Video: 1-9-2016 house walk through

I made a walk through video of the house yesterday. I thought that some of you would like to see it with painted walls and sanded hardwood floors.

I hope you enjoy it.

Straw in the wall: an instructional video on slip straw

I’ve been thinking about and intending to put together a video on using light straw clay, also known as slip straw, in interior walls. The boys and I have packed 1,100 square feet of walls now. So, we have a little experience. I figure that I really was learning how to do it by the time we finished this week, but I’m not going to go back and start over!

Anyway, I figured it would be best to shoot some video on the process before we got it all done. As we worked on the final walls, I videoed different parts of the process, and then I spent some time over a couple of days to put together an instructional video called Straw in the wall: using light straw clay (slip straw) as interior wall fill.

 

Two new videos of the construction process

I’ve put together two new videos. Actually, they’re slide shows of photos taken during the construction of our house. Part One starts with the raw timbers in February 2005 and concludes in February 2010. A lot was accomplished during that time even though it wasn’t as much as I had hoped for.

Part Two shows the progress we’ve made this summer and fall. I couldn’t be happier with what we’ve gotten accomplished just since late May.

I wanted to put these photos together in this way to see a synopsis of my work. I’ve been focused on each day and each task. So, it’s nice to sort of step back and see what we’ve been working on come together.

Here they are. Enjoy and, please, leave a comment (I love hearing from ya’ll)!

Part One:

 

Part Two:

Video of the upstairs with the bales stacked

I took some video yesterday showing the bale walls in the house, primarily upstairs since that is what we’ve most recently finished.

Another bale wall and a video

On Tuesday, I added some more bales to the kitchen walls and pinned two of the kitchen walls. I had to make some custom bales to fit at the top of the wall along the roof line.

On Wednesday, I decided to stack the wall between the mudroom and the kitchen. I needed to put the bales up above the mudroom doorway and the kitchen doorway, and I needed the rest of the wall constructed before I could do that.

The boys helped me put some plastic on the outside of the upstairs on the west side. This is so that rain cannot blow in from above and soak the bales in the downstairs wall.

As I was getting started stacking, Anne came down to the house to be my helper. Since there was a lot of retying on this section of wall, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do in its construction. So, she worked filling voids on the two kitchen walls that were already pinned (the voids stuff easier once the wall is pinned into place). The boys also helped filling voids with loose straw. Anne did help me put a few bales in the wall I was constructing.

Over the doors and the window, I was going to use chicken wire to suspend the bales. Over the two doors, there was going to be a bit of a problem attaching the wire, though. I decided to not use the wire, instead opting for a board to support the bales.

I used extra porch floor boards (rough cut beech) cut long enough so that they extend beyond the openings on each side a foot or two at least. Above the doors, these boards should be sufficiently able to hold the weight of the one bale. The window opening is wider. So, even though only one course of bales is being supported, I will brace the board in the middle to the frame work which is above (the shelf upon which the upstairs bales will sit). The boards are set back from the inside edge of the wall enough that I will be able to round the edge a little before plastering. The boards will not be visible – they will be plastered over.

I was happy with the wall. The top course of bales needed to be persuaded in order to fit it under the bale shelf. This is good. It helps keep the wall tight. If a bale is hard to get into place, a piece of cardboard put under it helps it to slide over the lower bale more easily. I’ve also found that the large mallet (persuader) I built for putting the timber frame together works well for knocking bales into place.

A friend lent me an interior scaffold. This is a great thing! It really helped when beating the top course bales into the wall. He’s also lending me two sets of exterior scaffolding which will be invaluable.

I video taped a brief tour of the house showing a few of the things we’ve done recently. I’ve shared photos of all this, but sometimes it’s nice to see it in a video.

Video of the house

I shot a short video showing the house today:

Interesting video of a reused timber frame

I found this video at FineHomebuilding.com and thought it was worth sharing. It’s a beautiful old frame that they dismantled, moved, and reconstructed into a home. There are a couple follow up videos also available (you can find them via the link above).

 

Video Length: 7:01 Produced by: Matt Berger

Plaster samples (part three): a new mix applied to a bale

After testing our previous samples, the boys and I mixed up another batch and applied it to the other side of the test bale (actually, it’s half of a bale because I sawed it in two lengthwise to double the surface area for our samples). For this mix we used 4 measures of sand, 5 measures of clay-dirt, four loose measures of chopped straw/hay, and enough water to achieve a nice consistency.

The surface of the bale to which we applied it had not been trimmed. So, it was quite rough. However, the mix was wet enough that we could press it into the bale quite well. The plaster sample is drying now. After it is dry, we’ll apply a second coat to it to see how well it adheres to the first. Applying the plaster by hand leaves a rough texture which is supposed to help the next coat to bond well with it.

