Bathroom walls are up

I put up the last of the diet bales and Kappy filled in the gaps with cob/slip straw. They are held in with bale twine and roofing nails. We put up a big fan to help dry things out. It has been around 100 degrees and mildly humid. Not bad working in the shade.

So far so good

We put up the skinny wall yesterday. The combination of chicken wire and a couple of horizontal 1x4s made the wall very stable. Kappy has been mixing and applying cob patch between bales. I was able to get two skinny bales out of one normal bale. The straw near the edges was just too unstable. Before cutting with the Woodmizer I tied an additional string on each mini bale.

Skinny walls

I am going to try filling in a 2x6 wall with sections of bale. I have done this kind of cutting before with an electric chainsaw but since we have a Wood Mizer on site I think I'll use it. I tried one bale and only lost the first cut. I think it will be tough to get three cuts out of one bale. Two in the center part seems more likely. Lots of straw for cob and plaster left over. Plan is to put up chicken wire on one side and tie bales to it as well as to each other and to the studs. Once plastered it should be bomb proof

camera on a stick

here is a shot of the front of the complex. yesterday I put the rooflet and decking on this side of the middle space. now the rain stays out and I have a place to work in the shade. it has been HOT lately here in DC.

Rafters over the Bath

The rafters are in place over what will be the bathroom area. The roof will be very low angle due to some upstream constrictions. Because of that we are going to try a little green roof here. We have pond liner and DC is pretty wet.

Middle section roof and clerestory windows

I found some nice windows at the Rebuild Warehouse in northern Virginia , just south of DC. They were sets of three, 16" wide by 48" tall and easily separated. I also found a screen door , some nice 2x6s and I forget what else. I had also gone to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and found a very nice set of french doors, the kind with real mullions.
.We are blessed with many fine stores selling recovered building materials here in the greater DC area. So now I am sifting through all the lumber laying around from the Ecohouse move and some obsessive sawmilling a long time ago. Its either dig it out or the poison ivy takes over the stacks. It feels real good not to go to Homey's.

Middle Space Construction

I am joining the two buildings now. The beams are left over from the Ecohouse move last year. They are 6x6 we cut with the woodmizer from tulip poplar at Romey Pittman's family land. There will be clerestory windows north and south sides to bring in as much light as possible. The studio weathered a harsh DC winter with no problems beyond a gutter ripped off by record snow.