hand.

Work Party!

We had a great day on Saturday, with a few friends that gathered for a work party. We started the slip-straw process, which fills in the cracks and gaps between the straw bales with straw covered in a thin clay slip. We made great progress and look forward to getting the first layer of plaster up in the next few weeks

Proof We Have a House Made of Straw

This week was definitely one of the most exciting moments in construction thus far. My dad and his good friend Kevin came down for the week to help with the house and we saw the first straw bale get stacked into place.

We are using the infill method of straw bale construction, where bales are cut and notched with a chainsaw to fit in between stud walls. The notches in the bales varied in size depending on the studs they fit into and several bales needed to be made smaller by restringing the straw with a special needle. Bales are stacked and tied into the studs with twine and will later be stuffed with loose straw to fill in any gaps or inconsistencies.

With sore fingers from tying and re-stringing bales, lots of cursing from temperamental chainsaws and lots of tiny scratches and cuts later, we were able to stack almost 100 bales onto the north and east walls. The windows and doors will have to get boxed out before we can complete the rest of the two sides, but boy are we excited about the progress.

It was a real treat to have family and friends help out with the process this week and we're thankful for everyone who stopped by to lend a hand. We look forward to continued construction and more work parties in the coming weeks.