Monday, October 30, 2006

house designing

I have a question, but first let me share some pictures with you that the kids have drawn. I should give a little background first.

If you've read previous postings on my blog, you know we're interested in building and living in our own underground (possibly part cob) house someday. Well, mostly just for fun I've been doodling with different possible house designs. So the kids have taken up the same interest and have drawn their own designs. :)

This first one is obviously (or maybe not so obvious) not a house design, but I wanted to include it. Jonathan wanted to draw a picture of our family that included every animal that has been at our house this year. If you look carefully you will see the 5 of us, 3 turtles (biting us, which they didn't actually do), a large toad on the bottom left, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 guineas, 7 snakes and an opposum at the top center. He wrote "Poor bird" with an arrow pointing to a guinea because one of them died (dog-related). He is going to add a lizard and another bird to the picture. He just forgot to add the lizard, and the bird came to us yesterday. It is an egret, I think, and it has a broken wing. :(




This is one of the house plans that Jonathan drew. Look closely. It is an "Underground snake house". LOL! From center left there is a driveway leading to the garage. From the garage is a verrrrrry long hallway leading to the "Cat room" and the "dog room". There are small rooms along the way.




This is a "Salamander underground house". :) Notice the play rooms. Actually he didn't label them all, but there are lots of bedrooms and lots of play rooms. The right back leg is where the kids stay AND play rooms (the toes), and the left back leg is the master suite....all complete with closets. :)




This is a "Centipede underground house". The curve along the top is the long driveway which leads to a garage. The body of the centipede is a long hallway, and each leg is a different room. He labeled them each with the first letter ('B' for bedroom, 'U' for utility room, 'P' for play room, etc.), but the marker was too thick to really tell what the letters are. Jonathan has even forgotten. He is very clever with his designs though. A couple of times he has forgotten to add bathrooms, so he just tells me that there is an outhouse. LOL!




This one is labeled a little better. As you can tell, it is a Sea lion underground house (they're all underground). The "U room" written at the bottom with an arrow is the utility room. He got a little sloppy with some of his letters, but he was writing so much that I thought he did great over all! He never asked me how to spell anything either!




And last, but definitely not least, Jayla's "Underground Rainbow house". :) She didn't label anything, so I'm not really sure where everything is. Jonathan never drew a rainbow house, so this was totally her idea! She still scribbles a lot, but she is starting to make shapes and letters a little more lately. (She drew two suns on another picture.) So this is her underground house.....waddaya think? :)




Now for my question, what do you all think a psychiatrist would say when they tell my kids to draw a picture of a house and they produce something like this? LOL! I really don't care, but just the thought of it makes me laugh. :)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Going underground someday!

I've got a lot to blog about....we went to the zoo yesterday *and* today and took over 200 pictures!!! Myles took off work today, so that's why we went back. Of course, it was rainy today, so there were only a dozen or so cars in the parking lot. It's great if you like to have the zoo to yourself, but everything was closed! :( The temperature was perfect though, and it never rained while we were there.

I don't have all the pictures on my computer yet, so I will blog about that soon. I just wanted to post a couple of links. This first one is an underground house that is already 25 years old. I wish the pictures were bigger, but it's a great article. The reason I am posting it is because we are *seriously* considering building an underground house ourselves, possibly partially out of cob if it will work well, so I was just looking for pictures of some on the internet.

This link is another underground house that is just absolutely beautiful!

When you build 2 feet below ground level (frost line), the temperature is the same year-round. In this area the temperature is somewhere in the low 60's, so it will be perfect! We would probably not need any air conditioning, and the only heat we would need could easily be attained through solar heating from sky lights or something. Then there is also the possibility of installing radiant floor heating. The floor would be heated by hot water, and heat rises, so the cost would be very low.

I like the idea of being almost completely hidden! It will provide much more privacy and will block out almost all sound. If planned well, an underground house can have plenty of natural lighting. (I'm sure just a couple of sky lights would be brighter than our current house....it's so dark in here!) There are just so many benefits, I'm just trying to figure out the *best* way to build underground....there are so many different methods!

