My friend Mario came and helped me twice to mix plaster and finish the wall seams inside and out. So, the seams are finished. Haha, that still leaves the entirety of the walls to plaster! Plus the roof still isn’t on. But at least I have the metal for the roof now. I bought it last week from a guy in Ottowa. He bought property that had a bunch of junk and stuff left on it, including lots of unused corrugate roofing metal sheets. Which is AWESome for me It is in great condition and for a good price! Tomorrow the plan is to finish the roof….I really want to finish the roof. Then I can finish the walls and floor and I’m done!

Thanks to Mario for playing in the mud with me and getting lots of work done! Huge help

plastered seams

inside shed

plaster mixing pit

:) my shed covered with a gigantic tarp to protect for the bad weather

Well, the roof is not going to be finished for a few days. I still haven’t even gotten the metal panels for the roof yet! Hopefully that will happen soon since we need to protect the walls from heavy rains. My mom, dad, and brother came and helped again today, along with faithful Rick. My parents bought a nice gigantic tarp that will be able to protect my shed until I get the roof finished.

We started plastering the walls today which was sweet. Ben and I mixed a pit of the clay+water+sand+straw with our feet (I did get a couple of surprisingly painful small wounds in my feet from that method…we might try something else tomorrow with the help of some of my experienced Mexican friends) and then we applied it to the bale seams in the walls. Once we cover the seams we will plaster the entire wall. Rick took charge of the roof and got all the rafters in place and secured the door frame to the roof plate.

It was definitely a productive day! but there is still quite a bit of work to be done.

Ben and Jana mixing earth plaster by foot

jana's feet mixing plaster

starting to plaster seams...ben, dad, jana

plastered wall seams

Jana, Rick, Dad (Doug), Ben

today's finished product

So, Rick and Noe showed up early this morning and together we got the pony wall and rafters cut, built and ready to put on the roof. Then we decided the best way to pre-compress the walls would be to put heavy rocks all along the roof plate. That was fun…I was a little bit scared someone was going to get a rock dropped on their head…but they didn’t. good thing!

Once they left at 10am I worked for about an hour trying to figure out how to tie the wires tight enough to hold the compressed walls down when we would take the rocks off. Then I gave up and ran errands…looking for roof tin and such.

Later Mario came with me to pick up clay from a construction site on W 6th st. When we got back to the house to unload, Rene, Carolina, and Adolfo showed up to help too. Between all of us, we got the clay unloaded and set in a pit, and we got all the wires tied as best we could. Several had to go back to work, so Adolfo and I stayed and got all the rocks off the roof and put up the pony wall (which was used as our ladder before nailed in for its intended use ). Then, we had to get to work at the restaurant too, so we nixed finishing the roof rafters and just tarped everything so the rain tonight won’t hurt the bales (thanks to Ellen who stopped by and helped us get tarps!).

Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of any of my friends helping today. But I did get a couple pictures of our compression method. I guess that is better than nothing

pony wall using as ladder

rocks on roof for wall compression

tarped for protection from rain

Wow, today was awesome We started with the bales today. We stacked them on our wide foundation. Each layer was staggered from the layer below it, like gigantic brick laying, and 2ft pieces of rebar were used to stake each layer of bales together.

Once we finished putting up our six layers of straw bale, we had to figure out how we were going to get the roof plate we built yesterday on top of these walls! At that moment it was Rick, Randy, Jon, and I. We knew that the four of us could not get the heavy lumber roof plate on top of 8ft walls! So we started calling people. I got my co-workers Rene and Carolina to show up, but that still wasn’t enough man power to make this happen. We were thinking of who else we could get to come help when a big recycling pick-up truck pulls up in the alley and Rene says to me, “hey, I know that guy. Maybe I can go ask him to come help us.” Then I realized I knew him too because he and his wife are regulars at Cielito Lindo. So, I went and asked him, Chris, and his friend with him, Nathan, if they could come help us with this roof plate we are trying to put on top of straw bale walls. haha, so random! And they did help! They were definitely a God send…it was quite perfect.

We didn’t know how exactly we were going to accomplish this feat since none of us were 8 ft tall, so we thought we would first just see how heavy it was with the seven of us picking it up. When we picked it up, the dispersed weight wasn’t bad at all, so we went ahead and walked the roof plate over to the walls. Then we proceeded to hoist it above our heads and started moving it over the walls. It got a bit complicated but in the end the roof plate got on and fit perfect and all in a matter of about 20 minutes! It was pretty amazing, and I was very happy.

