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.
When we finished plastering the kitchen walls, the only thing left to do downstairs was the pantry.
We decided to save it until after we finished the first coat upstairs. I mixed up a batch of plaster and got the boys busy putting it on the walls while I worked around the windows.
I was thinking of putting boards above the windows upstairs because of their location. It turned out that I could plaster above the windows on the ends upstairs, though. 
So, I had to take down the support boards I had under the bales and put up chicken wire. The bales were actually wedged in very well and didn’t move without the boards to support them.
Then, I had to prepare some oak boards for above the windows on the rear of the house upstairs. 
I planed some boards from some trees we had cut and milled about 8 years ago. Then, I edged them, cut lap joints, and cut them to the proper length before nailing them in place. They turned out really nice and finish 
out the windows well.
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