Sunday, October 8, 2006

Straw bale weekend, part 2

Today we went out to the strawbale house again, hoping we'd get to work in the mud, but knowing we probably wouldn't be able to just yet. Again, there were not very many people there, but we did meet another man who has experience building his own strawbale structure. His was just 3 walls because it was an addition to a bakery. I'm going to have to go see it sometime so I can see the finished product! :)

All of us went out today. There was an older girl there who looked like she was probably 8 or 9....it's so hard to tell nowadays! She could have been a really tall 6-year-old, or a really short 11-year-old! Anyway, she was thrilled to have other kids to play with. She seemed really sweet and was instant friends with the kids. Jayla immediately idolized her. I had to get a picture of them together, even if they never see each other again.

Oh, I have to mention that Jayla didn't want to wear her bandana around her head like yesterday, she wanted to wear it "like a girl....like the girls on Little House on the Prairie!" She's certainly a girly girl, and she loves to watch that show with me every day. :)

My favorite part of today was watching the excitement on Jacob's face when he got to pet some horses! These pictures do not adequately express the joy he experienced! He loves "horsies", and it was so fun to watch him smile and giggle at them. :) The cream colored horse was especially friendly, so we petted her the most. She had flies on her back, and while Jacob was petting her on the back of the neck, she started the muscle reflex thing to get rid of the flies. Jacob thought that was the funniest thing and just giggled and giggled! LOL!




Another work weekend at the straw house!

I really wanted Myles to come work on the strawbale house with me, but he *had* to watch "the game" instead. I wasn't too upset in the end because we ended up not doing any of the plastering, which is really what I wanted him there for. His team ended up losing though, so either way I don't think he would have had a good day. LOL!

I took Jonathan and Jayla with me expecting to work in the mud. Jonathan was given a choice of watching football with Daddy or "playing" in the mud. He wanted to do both, but he chose to come with me. It was cute....he acted like he didn't want to hurt Daddy's feelings. :)

My good friend, Bethany, came out with her kids. They couldn't stay very long because one of the twins was having a bad day. :( I was glad she got to come out for a bit though and see the project for herself. The kids had a great time playing in the sand, and my kids didn't even do anything to help until after they had left.

So we ended up not doing much at all. The clay was soaking, but we never used any. :( They still had a little bit of "fill" work to do on the straw first, so we tied flakes together and stuffed them in holes. The kids helped a little, but in all honesty, they mostly just *felt* like they were helping and didn't really do much good. :) I tied some knots for them, and they tied some flakes together. Actually Jayla just tied a bunch of straw off the ground in a bundle. Well, actually, she didn't even tie it, she just threaded one end through the loop in the other end! :) Jonthan did fine, his just weren't tight enough. I really tried to encourage them though, because I felt like they did their best and want them to always do their best. I think they walked away feeling proud of what they had done, and that is what I was hoping for. :)


Doesn't this look fun? :)



This is the front wall that can be seen from the road.



I was SO glad I had put the bandana on Jayla's head. Bethany's girls had tons of sand in their hair!
















I got a picture of *me* so that Myles wouldn't complain. LOL!

Friday, October 6, 2006

Straw bale house

Last Saturday I went to help the lady with the strawbale house. Honestly I didn't do much at all. It was a little unorganized in the beginning, but once there was some organization with one person clearly in charge, the bales went up so fast! They were able to complete it on Sunday. By the time I had left on Saturday there were only 3 sections (a few feet each) done.

Here are just some misc. pictures from the day (taken with my cell phone). I didn't get there in time to help unload the bales, but I was glad that I didn't have to stand around too long. I still stood around for a while though. The kids had a great time playing in the sand pile. My guess is that they won't be able to do that tomorrow because we'll be using it to mix the cob for the walls. I am SO excited about tomorrow! Jonathan and Jayla will be with me, so I will definitely get lots of pictures. :)

The man in the orange is Norman, the "straw boss", and he has his own strawbale house. You can read about it and see pictures at this site. The teenager in the orange shirt is the owner's grandson, so he'll be in that house a lot. He was a good worker. His grandma suggested he may have been showing off for Norman's daughter. LOL! The man with the camera was with Channel 9 News! I left shortly after he arrived, so I didn't make it on the news (ah, rats). The lady he is talking to is the owner.