Tiny dry-stacked woodshed foundation
As if there wasn’t enough to do this year (between house changes and a mud room addition, and building a temporary kitchen and of course the full four seasons kitchen, and a whole mess of other stuff), April and I have decided to build a small cob woodshed. Cob woodshed? Isn’t that overkill? Well, sure… but with all of that extra cob we have lying around from the bed demolition, it’s the perfect use for it!
I’ve mentioned before that GOBCOBATRON will be featured on the cover of the latest Yes! Magazine, issue #55. Well, in addition to that, the staff has created a slideshow of the building of my cob house for their website, and a piece of my writing accompanies it.
You can check out the Building a Handmade Cob House slideshow at the Yes! website. If you like it, maybe you’ll consider stumbling it and sharing with friends?
Thanks!
Admiring the first post
At long last, the kitchen timber framing has begun. The foundation was completed several weeks ago, and since then, more of the framing design has been hashed out and actually started. So far, we’ve got our first two posts up and plumbed, and the first beam awaits shaping and raising.
The new front door (that will soon receive a new coat of paint to cover up that blase beige)
The cob walls of the mud room addition are finally complete and all that remains now is to plaster the walls once the cob has fully dried. I’m very happy with how the addition process went and the end result. We’ve now got a great (tiny) little space for storing shoes and hanging coats, and it gives us an extra bit of buffer against exterior temperatures. Here’s a few pictures of the new front entryway of the house…
GOBCOBATRON in Yes! Magazine
Whoa! Yes! Magazine recently contacted me about a feature they were creating for their newest issue about resilient communities — they specifically had interest in covering Dancing Rabbit, but it turns out most of the article ended up being about my cob home. They even selected our photo for the cover shot! (Thanks to Stephen for the photo help.)
This morning we had a mini photo shoot for a possible magazine cover image. Thankfully the weather was just lovely. It was nice to see the house slowly lit up by the beautiful morning sun… If we’re lucky, this photo will actually make the cut. Thanks to Stephen for the photo!
More to come later…
Man, goings-on is a weird word. It just never looks or sounds exactly right. Anyway, there have been a number of these so-called goings-on lately. Here’s the lowdown on what’s been keeping me busy…
By now you know that the cob bed has been completely removed, but the wall has been replastered, and the floor redone as well. Just yesterday, I finished oiling the finish layer of the floor, so now it is curing. I can’t remember how long I waited last year for the oil to cure, but it must have been at least a week. Most of the past month of work on the house has been waiting – waiting for both layers of the floor to dry, for plaster to dry, for oil to cure. The actual work has been quite quick and simple. But we should finally be able to move back into the house very shortly.
We had some extra earthen plaster from re-plastering the portion of the house where the cob bed was, so we slapped it on the oven in the temporary outdoor kitchen. And then I made this little whale mosaic. I kinda like how it came out!
Just a quick update to feature a few cob building blogs that I’ve been checking out lately:
earthen acres: Danielle is building a very small cob cottage and documenting her progress. So far her home has a completed dry-stacked (and beautiful!) urbanite foundation with the first layers of cob on the wall. I am excited to see how this little structure gets on.
mud for everyone: I haven’t ventured very far into Erica Ann’s blog, but damn if that cob loop-de-loop isn’t cool! Check out the June 1 post.
clay sand straw blog: I’ve enjoyed perusing these folks’ website and the wealth of photos of their building projects, so I anticipate future updates on this new blog.
Any others you would like to share? Comment and lemme know.
A section of the second course
Wabi-sabi is moving slowly but surely towards completing our urbanite foundation for the kitchen. I’ve gotta say… stacking stone is one of the things I’d really love to learn well with an experienced builder. Granted, urbanite and stone are different animals (and stone comes in many shapes and forms itself), but I often stumble over what is “good enough” when it comes to stacking the material. I have a good handle on what is “acceptable” but still — there are so many cases when you sacrifice one thing for another if you just can’t make the perfect fit or find the exact right piece. How to balance that is something I’d love to learn more about…
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