Well, so this is definitely starting to look like a building! I love it! Take a look at today’s progress…

first layer of bale wall

bales on foundation

Rick cutting rebar stakes

Jana threading twine through bale to make half-bales

walls getting higher

The team that put up the roof plate! left to right: Rene, Chris, Nathan, Rick, Jana, Jon, (Randy taking picture)

today's final product! soo cool i love it!

Today was awesome! We, Rick and Randy and I, built the whole roof plate start to finish AND put up the door buck today. It was relaxing compared to the rock foundation, haha. Anyway, although I am a couple days behind from my original construction schedule, it looks like the total structure will get finished by Sunday, which is AmAzInG.

This all means that TOMORROW we will be raising the straw bale walls! YES! I am really excited about this. Optimistically, we can get started on the roof too. If any of you reading this are interested to come by for a couple hours, I NEED YOU I can use as many helpers as I can get. Check out the pictures from today….

Rick and Randy

Jana, Rick, and nail gun

proped door buck

roof plate

We kept working on the foundation Sunday…then Monday…then Tuesday. It takes a long time to hand sculpt a stone foundation, especially with few or 2 people. Thanks Rick!!!! It would have been unbearable alone.

But we did it! We finished! I didn’t get any pictures Sunday or Monday…it just didn’t seem worth stopping work, cleaning my hands, and taking a picture. But I got a picture of the end product! And of Rick and his brother Steve who were my more than amazing volunteers.

I do believe this was the most grueling part of the process…mixing lots of concrete, carrying rocks, and fitting them together like puzzle pieces, while trying to get the right height and width. Man am I sore, as is everyone else who had a hand in this. But it looks amazing! I am very pleased with the foundation and am excited to build the walls on it

Steve and Rick...awesome

Steve, Rick, Jana

A lot of work went into today!

I think everyone is going to be quite sore from this day.  Rick arrived at 8am as he had said.  I am impressed with Ricks punctuality and enthusiasm as a volunteer…sadly I left Rick there alone for a while cuz I had to go pick up another load of sand and so he stayed behind working on digging out the footing drain and laying the first gravel into the trench.  When I finally got back with the sand, Doug and my dad and Phil had joined Rick and they were working on cutting down the tree that we had done a good job killing off last week by cutting through all its roots! That was pretty cool to see the men bring that whole tree down and cut it up and all.  I got it on video I will try to post it if I can figure that out.

The rest of the day we spent filling the trench with gravel, stomping around on it like a little parade, mixing cement, laying stones, jana criticizing the boys for ‘badly’ laying stones and so taking over stone laying with Molly alone (we modified that a little later and became more efficient), and to finish the day we set the screws in for the door buck.  We did a lot, and filled up the whole trench.  Now we still need to bring the mortared stone up about six inches above ground and we will be ready to move on.  Hopefully we will be able to do that tomorrow! We will see.

Take a look at today’s progress below!

My first day went surprisingly perfectly according to plan. We cleaned leftovers from demolition, and we dug the trench for the rubble footing. It is an 11′x11′ square trench 20″ wide and 20″ deep. Thanks to my Mom, Dad, & BrotherBen, Darin & Shannon & Noel, Phil & Ileen, Paul & Mol, and Noe, all of whom helped! It definitely wouldn’t of been much of a trench without all of them. Check out today’s work and the day’s final product below…

The men tearing apart metal, haha

marked to dig

Jana breaking ground!

digging

Dad and Phil hard at work

diggin...shannon's foot

Darin workin on the footing drain

group pic with the trench

We tore down the old metal shed today to prepare for breaking ground this Saturday! Saturday I will be digging the trench for the footing and need all the help I can get. So if you’re not busy Saturday, come by and dig with us. Below are the pictures from today’s demolition work!

Phil and Ileen Beard starting to take apart emptied shed

Phil working on unscrewing inside walls

Ileen cutting overgrown vines to make access to side of shed

yeah demolition! Phil and Jana with the fallen roof

No more old tin shed

Here is a picture of what currently stands in the Beard’s backyard.  This is the future site of my straw bale shed.

The Beard's tin shed