Putting roof decking on the new outhouse
Our first official natural building project on the land this year is an outhouse. Ha! I kinda love that. Right now we’re in the midst of framing a small two stall outhouse that will be one of the site projects for work & learning during our upcoming Natural Building Essentials workshop. This outhouse is going to get a pretty special treatment in the form of light clay straw walls and a clay plaster finish. The finished product should be pretty de-luxe.
Our light clay straw (slipstraw) porch walls are on the way
The north porch of our straw bale house has been occupying most of our construction time these days. As of only a couple of weeks ago, the porch was still largely open, with only framing and a few windows installed.
We decided to go the wall & windows route, instead of just screening the space in, because of how exposed this part of the home is to the north and west weather. Also, the space is much more versatile this way, too. We decided to do light clay straw (a.k.a., slipstraw) infill walls.
It’s been an enjoyable process thus far.
Interested in learning more about light clay straw (or straw-clay, or ‘leichtlehm’) construction? My friend Jacob over at Red Earth Farms whipped up this handy guide to building with straw-clay. Inside you’ll find advice for dealing with framing your home, how to protect the walls from the elements, making light clay straw and finishing the walls with plaster, and more good stuff. Check it out below.
Jacob’s light clay straw home
by Jacob Schmidt
This is an introduction to light clay straw construction (a.k.a. “straw-clay”). In the summer of 2010, I started construction on my first house (20 ft. x 12 ft.). It was stud framed with light clay straw infill. I had helped with other natural building projects and had some conventional experience. This article is the product of all of my mistakes (and few successes) so that you, my fellow builder, do not have to walk the road that I have. Fortunately for y’all I built a chicken coop in 2011, and that helped me to learn more about building correctly with light clay straw. (One mistake being I should have done the coop first, but at least my chickens are happy.) Read More
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.
