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strawtron Archives - Page 3 of 8 - The Year of Mud

Nov 13
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Nearly Completing the Spiral

By Timber Framing, Strawtron, Carpentry
Building a Sprial Staircase

Mortising into the dark of evening

The roundwood spiral staircase that we have been feverishly building for the last five days is about 98% complete. As we simultaneously pack for our trip to Berea, there are mounds of wood chips on the floor of the house, oiled slabs of elm causing the house to smell like a citrus grove, and aching backs howling for a good rubbing.

It’s been an intense project, but the results are stunning. I’ll reveal the full staircase soon, but for now, here’s another glimpse of what we’ve been doing. I can hardly believe it’s come together.

Nov 10
Love0

Our Last (and Greatest) Task

By Carpentry, Timber Framing, Strawtron
Roundwood Sprial Staircase - First 2 Steps

First two steps installed… starting from the top, and working down

We have decided to take on our last and greatest task literally days before we leave Dancing Rabbit for Berea, Kentucky. In these final few days before we move, we are building a spiral staircase in our timber frame house. It is a rather foolish thing to do, but important, too.

We have literally 3 or so days left to try to finish the beast. And it is a beast, let me tell you. Drilling and chiseling 11 mortises in a roundwood post, making an equal number of stair risers with tenons, sawing/planing/gouging/oiling the 3″ elm slab steps… not to mention, having the wrap our puny minds around the layout has been quite the ordeal, to say the least. We are finally in the swing of things now that we have the layout firmly established, but the physical side of the work is still very intense.

Here are a few photos of what we are doing up until the literal minute we leave. Sometimes I wonder about these decisions we make…

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Oct 23
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It’s Alive (Or At Least, Will Be): Living Roof Installed and Seeded

By Living Sod Roof, Strawtron
New Green Living Roof: Straw Bale House

Newly built living roof, seeded and mulched… and one day, green!

Finally finally finally… after many months of waiting, we are on our way to a completely finished living roof on our straw bale house. Yowee. Just last week, we completed the lower roof over the east half of the house. After we designed and built our living roof edge detail, we heaved soil up there once and for all. Very exciting. I guess it won’t be truly “done” until it’s green, but I’m happy enough for now!

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Oct 10
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Live Edge Siding: “It Sings”

By Strawtron, Carpentry
Straw Bale House: Live Edge Siding

Our recent live edge siding job on the north porch… here’s the west view

I’ve been meaning to put up some images of our completed live edge siding job for a long, long time now… so here they are. Finally! An individual walking by the other day commented on the siding, saying “it sings”… a sweet compliment, I thought. I would agree. I just love the stuff. The grain, color, curves, and contrast with the plaster on the other parts of the house are very pleasing. I have no doubt we’ll feature more live edge siding in future building projects.

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Jul 17
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Live Edge Siding Sneak Peak

By Strawtron
Live Edge Oak Wood Siding

Mmm….

I am feeling very fond of our new live edge oak siding. Very fond. The stuff looks great. The Amish sawyer did a fantastic job, and the material came out of the planer super clean, and super beautiful. We are finally installing it, and it’s a dream come true. These may be flowery words, but I’m just darn excited to finally see things coming together on the exterior of our porch.

We’ve got black walnut trim to accompany the siding, and the contrast looks rather nice, I’d say. I’ll put up more photos once our walls are done, and the scaffolding isn’t in the way of taking a good photo of the wood! More later…

Jul 10
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Highs and Lows of Scaffolding

By Strawtron
Construction scaffolding

Shiny new scaffolding

You know what really sort of stinks? Working at heights. You know what is even worse than working at heights? Not having a good way of doing it safely. Last year, we borrowed scaffolding for a big chunk of the building season, but this year, we needed to find a new scaffolding option for our construction needs, which includes a lot of work high off the ground.

Turns out we ended up deciding to buy our own, since no one in the area has an adequate setup that can reach the heights we need. I dreaded having to buy our own set of scaffolding, but I think it was the right choice to make.

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Jun 26
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Building the Light Clay Straw Porch

By Strawtron, Light Clay Straw
Light Clay Straw (Slipstraw) Walls

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.

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Jun 20
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Now It’s On (Or About To Be): Live Edge Siding Arrives

By Strawtron
Live Edge Wood Siding

Live edge siding from white oak… mmm…

Wow, our Amish sawyer really pulled through. He gave us a call a whole three days after our visit to let us know he had completed sawing up the white oak live edge siding we had requested. Amazing! And he did quite the job, too. The wood looks great. The quality of the material is high, the sawing is very clean and accurate, and I am super jazzed to finally have the material in my possession.

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Jun 13
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To Great Lengths, and Beyond

By Strawtron

Am I picky, or stubborn, or just in a really impoverished area? Maybe all of the above. It’s somewhat crazy what I have had to go through to try to get a particular type of wood siding sawn up for me. It started off simple, I thought — calling a mill I’ve used before to see if I could have some live edge siding sawn up out of white oak. I slowly learned that this would be harder than I thought. Well… many weeks later, I think I finally may have someone both willing to do it, and with access to the materials.

Is it normal to go to these great lengths for a building project, or what? Please do chime in, and please tell me.

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Jun 07
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Using Reclaimed Wood Flooring

By Strawtron
Reclaimed wood flooring

Unfinished reclaimed wood flooring

There is nothing terribly easy about using reclaimed wood flooring, or reclaimed wood in general. Though I really do like it. New lumber is nice and all, sometimes, (and certainly really easy to work with, primarily), but when experiencing or working with new wood, sometimes I get that feeling similar to when I have a new pair of shoes or boots on — something just doesn’t seem right. The brightness, the lack of wear and that really perfect/clean feeling, the lack of a history or story embedded in there… that doesn’t appeal to me. The imperfections and wear, scratches and dings, the colors of reclaimed wood all tell a story, I think, and I like that. Also, older wood is often higher quality material, too.

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