A LOT OF PROGRESS!

Since the last post we have made a lot of progress. It has not been without its challenges, however here are some pictures to walk you through the progress. The first 6 pictures are all taken from the same relative location. We have also set a date for the straw bale workshop. June 8-9, 2013. Please email StrawBaleAustin@gmail.com for further details if you are interested in coming out and helping us raise our walls. Thanks again for taking a look!

The forms are completed and the fill has been brought in.

The plumbing almost near completion

Plumbing is complete! Ready to pour!

Concrete has been poured! Here some of the workers are smoothing out the concrete after its been poured.

Here it is after the forms have been removed. You can see the rebar sticking up around the edge in preparation to hold the straw bales in place.

Some of the framing has begun, you can see the interior rooms framed up with typical stick frame construction. You may also notice our beams going up for the actual structure. These are pre-civil war era hand hewn oak beams. They may look like junk but have yet to be cleaned up.

Here is a close up of what I mean by hand hewn. You can see all of the ax marks from the person who took this from an oak tree he cut down, to an actual beam...By Hand! blows my mind that the wood is still solid as a rock, 180 years later. They do not make stuff like this anymore.

Here is a picture of the beam that will span our kitchen.

You can see in this picture the beams that will go up to the second story. Lots of people have been walking up and driving by asking questions. Im sure its going to be even more crazy when we start the straw bales!

Garage forms up, pile of fill, one Yasmin and an Oprah...

Garage plumbing completed, ready for concrete!

Here is a shot of the back side of the garage

Right before they poured the concrete

Framing only took a couple hours

And here it is the very next day...These guys are quick!

Im ready for all the piles of junk to get off the property

Strong Foundations

So its been longer than we wanted but we are just a few days away from pouring the foundation. We have hit a few snags here and there but the project is moving along. We have had a couple small decisions to make over the past couple weeks mainly regarding the plumbing. Its hard to imagine but every little decision we make now will ultimately affect the functionality of the home later on.

One of the hardest decisions for us to make was the final location of the outdoor shower. This was a definite must have for us. After using one while on vacation in Costa Rica we decided we had to have one. After 2 weeks of debate and long discussions with the contractor we finally made a decision...(your just going to have to wait and see)

Unfortunately, the foundation process is not very exciting visually. It is actually kind of unappealing. There are lots of scraps of wood and piles of sand for fill. The only exciting part is seeing exactly where the house and garage will sit on the property. However it is still difficult to imagine that we are standing in our living room or kitchen while we are out there.

We are currently in the process of talking with local farmers to find out when the first harvest will be so we can secure our straw bales. It has been a decent spring here in Texas and with some recent rain they expect a good yield in early to mid may. The trees are starting to gain their spring leaves and it is looking a lot more green here in Austin. We cant wait to post up another update once the foundation is completed and we start the framing. Thanks for reading, enjoy the pics!

Street view of the garage forms

Garage forms completed, plumbing for garage completed! Ready to be poured

Side view next to garage where the stream flows when it rains!

This will be the view from our master bedroom, minus all the junk!

View within the grove of Live Oaks at the front of the property

House forms completed with all plumbing complete as well! bring on the concrete!

Side of the house

From ideas to reality

Let me start off by saying that Yasmin and I have not taken a very conventional path to owning our first home. Building a straw bale house is, by far, not the most common building method. It's difficult to explain to people who have never heard of it, uncommon to find people familiar with it, and even more difficult to find somebody with straw bale design and building experience. We have only been in one straw bale home, which was designed by our architect. We fell in love with the idea from browsing through several books and pictures on the internet. We have taken our simple idea and turned it into something that will soon be reality. This has given us the opportunity to take more of a hands-on approach to the design process and will give us the opportunity to be more involved during the building process. We plan on having a straw bale workshop to raise the bales for our home that will be run by our architect, Ben Obregon of the sustainabledesigncenter.com This will give family, friends, and any others who would like to lend a hand, an opportunity to learn about sustainable design and green building (similar to a barn raising).

It has been several months since the last post on our straw bale project. Over those months we have been working on clearing dead trees and brush from our property, finalizing house plans, and obtaining building permits. We  finally closed on our construction loan on January 29th, 2013 so the actual construction has begun! Here are some pictures to update you all on the progress.

Lynn and John helping cut down some trees! July 2012

July 2012

Same view as picture above only this is from mid-February 2013.

Some of the hand-hewn oak beams that will be used for the framing. These are from the 1830's!

The foundation guys dropped off everything needed for forming up foundation. Early February 2013

The area has finally been cleared for the house, see the picture below for comparison.

Foundation forms are going in. March 1st, 2013

Yasmin dancing in our future bedroom. March 2nd, 2013

Hopefully we will not have to wait 6 more months for the next update! Foundation should be poured within the next 2-3 weeks. Then we can start building upwards! We will do our best to keep you updated with any major progress made. Thanks for reading!

So the straw bale house is starting to feel more and more like a reality instead of just a bunch of ideas in our heads. The past 15 months have been a crazy process for a couple of kids trying to get their first home. We bought our property in west Austin in March of 2011. We knew we wanted to build a straw bale home so we researched our area and came across Ben Obregon of the Sustainable Design Center. He has been designing and building straw bale buildings for 15+ years and has been a part of Austin green building program for longer than that. After talking with Ben about our ideas we knew he was the right person for the job.

So in November of 2011 we began the design process. It took us almost 7+ months to narrow it down to the final design, but we finally have the stamped construction set. So now its time to start getting the property prepared for building.

Thanks to friends we were able to borrow lots of tools including axes, chainsaws, weed eaters, etc...This is the step we are currently on. Yasmin and I have been out on a couple of weekends taking down small trees and clearing brush from the property. Our property has lots of challenges when trying to build a house. We have no city gas, no city sewer, and barely any topsoil. The land is littered with giant boulders and steep grades. However, we have lots of beautiful oak trees, many cedar trees, and we are a short walk from a beautiful park on Lake Austin! Follow our progress as we build an energy efficient home using as much local and non-toxic materials as possible.

Here are a couple pics of beams that we purchased from craigslist! These beams were hand hewn by a real person between 1830 and 1850. most of the trees are about 180 years old. That means these were saplings in the 1600's! This just completely blows my mind that stuff like this is still around. We plan on using these beams for the frame of our house. These beams came from a barn in Wisconsin and were sold to me by the family member of the original owner of the barn.

And here is a picture of how they will be used in our home. These are from the same barn that was deconstructed in Wisconsin and rebuilt here in Texas. Thanks Doug for letting us into your barn you have been working so hard on for 4 years.