Category

Doors & Windows

Oct 20
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Preparing for Clay Plaster: Making and Installing Wood Trim

By Carpentry, Light Clay Straw, Doors & Windows, Resources, Clay Plaster

clay-plaster-floating-fiberglass-stucco-mesh-02

Light clay straw walls are a great surface for finishing using natural plasters. Because the straw-clay is tamped inside of a stud wall, you have a fairly flat surface to start with, compared to something like straw bale which needs a lot of trimming and often extra thick plaster to achieve an even surface.

Here I’ll give some tips and suggestions for how to prepare a light clay straw wall to receive clay plaster, using our recent outhouse project as our demonstration site. In this post, I’ll talk about how to make and install wood trim, which should be the first step in preparing your newly built wall to receive clay plaster.

There are a few tricks you’ll need to ensure a quality job. Read ahead for my method…

 

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Apr 19
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Off The Grid Straw Bale Home: Spring Update!

By Straw Bale Building, Doors & Windows, Clay Plaster
Off the Grid Straw Bale House

This little off grid home is getting the finish work treatment this year

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates about the off the grid straw bale home we’ve been helping our friends build here outside Berea, Kentucky. Here’s a look at how the octagonal straw bale house is shaping up these days. It now has most of the base coat clay plaster complete, and more recently the window trim has been installed.

This is the year for finish work with the goal of moving in for the winter!

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Nov 26
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A Heavy Duty Homemade Door

By Carpentry, Strawtron, Doors & Windows
Two Custom, Homemade Doors

Two custom doors in the second story of the timber frame house

The second story of our timber frame & straw bale house has shorter than standard wall heights. It is definitely standing height, but the beams (or top plates, more specifically) that support the rafters are at head height, and another curved tie beam is similarly placed. We have two door locations upstairs, one to access the north storage loft above the porch, and a second for the walk-out balcony on the west, so we were faced with having to size and build our own homemade doors from scratch. Since I have never built a DIY door before, I was fairly intimidated, but the process wasn’t that bad once I got started. What I came up with were some super heavy duty, insulated doors made with tongue and groove boards, complete with some burly strap hinges to support the weight.

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