Introduction

The 57 acres that comprise Cedar Ridge Farm are located in the beautiful rolling hills of South Central Kentucky. My wife, our four children, and I are on a homesteading adventure as we work toward increased self-sufficiency. We grow much of our own food and enjoy being in touch with the agrarian roots of our lives.

One of the major projects we have undertaken is the building of our own home. The house we're building has three major distinguishing features: 1. we're building it without incurring any debt; 2. it is a timber frame structure; and 3. the exterior walls will be plastered straw bales. We live debt and mortgage free, and building our house with that approach makes perfect sense. Large timbers in a home possess a beauty and project a sense of strength, stability, and warmth that we want in our home. Straw bale walls provide insulation and make ecological sense. This blog is a record of our home-building project.

Friday, June 1, 2012

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.

 

3 comments:

kentuckyagrarianwannabe said...

Very nice video, very infromative, hope you do one the plastering also. I've enjoyed watching the whole process of your home being built.

God Bless
Tim

dp said...

I will do the one on plastering. It fits right in with the slip straw one. With the investment of a little time, you can make a natural, low-cost wall.

M.. said...

I love this blog! It's been very informative about straw slip infilling, and other things besides.