On my way to a - HOUSE!

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milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Hello folk !!
Wanna see how chocolate wall looks like? You can watch but you CAN"T bite! :)

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So that is how interior of my house now looks like after applying two coats of cob plaster. The color is from finely ground cob that sells in a bags and mixed with fine sand at a certain proportions it makes of some kind of plaster. It's not done though, because cob plaster isn't very durable (natural) and dust is coming off if you rub against it, so a finish layer of paint or oil impregnation is required for it to stay put. :)

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So it took us a week each layer, two weeks in total to get the walls done and with cost of pennies for the materials I think it works nicely. A week almost went into beam work, I finished them off with a hand planer and sanded a bit, now I have ceiling and second floor witch is great! As you can see in the pic, there is space to put 5cm of insulation and that should keep the warmth from rising straight to the bedrooms.

Taking about heating I've chose to do a bit of traditional and industrial type mix and came up with something you might have not seen before:

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So you can tell, that the house is heated with this lovely cast iron fire place. But what is attached to it is an age old tradition of capturing and storing heat for the night! It is a hot bench, that has a series of channels directing smoke coming out of the fire place to the chimney. And by the time smoke gets to the chimney it heats up this bench, the seat and the back. And it being such a mass stores the heat, releasing it slowly for hours after the fire has gone out. Many many homes had this implement next to their wood fired kitchen ovens and made the best use of firewood. It's a great thing to dry anything or rest when you feel cold. This still needs to be plastered, but I'll do it next year. Again, it was build in less than a week from recycled old bricks and costed not more than 50Eur. I'm good at saving money!!!! :D And surely it was my grandfather that built it. He knows things like this and I try to learn while he's fit. The oven costed almost 500Eur and is the poshest thing in the house! I might need to lock it up for a change!!! Can't make myself though as I think locks only keeps fools away not thieves.

Ok, so indoors is quite done, lets move outside and have a look there!

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We have finished the door and the spares are in place to support the roof, quite happy how it turned out in the end although plastering needs to be done and proper roofing installed.


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The doors was SURELY custom made :D :D by us.... and custom fitted... by us.

Ok, lets have a look around the house. This is the main window view:



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And around the house:

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The small pond in sight from east living room window. No fish though, because I have an Otter :D :D But what a nice animal an otter is! Seen it only once, but the beauty and the character!

A plant nursery almost empty by now. Over 200 plant came out of it to the whole property and I'm nearly done with the planting. I think to make it a duck pen now, but predators can stop it.


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A row of early apples, not very tidy in my garden, but the weed growth this year was amazing !!! Can't keep up with them. Probably I get a cow cub next summer or two and raise them for meat to help me control the weeds a bit.



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And finally, the storage now has an attachment to lock the tools up. Got some old bricks for here and there and knocked up a 3 by 4 meters room, quite tired of moving the crates with tools back and forth...

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So here it is, my summers achievements :D Now I'm ready to get back to my winter house and do what I can to make some cash for next year :D :D I need a well, could do with some livestock, finish off the house, kitchen, bath and so on. Plenty to do still, but I can see myself living here with my family starting next spring. Thanks for reading and watching this tread. Any questions and comments welcome as always! :)
 

Leshy

Full Member
Jun 14, 2016
2,389
57
Wiltshire
Beautiful. Lovely home.
Like the fact you did all yourselves! Nice work.
Love the old fashioned heating system by the wood burner, great adaptation of old fashion knowledge.
May I just say , and please don't take this the wrong way, (it's constructive criticism )as a carpenter , your diagonal brace on the inside of the front door is going the wrong way.
That will not support your hinges as it is.
If you're inside looking at the door, your hinges are on the left and hook (lock) on the right , so the brace should go from bottom left to top right if that makes any sense?
The purpose of the brace is to support any sagging that may occur as the hinges and door get older.
So it holds up the lock side (unhinged) nice and square for years to come...

No biggie, just remove brace, turn it the other way and re-fix.
Simples .

All the rest looks top notch and just beautiful .
Well done and thanks for sharing!
👍
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Leshy, point taken! You are very right there, did not noticed it at all, but what you said is spot on! Will fix it at some point. And will remember this for the future. Surely more doors to come...

Thanks all.
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Wonderful stuff, and thank you for sharing it with us.

Interesting article re, the hot bench, here.


An informative article, you can really get the point why I went the extra mile for the bench. The stove takes minutes to warm the room, but if you're lazy like me it's good to store the heat in some way so you wouldn't need to burn wood all day to keep the rooms warm.
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Aww mate, that's great. It looks fantastic, you have a great spot and a lovely looking home. That bench idea is a good one. Will the roof see the winter ok?


Cheers mate! :) yep, no worries for the roof, it's a roofing material that they use on flat roofs. It's heated and melted on the chipboard so it will stay there for a looong time. I will put proper roof when I have the money, this looks sheit but is a great under roof and If I do some mistake in top layer I'm still protected.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Agreed = the stove and the hot seat cost a lot of energy to heat up and you can keep it _all_ in the house. Clever, clever trick.

I use a compressed wood pellet stove to heat my house. From a cold start, I'd swear that it takes 15kg or more just
to hot up that gigantic chunk of iron.

Thanks for the tour of your home.
If I worked and could work from home, I could sit in front of that corner window and get nothing done, all day.
 

