I will be headed out of Dancing Rabbit in three short weeks to go back to New Jersey for the holidays. Within the past couple of weeks, I have accepted the fact that I will not absolutely “finish” the house before that time. By “finish”, I mean complete the roof, finish the floor, make my rocket stove and cob bed and bench, and plaster the interior.
So. I’ve done some prioritizing. Now that the cob walls are complete, and the windows and door are in, the house is sealed. My biggest remaining priority is the roof – I need to construct an edge board around the roof, create a soil-retaining system, and have soil moved to my site and load it onto the roof. Oh, and seed the soil, too. That’s not a small load of work by any means!
While I am waiting on a delivery of lumber to build my edge board, I have begun (and finished) some scratch plastering. A few days ago, I moved several tons of gravel into the building in preparation for the earthen floor, and raked it level and tamped it with Kyle’s help. (I estimate it was about six tons, all of which was moved within a 24 hour period.)
The chances are pretty decent that I will be able to finish the floor and the roof. If I do these two things, I will feel confident about moving in for the winter. I am pretty opposed to moving into an unfinished house – especially one without a floor. It would be quite a hassle to work on the house when springtime came (and springtime rains) with all of my stuff in the house and nowhere to store it. However, if at least the floor is done, it won’t be quite as difficult to work on the stove and cob bed and plaster with things in the space.
The weather has been phenomenal lately, which has definitely contributed to quick progress on things. There’s at least a few more days of warm weather in the forecast, too, which is promising.
Three weeks to go! Let’s see what can get done.