Homestretch

So today is the last day, I think. I kept waking up all night, like you do when you have a job interview or a trip the next day.

As has so often happened since we began this adventure, serendipitous help arrived just when we seriously needed it.

Countdown . . . 25 (ish) batches to go!

Alright, so,life gets in the way. Especially farm life. This morning we had some buckling escapism to deal with, and a bit of fence reinforcement to ensure that our girls don't kid in January. Then we spent about an hour scraping and cleaning log ends before we could start mixing mortar.

Tarp House starts to become Sunnywood

Because it's important for the lime-putty mortar not to cure too quickly, we had tarped each panel as it was completed, to protect it from sun wind. So as far as the neighbors could tell, despite all of our building efforts, we still had just a tarp house.

Today we removed the tarps from the panels that we had completed 30 or more days ago (time enough for initial curing): a total of 5 panels. Even though these earlier panels, as the "learning walls," incorporate all of everyone's mistakes, they are still awesome. I can't wait to live in this house.

10th panel is done!!!

As of 5:30 yesterday (Sunday, 9/20) eve. This panel took 16 batches and 3 days for Joe and me, with Heidi working with us for about half of that time. We had our first real frost Saturday night, so we'll have to wait and see if and how that affected the fresh mortar. All of the panels are now tarped and curing. Stay tuned for details and photos about mixing lime putty and mortar, setting window frames, using bottles and other decorative features, techniques for top work, comments people have made, and more.

What a crew of six can accomplish

TWELVE batches of lime-putty mortar. That's what Isaac, Heather, Joe, Ian, Heidi, and Holly mixed and laid up today.




Wha' da ya know? It's raining! Boy, we really needed that!!!



Isaac, Ian, and Joe built and set the front kitchen window frame while waiting inside behind the tarp for the monsoon to end.

House Raising!

On Saturday, August 30, a wonderful and eclectic group of family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances came together to help us raise the timber frame and rafters. What an amazing collection of knowledge, skill, sweat, and generosity!!! Here we have set rebar pins in the grade beam and drilled corresponding holes in the precut posts, and laid them out to be raised.
And as you can see, the house-raising crew took our plans and timbers---and raised the framework for a house!