A few years ago I decided I didn't want to have a huge mortgage hanging over my head, I didn't want to throw money away on rent, and I wanted to live in a home made of natural materials, sooooo... began the project to build myself a small straw bale home in a wild place in the mountains of South Spain, first few photos below show the finished house, scroll down to see the build/process, I had no idea how to do it, but I thought it out for many weeks, and then with many willing friends and lots of recycled wood and windows we started....
Then the wobbly bit before staking and tying the roof plate on (a circle of wooden poles on top of the uppermost layer of bales). The house is 5 bales high on front of terrace and 6 bales high at the back to allow for roof drainage, then the roofing with planks from old pallets that we took apart with crowbars and cut to size to nail onto the beams, I was building, organizing, reycling and cooking 3 times a day for my friends/volunteers who were staying in tents, great team, and many different volunteers helped over the 6 weeks it took. The biggest job was carrying the 100 straw-bales 2 km up the mountain! Then we covered the roof with a thin layer of recycled wooden sheets and some thick cardboard, then the tough 'green house' plastic they use on the coast here for indestructible greenhouses, then the shade material, both those two last layers stapled on around the rim of the house, finally a thick layer of straw for insulation.
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Then we made a mud plaster(local earth is 30% clay so we just filtered it and mixed it with water) for the walls, one layer only! whacked on with the heel of the hand, smoothed over, later painted with a cal and colour pigment (5% linseed oil), Ok so this was no professional job! in the books it says 3 layers, but 6 years on the house is still standing strong and looking nice, I lived in it for 4 years before donating it for a teacher from our free school project to live in. it was very comfortable in winter and in high heat of summer. The floor was a 5cm layer of mus smotthed out, then when totally dry painted with three layers of linseed oil, hard as cement!
The 100 bales cost 250 Euro, the waterproof protective roof layers 150 and then nails and screws and hinges the rest, i had a fire bath (see above photo) and a small solar system which could charge a laptop and run my 100watt camper van washing machine, I piped water into the house direct from a nearby mountain Spring and had a gas cooker. An over sized cook pot sat permanently on top of the wood burner (an ex gas bottle conversion) to provide near constant hot water, life was not hard! except....for the climb up there with food shopping and heavy baby!. I grew some veg in the garden and there were lots of almond, olive and fig trees, the fruit trees we planted struggled in the summer because of less water to share, but my lemon and apricot trees are doing great. The house needs care, every year a few dents re filled with mud, every 2 years a new paint layer, its like a living being. I want to say a huge thank you to the many people who helped out and without their generous efforts it wouldn't have been possible. If this kind of house appeals to you - you can build one too, i am sure!
Love it Franchi!
Small, simple, cheap!
Just the way all houses should be built :)
I envy you. Wish i could have built a house like yours, fully natural and self-laboured...
Such a magical little home. So wonderful to see what you were able to accomplish with so little money. Thanks for sharing this, it is inspirational.
Nice job for your little hacienda amongst the almond trees. Thanks for a quick tutorial.
Awesome. Followed.
Wow, super inspiring post. Well done on the build, especially for a newbie. Natural building has a great way of bringing community together eh?
yes very much so :-)
Very cool. Any problems with rodents or other pests getting into the walls?
I had a no-kill mouse trap, and every 4 or 5 months id catch one and release far away!
Not bad
It seems to have been a lot of work, very well done. Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful and very inspiring.
Thank you neighbour! :-)
Awesome job for a newbie! This post should give a lot of encouragement to others who may want to build their own but are afraid to tackle it.
Yes, really if we could do it anyone can! and its such a learning curve, the following houses were better ;-)
I liked this post -- can we see any subsequent houses you built also?
So nice to see the photos of the build, I can vouch for this little house, it's great, warm and super cosy. Look at your little man oh how he's grown x Great post @steemama
thank you ;-), yes the little guy is huge now! xx
WOW! You rock, lady! Had to resteem. This is by far the most inspiring post I've read on steemit! I am happy for you and I hope that even those 500 euros will come back in Steem. This article should be on the frontpage, earning at least 4 little houses like that!
aww thank you mayb :-) so encouraging, its soooo encouraging this Steemit for the world in general, im loving to see what positive projects and things so many people around the world are getting up to :-)
Thant's actually very cool!
I found your posting at @purplemoon's ReSteem.
Upvoted and followed!
I once lived off the grid for 9 1/2 years on a small mountain so I can understand some of the challenges a person may face.
Great posting! Welcome to Steemit! :-)
I hope you have lots of fun here and make many friends! :-)
Thank you for sharing! :-)
Thank you for your welcome, its kinda overwhelming all the support! lovin it, and will check out your blogs, did you do one on your mountain years?
What a fascinating process. I am SO not an off grid person myself, but I very much admire anyone who can do what you've done.
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Amazing photos. you're so clever. this is really useful information.
great job..thanks for letting us know about your success ❤️
This ks incredible , what a wonderful project