Trapped in cordwood

Our long silence does not mean that we've finally mortared ourselves into our walls! We're just in a building frenzy, trying to complete as much wall area as possible before the calendar puts an end to it. After that we'll update this blog with detail and process notes and photos.

We finished the 8th panel on Saturday the 12th. We could move in for the winter with 8 panels, as that would give us three "bays" closed in, if we install a temporary wall at the west end of the completed panels. But we made so much progress on the 9th panel yesterday (we're getting better at this, and faster*), that we are now considering the possibility of a 10th, which would give us 4 bays---all of our living area except the utility and project rooms.

See the rough floor plan below. The gray exterior border represents the 18" cordwood wall. The small black rectangles are posts; there are a total of 14 cordwood panels between the posts. We have completed the panels bracketed with red: three on the north, three on the south, and the two large east panels. As of yesterday, we had about a third of the cordwood done on the 9th panel (the next south-facing panel). If we complete another north panel, making 10, we can move our temporary wall west by an entire set of posts.

We've extended our "stop" date to the 19th, which is surely pushing it in terms of approaching frosts. What do you think: is it worth taking a chance that frost might affect the set of the lime mortar?



*Joe and I, working alone, mixed and laid up six batches of mortar, in addition to cleaning some logs and sifting some sand.