Saturday, September 12, 2015

The Front Cob Bench

The spot right at the front of the house, between the doors has finally gotten a cob bench.  It took a while, and has a lot of mass.  First, I put in a foundation row of urbanite, and mortared it together.  

Then filled that area in with 1 inch drain rock. 

Then we got busy cobbing. I put at least 2 truckloads of crappy, uneven urbanite in there, as it isn't a structural piece, and that saved us cob.

The cob went all the way up to the window sill. 

Then, I did a finish plaster with fine, sifted sand and local clay.  We had the blue tiles left over from the kitchen job, and they match nicely.  Looks like I'm wearing camouflage! 

Then the bench got a good soaking of linseed oil: 

and then got a first, big coating of wax.  I hope to do another one or two, but it's a bit stinky, and we have some guests coming, so I'll wait until next week.   Then, Melissa has plans to make some outdoor cushions. 

Friday, September 11, 2015

More Water on a Hot Day

Got that third water tank plumbed in to the main house line the other day. I was smart enough to put a shut off in front of the addition, so now I can isolate each of the tanks, or any two of them.  I also put in a wash out, there between the blue shut off and the red, so that when it's time to get the gunk out, I can just open that up and rinse it out. I could also hook in a hose or fire truck filler line if I wanted to drain all 3 super fast. 

and, just a reminder about how it gets warm, in the shade, some days.

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Easter?

Finally followed the black chicken on her morning ramble, sure enough, she's been laying eggs off in the woods.  Here's me, at the nest.

Here's the batch of eggs that had been laid out at the base of that tree. 

Design Mistakes in my cob house

So, I have long meant to create a list of mistakes I made when designing the finishings on our house.  Now that we've lived in it for a ...