John Fenna

Lifetime Member & Maker
Oct 7, 2006
23,109
2,847
66
Pembrokeshire
I love the idea of the hot bench!
I have a wood burner in my living room and it has a chimney that goes straight up but with one 45 degree bend (and back again) to alighn the chimney with the ancient chimney above. It is in this angled section that we get a lot of tar build up and so I was wondering if this kind of thing is a problem with the hot bench....
We burn seasoned hardwoods but some - especially Sycamore - give lots of tar/clinker that can quickly clog the pipe...
Also - do you have problems getting the stove to "draw" from cold?
I would imagine that such a twisty flue would be hard to get started!
I think you have done a great job building your house - I did a tiny bit of cob/wattle and daub building when I worked at an orphanage in Thailand for a week and know it is hard work!
I hope that you get to enjoy the house for a long, long time :)
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Agreed = the stove and the hot seat cost a lot of energy to heat up and you can keep it _all_ in the house. Clever, clever trick.

I use a compressed wood pellet stove to heat my house. From a cold start, I'd swear that it takes 15kg or more just
to hot up that gigantic chunk of iron.

Thanks for the tour of your home.
If I worked and could work from home, I could sit in front of that corner window and get nothing done, all day.


Ohhh, only I could sit there for a few days :D Now it's like minutes before "something else" needs to be done...


I love the idea of the hot bench!
I have a wood burner in my living room and it has a chimney that goes straight up but with one 45 degree bend (and back again) to alighn the chimney with the ancient chimney above. It is in this angled section that we get a lot of tar build up and so I was wondering if this kind of thing is a problem with the hot bench....
We burn seasoned hardwoods but some - especially Sycamore - give lots of tar/clinker that can quickly clog the pipe...
Also - do you have problems getting the stove to "draw" from cold?
I would imagine that such a twisty flue would be hard to get started!
I think you have done a great job building your house - I did a tiny bit of cob/wattle and daub building when I worked at an orphanage in Thailand for a week and know it is hard work!
I hope that you get to enjoy the house for a long, long time :)

Yes, there is problems concerning the clogging and therefore there are 3 cleaning doors installed in the bench for when the time come, I could clean it. If the drag is ok it should be 5 to 10 years before any maintenance, but we'll see.
To start a fire there is a straight pipe going to the chimney, but so far I've tried both ways and it working fine even the long run. But it has an option to be shut off.

Well a lot of thought went into processing the cob and making life easier for us and with luck it wasn't so bad in terms of labour intensity, I know cases where it's off the roof and I could only feel sorry for those people :D
Anyway, cob is great fun and surely more project in the future, like a chicken coop, some outdoor lounge and so on, before I turn grey........
 

mrcharly

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jan 25, 2011
3,257
44
North Yorkshire, UK
That's wonderful.

What sort of paint will you use to finish the cob plaster? I imagine that it will take many coats of paint, have you thought of using a lime wash, or maybe a water-based paint with PVC glue in it to semi-seal the surface?
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
That's wonderful.

What sort of paint will you use to finish the cob plaster? I imagine that it will take many coats of paint, have you thought of using a lime wash, or maybe a water-based paint with PVC glue in it to semi-seal the surface?

Hi, the common practice these days on the forums is to use regular silicone based paint, they are good because they breathe. Another option is to buy expensive PRO line plaster with white cob, lime and so on mix that gives a more natural finish. And as of today I don't know what should I do but sealing the surface is now the most important thing, because cob doesn't do well left like that.


P.S. I cant believe my luck! Went to visit my mate and he is demolishing an old barn. When I saw the beam work my jaw dropped it's hand cut timbers and outstanding timber framing with no nails used. I swapped the whole frame for firewood and spent the day pulling out wooden pegs. Clearly God gives me signs to build more structures :D :D :D
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
milius2: you got the entire barn frame? What luck.

leshy's comment about the direction of the door brace.
I now know why all 6 of my gates sag = all wrong!
 

Arya

Settler
May 15, 2013
796
59
39
Norway
Wow, what a beautiful house and property! I am amazed! The house is absolutely charming. What a wonderful job!
You will have many wonderful years in that place :)
 

Leshy

Full Member
Jun 14, 2016
2,389
57
Wiltshire
P.S. I cant believe my luck! Went to visit my mate and he is demolishing an old barn. When I saw the beam work my jaw dropped it's hand cut timbers and outstanding timber framing with no nails used. I swapped the whole frame for firewood and spent the day pulling out wooden pegs. Clearly God gives me signs to build more structures :D :D :D

That's just awesome!
That's a good friend you have there...
Can't wait to see the pictures.
👍
 

milius2

Maker
Jun 8, 2009
989
7
Lithuania
Wow, what a beautiful house and property! I am amazed! The house is absolutely charming. What a wonderful job!
You will have many wonderful years in that place :)

Thank you! I'm very glad that I went the road that took me here. It was very challenging and still is, but with support from friends, family and you guys I'm glad I did it....


Bout the barn... No pics I'm afraid, this is a case where a smart phone could be handy :D They were rushing to demolish it, so all I did was marking out the beams, pulling out pegs and with 3 more lads it was all apart and loaded by the end of the day. The beam work was erected there on second floor, room for stacking hay, so I'm not getting THE WHOLE BARN. Of what I have I can make a spacious forge about 6 meters by 4 meters or with side additions a livestock barn 6 by 10 meters. So it's not huge, but I don't needs permissions for building up to 80 square meters :D Still, it's loads for proper timbers cut and joined, authentic.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Plus, you're getting timbers which were dressed and dried in service = little chance of any further warp/twist/cup.
That alone is worth the sweat.

My family homestead barn was built near Regina, SK in 1884. It was huge and lost it's importance by the mid 1960's
so it got torn down. Dad saved a couple of oak pegs.
 

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