It’s actually quite exciting to have the opportunity to use some of our own soil for the plaster on our walls. We hadn’t expected to be able to do so – I was going to buy dry clay powder from a pottery supply dealer. I expect I’ll still buy some clay for the finish coat. We’ll use a white kaolin clay with some yellow pigment added. We’ll be figuring proportions out later.

If you ever get the chance, you ought to try putting some mud on a straw bale. It feels good in your hands, and it’s kind of fun.

I’ve been adding videos to my posts. I think there are things that can be understood and seen in a video which are hard to translate to text. So, here’s a video of mixing and applying our plaster sample:

Plaster samples (part two): testing

The plaster samples we applied to a test bale earlier took a while to dry because the bale was in the garage without much air movement. They did dry fine, though. So, I took the bale outside yesterday afternoon and, with the help of some fine younguns, tested how well they adhered to the bale and their strength.

Both samples dried nice and hard. They really adhered to the bale well – no problem there. The mixture that was 2 parts sand and 1 part clay had a grainier texture, and sand could be rubbed off of its surface. The addition of wheat paste might have helped bind it together a bet more making it less likely for sand to rub off. I hope to try a sample with wheat paste soon.

I made a short video documentary of our testing process:

Milling porch posts (part 2 with video)

Sunday of this week was a nice day. Dad and I had already milled 15 6x6 posts for the porch, and I decided to get the rest of them milled. Last week I 3 new Oregon saw chains from from Treestuff.com (3/8” pitch, .058 gauge, 115 drive links). They shipped them out right away and I received them on Friday. These were regular cross cut chains with a 25 degree angle on the teeth. Sunday morning I ground the first one to 20 degrees with a 50 degree hook angle. Generally, ripping chains are ground to either 0 degrees or 10 degrees. I wanted to try it at 20. It worked fine. I’ll probably try the next one at 10 degrees so I can compare it to this one.

I purchased a new video camera (Canon FS100) for creating a video documentary of the house-building process from this point forward. Using the sawmill provided an opportunity to use it. My dad shot this video of me finishing one of the posts.

I’ll probably share occasional videos on the blog. The editing process for the documentary of the project will happen later.

After milling on Sunday, we now have 22 posts ready for the porch.

I still have some more cedar logs to mill, but I’ve not decided yet what dimension lumber/beams would be most desirable at this point. I’ll also need to haul some beech logs from Gill’s place and mill them. I think the milling will be put on hold for the next three weeks at least, though. I’m hoping to get the root cellar floor poured and the walls blocked and then to get a perimeter of concrete blocks laid around the timber frame. These will enclose the crawl space and help support the porch and straw bale walls.

Video documentary of this project?

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a documentary about our house project. In building our house, we’re doing something that is special for us, and we’re learning a lot in so doing. Quite a few months ago, I purchased Ted Owens DVD documenting the building of his hybrid home (Building With Awareness). This is a great resource – very interesting and very well done. I’ve really appreciated the information included on the DVD, and I continue to refer to it. I’ve not purchased the guidebook that goes along with the DVD, but I imagine it’s quite good too.

Early last week I received two more DVDs that I ordered from Andrew Morrison at StrawBale.com. The two I received are “Building with straw bales (post and beam infill)” and “Plastering with natural hydraulic lime (NHL).” Andrew has a lot of resources available to help individuals interested in building with straw bales.

Recently, my wife Anne and I watched a documentary on Youtube about a family’s attempt to develop a homestead and live off of the grid. I don’t remember the name of it, but we cringed and shook our heads a few times at some of the things they were trying to do and how they were going about it. Not quite how we would have approached similar problems.

Anyway, it would have been great if I had had and implemented my idea of creating a video documentary of our house-building project from the beginning. However, as we’re entering into the phase of the project after the timber framing portion, there is still a lot to be accomplished. I’m just a regular guy tackling a big and innovative project. I would like to be able to share some of the things I learn and how I approach some of the challenges and problems that are part of it.

If you think there might be some interest in such a documentary, let me know. I’m seriously thinking of doing it even if there isn’t much interest, motivated by many of the same desires that have led me to this blogging endeavor. At the very least, such a documentary would be neat for my family to have in the future.

Video of the frame raising

I just put together a video of our frame raising, or parts of it anyway. This video uses digital still photos that my parents took. They used a continuous function on their camera that made it possible to create an animation rather than a regular slide show. I have a time-lapse video of the raising that I would like to share, too, but it's still in VHS format (I used an old video camera). I'll see about getting it converted to digital format and sharing it before too many more moons pass.