Winter Work Continues

As winter continues and the snows fly, we are cozy in our house of straw as we continue with the straw bale stacking. We've had strange winter weather. Dry but cold nights. A lot of pretty mild afternoons with really cold ones thrown in here and there. In other words, see-saw weather.  Inside our house, however, has been pleasant. All the plastic we put up has worked like a charm keeping the snows out and most of the wind at bay. We can just imagine how cozy it will be once the windows and doors are in and the plastering is done.

Things I've learned: splitting and stacking bales is DIRTY work.  There is straw EVERYWHERE!!  Years from now we will probably still be picking tiny bits of straw out of work clothes.

I've also learned that stacking bales makes one stronger <g>  I was amazed at how easy it was to lift my suitcase up into the over head storage bin the last time I flew!

We've spent the last month or so filling in straw up to the roof.

This is the wall between the house and garage. This is Rick attaching the bales to the trusses with bailing twine.

Here it is done. Still have to do this to the wall at the end of the garage.

We have also finished constructing and installing all the boxes above the windows and doors. This is the box over the large window in the office before and after bales were stacked.

Looking toward the studio and office - the pile of bales is smaller!!!

The living/dinning room.

99% of the bales are done! And enough room has been made so we can start on the next phase: digging the footings for the internal walls and trenching for the plumbing. The next immediate chore is to move bags of straw and plies of wood to make more room so digging can begin.

Work is progressing as well as we'd hoped during these cold winter months.  So well, in fact, that we are starting to feel comfortable setting a "move in" date!  Our goal is to be able to move in and celebrate Rick's 70th (!) birthday in the house in November - so mark your calendars!  Lots yet to do in the next 8 months but we're starting to see a tiny bit of light way out there at the end of this tunnel.

Adventures of an On-line Auction

Winter continues as does the work on the house - all be it slowly. Along with the work we are also collecting bits and pieces for the inside of the house. Rick gets notification of a monthly auction that takes place in Albuquerque. Most of the items are usually things from Los Alamos or Sandia Labs - pallets of computers, electrical equipment, etc. This month there were lots of new Pella windows and doors listed! We have had great fun at auctions in the past so we saw this as an opportunity to have some fun and maybe get some windows for the house at a good price. The auction was scheduled to start at 9:30 am which meant that we needed to leave home no later that 6:30 if we were to get down there in time to be able to view the items we were interested in before the bidding started.

The morning dawned dark, COLD and snowing AND windy! The thought of a 2 hour drive in nasty weather was not appealing so we decided to not go. The auction house does, however, offer the opportunity to bid on line. Something we'd never done but as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. While I took off to get grocery shopping done, Rick stayed home and started following the auction on line. As it turned out, it was a good thing we did not go down.  All of the things we were interested in didn't come up for bid until well after 3 pm which would have made for a very long day.

So - our items come up and the bidding is fast and furious. We didn't get some of the things we wanted but we did get quite a few things we wanted - and some things we didn't know we wanted!  It was pretty confusing and at one point Rick bid on - and got - a door. The pictures were not very good so we weren't sure what kind of door we got!  Another thing we bid on was something that was listed as a "three part door" but the picture was clearly of a large window.  We got that as well.

Finally the bidding is over and we are sitting here wondering just what it is we got!  At one point it even looked like we got SEVEN French doors!  What would we do with 7??  Both of us spent a restless night wondering about that one!

The weather was much better the next morning so we were able to drive down to see and pick up our items.  What a surprise we got!  The two large windows we got were BEAUTIFUL!  And just perfect for where we wanted to put them.  One of them even has the blinds in between the glass - snazzy.  The door we weren't sure about is a front door that is gorgeous!  It's solid wood in the craftsman style.  The final tally was two large windows, two French doors (not 7) and the front door.  All new except one of the French doors AND the cost was way less than we would have paid for ONE of the windows.  It was quite a score and very exciting!

These are the two large windows.  The one in the back will go in the living room and the one in the front will be in the office.  AND they fit perfectly!!

This is one of the French doors.

This is another.

And this is the beautiful front door!  We can't wait to install it!!

And work continues.  The north and south walls in the garage are now done.

And I've started on the walls in the living room.

Slowly, slowly, little by little...

Winter Has Arrived

After a very mild fall, winter has arrived cold and dry. While we do have 3 or 4 inches of snow on the ground, it's a lot less than normal.  It has, however, been colder than we're used to - lows below 0 and highs below freezing.  We've been staying very close to home and praying that our pipes don't freeze. So far so good!!! The good news is that the plastic we wrapped the house in is doing a great job of keeping the walls safe and dry!

We have had some days, though, that have warmed up into the 30s and I've tried to take advantage of them by working at least two or three hours on the house. I have begun working on Phase 2 of the straw bale walls.

Here is the window above the trombe wall in the garage.  There will be two double hung windows here.  Still have to hang the box above the windows for the straw.

The north wall in the house with boxes installed above the windows ready for more straw.

