I’ve been dwelling on (pun sorta intended) my cob house designs for a little while now, making plenty of sketches and reading lots of different books. As of yesterday, I thought I was fairly settled on a basic design. The roof has been causing me the most anxiety, since that is where I have no experience in either design or construction. But anyway, I had a salon/discussion last night to talk about my plans and to get feedback. I’ve been talking to a few different folks already, but I wanted to have a group discussion to get additional ideas. As a result of that talk, I am no longer so attached to my original design, and today I am doing some re-thinking, especially in terms of the roof I had in mind.

Originally, my plans looked something like this.

It’s a small cob house, with an 11’x13′ interior, rounded corners, with an urbanite foundation and a living roof. The walls are projected to be about 18 inches thick. A 6′ wide porch is on the west side of the house.

The south-facing wall would feature a large sliding window, about 4-6 feet wide for solar gain. The entrance is positioned in the southeast corner. Smaller double hung windows rest in the east and west walls, with a tiny fixed window in the north. Along the west wall is a rocket stove connected to a 4′ wide heated cob bed and bench that wraps around the northwest.

Bookshelves would be cobbed directly into the walls. A three foot deep shelf would be positioned above the cob bed for storage.

So. I’m now rethinking these basic plans a bit after learning about reciprocal roofs and seeing this incredible woodland home design. Originally, I kept debating between using standard dimensional lumber or pole wood for the roof construction. I was leaning towards dimensional lumber since I figured it would be easier to work with, and it would keep the living roof design more uniform and easier to build. However, I did not like the idea of depending on milled lumber. I thought it would be much nicer to find wood poles here on the land and incorporate them into the building instead. But I was intimidated by the prospect of using lots of uneven pieces of wood. How would that complicate the living roof?

However, after talking with Mark of Red Earth Farms I became inspired by the reciprocal roof design, which could easily be made using pole wood. I even made a couple smaller scale reciprocal roof models using chopsticks and oak wood scraps. After doing some web browsing, I have seen a number of photos of natural homes with reciprocal living roofs. Additionally, I am just starting to overcome my fear of a lack of familiarity with some of the construction process. Why should I worry? This is all one great big learning experience. If I really want to learn, I might as well design the cottage the way I really envision it. Take the bull by the horns.

Now I am starting to reformulate my design to incorporate a reciprocal roof, and a slightly different building shape. The basic layout will be similar, but I think this potential second iteration will have a more unique design. We shall see.

UPDATE (7/21): See building with cob on the Tiny House Blog for a feature on my cob house in progress!