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.
On Wednesday of this week, the boys and I finished the last wall to be packed. All of the interior walls have been packed with slip straw, and once the last ones are completely dry (by the end of next week), all of them will be ready for plaster. We’ll be focusing on the plastering job we have starting soon.
We calculated that we packed 1,100 square feet of walls in the house and used about 50 straw bales (give or take). We didn’t keep track of how many hours of work that entails, but it was several. It’s nice to have that part of the project done.
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