Straw Bale and Timber Frame House Plans

“Strawtron” is a timber frame house with straw bale insulation, my second major natural building foray after Gobcobatron.

 

April and I designed the house to use as many natural materials as possible, including straw, timber, clay, lime, and reclaimed wood flooring. The floor plans were carefully considered to keep the interior space as minimal as possible, while still providing the utmost level of function.

Our ultimate goal was to make the space and layout as suitable and efficient for this climate as is possible. Northeast Missouri must contend with high heat and humidity, freezing cold and snow, blowing winds and strong rains, extremely heavy clay soil, tornadoes, and drought and floods. This is not an easy place to build!

Timber Frame House Design Features

• Building elements: straw bale insulation, timber frame with local wood (sawn white and red oak, whole black locust), concrete pier foundation, living roof, earthen and lime plasters, light clay straw porch walls
• Interior 1st story living area rough dimensions are 13’x24′ (about 300 square feet)
• Greenhouse is planned to be about 10’x14′ — will serve as heat source, additional living space with solar shower, sink, etc., & space for growing lovely things
• Roundwood spiral staircase leads up to second story above main living space, with a walk out to 6 ft. deep balcony on the west
• North porch is a closed-in, highly ventilated space for summertime cooking and relaxing
• Storage area above porch
• Heat provided by small wood stove (Morso 1410 stove initially)

The Strawtron Building Timeline

April and I designed Strawtron over the winter of 2011-12, having fully accepted that cob is not suitable for a four season dwelling in northeast Missouri. Gobcobatron would be converted to a three season rental space.

We dreamed up an ambitious plan to create a space that would be ready for living within the year. Our goal was clear from the beginning: we wanted to design an efficient, spacious yet small, beautiful, and largely hand-built home that could serve as a successful natural building model for our particular climate and place.

We came up with floor plans and collaborated with Tom Cundiff, a professional itinerant timber framer to come up with a timber frame design to suit the structure we had in mind. Tom deftly converted our floor plans into an actual frame, incorporating all of the elements we wished to see in the final house.

Simultaneously, we launched our entry into the world of natural building workshops and planned to host our first full-fledged classes during the summer of 2012: a Timber Frame Workshop in June, and a Straw Bale Workshop in July.

These workshops would benefit us by teaming up with experienced teachers to build a house with components with which we had minimal experience, to spread the labor load and simultaneously get interested individuals involved in building and gaining new skills, to expedite the timeline, and ultimately, to enable a house to be built where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

Both workshops were a large success. April and I have never worked harder in our lives than in that mercilessly hot summer of 2012, both working on the house and organizing / promoting / hosting two major workshops. We finished the timber frame and the roof in the nick of time, and a huge amount of work was completed during the Straw Bale Workshop. At the end of the summer, we worked alone to seal up the house, and we were able to live in the house for winter upon our return from making income further afield.

In 2013, we finished the living roof, did more interior finish work and plaster, closed in the north porch, built the roundwood spiral staircase, and… prepared to move to Kentucky (yes, we were leaving the home we had just barely begun to enjoy). But that is another story.

In 2014, we returned for a six week building marathon and fully finished the space, inside and out. Finish exterior lime plaster, finish interior clay plaster, ceilings, finish carpentry, and a host of other tasks were completed. We also went ahead and wired the home for electricity.

Strawtron has been a huge labor of love, an even bigger learning experience, and the source of much joy and many memories.

 

Free Timber Frame House Building Plans

Here’s a full set of our building plans for the timber frame — including 3D images, floor plans, elevation drawings, etc.: Timber Frame House Floor Plans & Design.

If you find these drawings useful, please contact us and let us know. It’s possible we may make drawings of house beyond the framing elements in the future.