We have really come to love the wood burning stove we installed in the living room. So much so that we decided to put another one in the studio. We got this one from some friends and we love it!
Rick got to do more rock work.
Stove installed.
We have done just about all we can do on the ceiling for now.
Get a load of the scaffolding we've been using to get to the top of the ceiling. It's hard not to feel like a monkey at the end of the day.
Scaffolding finally cleared out of the living room - for now.
Rick had to install lots of spacers in the hip area of the office ceiling so he'd have something onto which to nail the T&G.
Office ceiling ready for insulation.
I spent the better part of a week on the floor looking up at the work Rick was doing. He'd measure, I'd cut. My neck was a mess! This is the best angle I could get for a picture - it's looking from the studio through the wall into the office.
We've also installed more drywall.
Studio side of the wall.
Office side of the wall. Note the scaffolding again. We're getting pretty good at moving that around!
This is looking down the hall towards the office. Starting to really look like something!
Some Details
There are some things that need to be done prior to plastering so I've been spending some time doing detail work. The first thing is the top of all the windows. We decided to install tongue and grove and was able to use up a whole lot of little bits and pieces left from the ceiling.
Here are pieces measured and cut, ready for instillation.
Here's what it looks like installed.
Another detail that needs to be done are all the window sills. I started with the trombe wall in the office.
First I need to measure and cut two pieces of blue board and clean off the top of the adobes.
Then I added about a 1/2 inch of mud.
The blue board was then screwed into the gringo blocks at each end and the adobes in the middle.
Now it's ready for tile.
Shower
One wall of our shower will be straw bale. There are many pictures of bathrooms and showers that have been installed in straw bale houses but not much on how they did it! So we're going to have to make it up as we go. From what I've read, mud plaster is very good at wicking moisture away from and through the bales so we decided to frame the straw wall then put up blue board. Before blue board is installed, I will mud and cob the wall where it will go. The whole shower will then be tiled.
Most of the framing done.
In order to get some more natural light into the shower, we've decided to use a stack of glass blocks. This picture shows where they will go.
These are the tiles we've gotten to use in the shower. We got them at the Habitat Re-Store and saved a ton of $$$. The colors are very subtle and I think will look great.
We are just about ready to call the plumber to come and install vent stacks. Once that is done we will be able to finish the ceiling and blow in the insulation. We are both really looking forward to having that done. We know it's going to make a huge difference in how warm (or cool) the house stays. Right now that's hard to imagine.
When I sat down to write this post I felt like there wasn't going to be too much to write about but looking back at what I've written I see that we've actually gotten quite a bit done in the last month! Now for warmer weather so we can start the plastering!!!
