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cob Archives - The Year of Mud

Jun 27
Love0

A Few Cob Building Blogs To Check Out

By Resources

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.

Jun 12
Love0

Help Promote Cob Building and Support The Year of Mud

By Uncategorized, Resources

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.

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You can help spread awareness about cob building by helping The Year of Mud to continue to share cob building stories and information.

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Apr 09
Love0

The Most Beautiful Cob House Ever?

By Design, Cob Bed and Bench

meka cob cottage

There are a few natural buildings that stand out in my mind as some of the most beautiful examples. One of them is Meka’s cob cottage. Meka Bunch of Wolf Creek, Oregon built this stunning cob house over a four year period. Complete with hand-sculpted furniture, shelves and nooks built directly into the walls, arched windows, and a killer custom staircase, his cob building is a divine artistic achievement.

Check out the photos of Meka’s cob cottage for yourself.

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Sep 25
Love0

Building a house out of cob: an audio interview

By Resources

100percentcobwallsThis afternoon, I did an interview with Tom Tucker of Greenblogosphere.com to talk about building with cob. We talked about my experience building a cob house, the benefits and history of cob, why I chose cob over other materials, etc. We also talked a little bit about life here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

It was really fun to have this talk, and hopefully this audio interview will shed some light on what it’s like to build with cob.

You can listen to the interview below, or visit Greenblogosphere.com to listen to building a house out of cob.

Aug 31
Love0

The cob walls are complete

By Cob Building

194.5 batches of cob stomped by foot and applied by hand and you get:

100percentcobwalls

Yesterday afternoon and this morning, I put some final touches on the cob walls, leveling them in preparation for the soon-coming reciprocal roof. After I smoothed out some of the last cobs, I took a minute as I stood on the lean-to trestle, just staring down at the walls which now easily tower over my head, and I wondered in amazement.

It has been quite a journey to this point, moving over 40 tons of material. That’s a lot of earth. More specifically, it’s been 194.5 batches of cob so far. All this over 57 days (which were not all full work days, mind you.)

And it’s not over yet, but this massive portion of the process is, at least. Here are some photos of the structure.

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Interior, looking southwest.The bed will be positioned along the far wall, under the window. The joists will support a 7.5′ wide, 22″ deep storage shelf.

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The north wall interior, with nooks and a shelf at the foot of the (future) bed. The rocket stove will be to the left of the window. Exterior backside, looking southwest.

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Entryway with storage nooks. A gigantic corner bookshelf.

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Happy.

Aug 29
Love0

Cob walls are 99%

By Cob Building

Here’s a couple of photos of the 99% complete cob walls. I figure I’ll be able to finish them off tomorrow, perhaps Sunday if it takes a couple more batches than I expect. Reciprocal roof: here we come!

Also, in the top photo you might notice a post near the entryway. This black locust post will bear one of the reciprocal roof rafters, making for a nice little overhang near the entryway. Call it a really small porch, maybe, but this should provide some decent extra coverage from the elements.

Aug 26
Love0

The end is (seriously) near

By Cob Building

biggwallll

With the help of my superstar work exchangers Dan and Danielle, the cob walls are nearly complete. Unfortunately, D&D departed today to begin their own pursuits, but I am hopeful that I’ll be able to complete cobbing by myself by the weekend. I suspect it will take 10 or so batches to level out the walls in preparation for the reciprocal roof – no problem! (My estimations are historically inaccurate, but I feel pretty confident about this one.)

It’s amazing how tall the west wall (see above) is/feels, compared to the rest of the house. A little bit of slope can go a long way.

Last night we had a third campfire in the house, and several folks have suggested leaving the house as is, without roof, because of the dramatic light cast by the fire on the walls. It’s quite a sight. Maybe I’ll have to design a retractable roof…

Aug 19
Love0

The story so far

By Cob Building

cobhouse-nw01

Recent highlights the past week included cobbing above the south window, removing the door brace (ahhh for easy entering and exiting!), and sticking in most of the deadmen for the roof rafters. It feels more and more like an actual house with each passing day.

lookingeast lookingsouth