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natural building workshops Archives - Page 4 of 6 - The Year of Mud

Aug 17
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The Calm Before the (Framing) Storm

By Natural Building Workshops, Timber Framing
Roundwood Timber Frame Workshop

Calm before the storm…

Our batch of students for the 2013 Timber Frame Workshop arrive this afternoon, and we are in that interesting moment in time right before a lot of activity, anticipating, getting the last few things in order, and looking forward to the 10 days ahead. This year’s workshop feels vastly different than last, since April and I (a.k.a., The Year of Mud) are acting as hosts and organizers, or masters of ceremonies. We’ll be ducking in and out of the class itself, too, but the labor is much more evenly distributed this year, which is really nice.

Anyway, we love hosting workshops and meeting new people, and reveling in the excitement that is part of participating with a group of people on a project in an organized way. These workshops are like an extension of community, although temporary. But a sure sign of success, despite how temporary and brief these workshops ultimately are, is maintaining contact with former participants.

Well, look forward to updates throughout the week! We’ll make daily updates on The Year of Mud on facebook, too.

Jul 24
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The Roundwood Timber Frame: Coming Soon

By Timber Framing, Natural Building Workshops
Roundwood Timber Frame House

Coming soon!

In less than a month, we’ll be fearlessly led by our maestro Tom Cundiff in assembling the beautiful timber frame that you see above during our 10 day workshop. This is going to be a particularly slick design, and rather unique for several of its features. The foundation plan is highly irregular — read: non-square, also read: organic, wild and crazy, funky. It’s a small structure, about 300 square feet in size, and a great learning model for folks interested in small house living.
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Apr 29
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3 Advantages of Roundwood Timber Framing

By Natural Building Workshops, Timber Framing

Ben Law Roundwood Timber FrameRoundwood timber framing implements whole trees, eliminating the waste from milling larger trees into dimensional timbers, and offers a host of other benefits in the realm of timber frame construction.

Our Timber Frame Workshop this year will focus rather heavily on roundwood joinery and techniques, which I do believe is rather unique to this class. If you’re curious about implementing whole trees in natural building, you’ll have your chance this summer.

And be sure to check out my guest post for Tiny House Design here — 3 Benefits of Roundwood Timber Framing.

Image source: Ben Law’s Woodland Home

 

Mar 25
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The Best Way to Learn About Natural Building

By Natural Building Workshops

Natural Building Workshops

People often write me and ask how to get into or learn about natural building and living a more sustainable lifestyle. Unfortunately (?), the answer is fairly predictable, but all the same, it is worth addressing here. The answer is this: the best way to learn whatever you want to do is to get firsthand experience. Sorry to say, but it’s that simple.

When to comes to a specialized skill, there is no replacement for getting firsthand experience. Reading books and looking at images online is one thing, and one thing only — a mere taste, a slight dip of the spoon. All of that goes out the window when you try the thing (say, building) itself. Because putting an idea into practice is an entirely different experience from intellectualizing or daydreaming about it.

But that is the “business” I feel most passionate about, and want to encourage more than anything to the readers of this blog, to the people I meet, and to anyone who has an itch to do anything new. Go out there, get experience, create connections, and give it a try.

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Dec 17
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Learn How To Build a Cob Oven: Join Our 2013 Cob Oven Workshop!

By Natural Building Workshops, Cob Oven

We are happy to announce our first building workshops of 2013 — come learn how to build your own backyard, wood fired oven in our Cob Oven Workshop.

In September and October, visit Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri for our latest three day natural building course — learn cob oven construction essentials, and get a great glimpse into sustainable living in a well-known ecovillage community in the process.

Outdoor ovens are extremely popular, and for good reason. A cob oven can be built with inexpensive natural and recycled materials, and the results are fantastic. No pizza party will ever be the same again!

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Nov 28
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Our Timber Frame & Straw Bale House Building Timeline

By Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron

Straw Bale House2012 was a whirlwind of a building season. Organizing and running two natural building workshops, building a timber frame house with hand tools, meeting deadlines, unbelievable heat…

Despite all of it, we accomplished an amazing amount of work. Again, huge thanks to our awesome building workshop crews, and every volunteer that picked up a hammer (or a really heavy timber) in our crazy journey. Here I present a recap of our 2012 Strawtron building season. In the coming weeks I will ‘fill in the blanks’ where I have not provided online documentation of our timber frame & straw bale house, so look out!

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Aug 04
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Straw Bale Workshop Finished! Slideshow & More

By Natural Building Workshops, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron
strawbaleworkshop-group02

Our lovely bunch of straw bale workshop participants

We just finished our awesome 10 days of the first Year of Mud Straw Bale Workshop — what a blast! We had yet another great batch of students, and there was ample opportunity to get lots of progress made, and learn all the ins and outs of working with straw bales. I think everyone went home energized and enlivened, and probably a bit tired too…. and definitely full from tons of great food.

I personally came away from this class with my love once again reignited for natural building, a wish for continuing to learn and challenge myself, and a strong desire to keep working in this invigorating format. It is so great to be surrounded by and working closely with people curious, excited, and enthusiastic about natural building and alternative living.

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Aug 01
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Earthen Plaster Makes Me Happy

By Natural Building Workshops, Photos, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron
Natural Earthen Plaster

Fresh first coat of earthen plaster in our future bedroom

The fact that we’ve come this far during the workshop makes me very happy. Here’s looking at our future bedroom, with a fresh base coat of earthen plaster, and our first trimmed window with embedded black walnut window sill. It looks fantastic. The students have been loving the mud. I love that they love the mud.

Things are good. The workshop has been a blast. Today is our last day!