Ever since I started building my house, I’ve thought about writing a book about the process of building. Now that my house is actually complete, I’m thinking more seriously about the prospect. The possibilities seem numerous, and the prospect is exciting. I’ve kept up this website and an actual written journal very obsessively so that I have clear documentation, and I also have plenty of photos of the entire construction, as well.
Just a random and slightly off-topic post here to say that I am now blogging at sustainablog, an environmental news blog that’s been around for a number of years now. I have been freelance blogging for the past three years for a number of websites, but hopefully this will work out to be a longer term gig than the rest! My first post is about the excellent book, Goat Song, and small-scale food production.
Expect a fair bit of natural building entries there as well!
(p.s. Happy winter solstice, by the way – if I were home, I’d like to measure how far the sun penetrates into my house through the south window on this day…!)
There are a few books that I referenced and relied on throughout the process of building my cob house. I’ve come up with a short list of books for aspiring cob builders to get inspired and get set on the path to actual construction of a small cob house similar to my own. Check them out!
Read More
A month ago, I mentioned the new building project I am working on: a community kitchen and social space. I have created a new website, The House That Millet Built, to document the construction of the building.
This new kitchen will feature hybrid walls (probably featuring some cob, or balecob?), an urbanite foundation, a roundwood post and beam frame, and hopefully, a hand-split shake roof. It will be electricity-free. This new building project presents a lot of new exciting learning opportunities.
Anyway, if you have enjoyed any of the documentation process here at The Year of Mud, I hope you will follow along on The House That Millet Built as construction continues! Look for more updates soon.
Cob Oven Update! (1/26/2015): This $20 cob oven article has been the most popular entry on my website since I originally posted it. It’s been 5 years since I wrote it, and we’ve made significant improvements to the original design, resulting in a much better outdoor pizza oven.
I highly recommend reading the Better Outdoor Pizza Oven Plans if you’re interested in building one of these for yourself. The instructions there are much more detailed, too. Here’s the original article for posterity…
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I must admit, I’m a bit of a breadhead. Few things are as exciting to me as freshly baked bread with a dab of butter, or hot and greasy scallion pancakes, or fluffy and airy naan, or a pizza fresh from the hearth of a wood-fired cob oven. (That last one trumps all the others.) I thrive on bread. I love eating it, and of course I love making and baking it, too.
Earlier in the year, the idea of baking in the outdoors in a wood-fired oven became something of a romanticized (in every positive sense of the word) notion to me. It was soon obvious that I should build a cob oven, which would be fairly easy and quick to build, and quite cheap, too. Compared to masonry ovens, which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and usually require pretty intense materials in their construction, a cob oven can be made from very simple, locally available materials. (Although it must be said that masonry ovens undoubtedly have a longer lifespan!)
The finished straw mattress
(This lovely DIY how-to is written by my partner April, who made a straw mattress for our cob bed. Read ahead!)
[UPDATE: Do you have experience making alternative mattresses, including using straw? We were forced to give up this straw mattress due to back pain and an unfortunate uneven sleeping surface. If you have tips about how to make a more comfortable natural mattress, please contact us!]
Living in a hand-built home can often mean making unique and non-conventional furniture choices. I recently transitioned from a tent to a cob house and ran into the dilemma of what to do about a bed. My criteria was something natural and sustainable, economical, readily available, quick and easy to assemble, and comfortable. Is that too much to ask? I decided to do some research first.
My friend Nathan who lives at Dancing Rabbit is interested in hosting natural building professionals who want to experience life in an off-the-grid community. If this description fits you, please read ahead!
Curious about how to build
your own natural home?
Check out our Natural Building Workshops outside Berea, KY. We offer courses in cob and straw bale building, timber framing, and more.
When designing my cob house, it was an important goal to keep my building costs very low and to obtain as many building materials as locally as possible. Natural materials were my first priority, and recycled building supplies were preferred over new materials. Few materials were purchased new, and about as few are synthetic.
In this very detailed entry, Recipe for Building a Cob House, you can learn what it took to build my cob house for about $3000 in material costs. You’ll also learn exactly how much cob I made (all by foot!), and specific amounts of material that went into the construction. Read More
A little over one year ago, I started building my first cob house. And simultaneously, I started The Year of Mud to document the entire building process. I have kept regular documentation going since I started designing my house, all the way through making an urbanite foundation, to building cob walls, constructing a reciprocal roof frame, and more recently, making a rocket stove and living sod roof.
You can help spread awareness about cob building by helping The Year of Mud to continue to share cob building stories and information.
At the top of this page, you may have noticed a Cob Resources link. I update this page regularly with new articles, so it’s worth checking out if you’re interested in reading more about cob and other natural building techniques elsewhere on the web, or if you’d like to check out some of the natural building videos I’ve made for Dancing Rabbit TV.
Thanks for reading!
About The Year of Mud
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.