We still have to hang the ceiling for the bedroom and bath so straw is up to the bond beam. Once we get the internal walls up and the ceiling hung, we will finish the straw on this wall.

Window on the north side of the garage ready for more straw.

Day one....

One more course to go!

Straw on north wall of garage done!

This phase is turning out to be very labor intensive. We at first thought a full bale might fit vertically between the trusses but that space is 22" give or take, and a bale is 18" wide so the bales have to be split and loose straw stuffed between them to fill in the cracks. And while half a bale is much lighter than a full bale, it's still challenging to get the half bales up there and in place. At the end of a couple of hours, I am totally covered - inside and out - with straw!

The forecast for the coming week is for highs to get back into the 40s, which is normal for this time of year. With any luck, I'll be able to get a lot done before the next cold snap arrives.

Happy Holidays!

The holidays are upon us and along with them comes cold, snowy weather.  The good news is that all the plastic that we put up around the outside of the house is working.  It keeps most of the wind and snow out and makes for a decent space in which to work so the work is continuing.  All be it more slowly.  It's still cold so afternoons are just about the only time comfortable enough to get out there and work.

We have started on phase 2 of the walls.  In order to continue stacking bales, boxes have to be built to go over the doors and windows.  That's what we are currently working on.

First we attached chicken wire from the bond beam to the soffits.  This will help hold the straw in place as a lot of it at this stage will be flakes. (This was subsequently covered with plastic. We found that the wind - and some snow - was being blown in and the sound of the wind through the chicken wire made it sound like a hurricane was blowing outside.  The plastic stopped that!)

This is one of the boxes ready for instillation.

Here it is installed over the bedroom window.

While we are doing that, our electrician, Samuel, has started running the wiring.

Pretty exciting!

This time last year all we had up was the large adobe wall.  It looked more like an adobe ruin than the beginning of a house.

It's looking more like a house now!

Straw Bale Walls - Phase 1 - Done

During the last week we have continued stacking bales and the first phase of the walls is done.  Bales are stacked up to the bond beam throughout the whole house and plastic has been stapled to the rest of the exposed outside walls.  We are ready for winter!

One of the things I wanted to incorporate into at least one wall was colored bottles.  I have been saving square olive oil bottles for a while.  They're a lovely dark green and I thought they would look cool in the straw bale wall next to the big adobe wall.

First I taped two bottles together with duct tape.

Then, to give them some rigidity I taped flashing around them.

They were then placed between two bales.

You can see their placement in the photo below. I'm not sure how much light will shine through as they are so dark, but I like the way they look and I think they will be lovely once the walls are plastered.

This is a panorama.  I'm standing in the NW corner of the living room.  Bedroom, kitchen, bath to left. Studio and office on the right.

Here's a view from the attic above the garage.

Next

A few things need to happen next. First we need to construct boxes to go above all the windows and doors on which bales will rest.

Second we need to decide just how and where the internal walls and ceilings will go. Since the footings for the internal walls have not been dug (a winter project) we will lay them out so that we know where they are going. Once we make those decisions, we can start stuffing bales between the roof trusses and above the bond beam. We will leave the areas where there will be ceiling joists attached open. Once the internals walls are framed and up, we can then finish those areas.

The other thing that needs to be done is the wall between the house and garage needs bales all the way up as does the gable end.

In addition to establishing the internal walls and digging footings for them, we also must dig trenches for the plumbing. Tasks that can be done while the winter snows fly.

And - oh yes - the electrician is scheduled to start wiring the house next week!

One Bale at a Time

Work continues at a nice steady pace. I must admit, though, that I have to keep telling myself that it's not a race and that I can take my time. I'm not as young as I used to be and pacing myself is a must.

Here's a gallery of photos of work done to date.

The Straw Boss - Rick after a day's work.

The living room

Rick notching a bale.

North wall

Expanded lath tying the north wall to the garage wall.

Walls going up in the garage.

The garbage bags are full of loose straw. The bales are so tightly baled that when a notch is cut, there's LOTS of loose straw. We are bagging it up to use in the plastering (and mulching of garden).

Looking into the garage

Starting on the east wall. Plastic will soon be added to the outside of this wall.

A couple of things learned about stacking straw bales

The first thing we learned when we started stacking the bales is that they come in all different lengths. They AVERAGE 36" long but vary from 31 to 41".  When Rick designed the layout for the bales he based it on 36" long two string bales. Needless to say, with all the different lengths, the bales don't fit like he planned which means we've been doing a lot of notching and splitting of bales.  We're getting pretty good at it! We bought a nifty cordless chain saw which we thought would make the bale notching task easier but we've found that what we're really using is a good old bow saw.

The bale needle I found on line has also been an invaluable tool. 

Another thing learned:  Wear a mask and cover up as much as possible! Working with bales is dirty, dusty work!

Not to be outdone, Tex decided he wanted to play with straw, too.  Luckily the bale he decided to play with was an old one. Looks like he had fun, though, doesn't it?