In the past few weeks Alexor and I have been hard at work. Our main focus was the foundation. We walked up and down the creek bed looking for the flattest and strongest rocks. Carrying them up the steep bank was a job in itself! In two weeks we probably loaded and unloaded the jeep with a few tons of gorgeous stone.
After collecting as many stones as we could we started mortaring the foundation. Alexors brother Trevor, cousin Mitchell, and our friend Paul came out and helped us! None of us had ever done it before and were flying by the seat of our pants. I think we did pretty good for our first try.
We decided to use mortar. Finding hydraulic lime where we live is virtually impossible and expensive. For a 40lb bag it was $60 not including shipping. Unfortunately that isn’t in our budget!
Another project we have been slowly working on is re-pointing the chimney. Alexors Mother, DMarie came up and helped us. Whoever had built the chimney used clay to fill in between the stones, and over time weather and age took its toll.
I also took a chisel and hammer to the front to remove the wall they had built to convert the fireplace into a wood stove exhaust. Only to find that after they built up the wall a little they poured concrete in and filled it to the top.
It was pretty scary looking up and wondering when the stones might move 🙂
As tedious as mortaring is, all in all, it was a lot of fun.
We worked on a ton of small projects. Screening clay, digging a hole for our cellar and building a bird feeder kept our down time productive. We also started a medicinal herb garden, a vegetable garden and planted some tobacco. And… we got our new baby chickens!! 🙂 Sophi loves them more than we do.
Finally after all of that we were ready to start cobbing. Our local 84 Lumber started saving us their used wood tarps. Thank you! After that everything just seemed to fall perfectly into place for cobbing.
We are trying to use everything from our surroundings. We have screenings and sand down in the creek that are perfect for our cob mixture. There is clay right under the house where we want to build a cellar. For some reason, everything just seems to keep working out perfectly.
It was extremely enjoyable to start cobbing! It was immediately like second nature. My mom, Virginia, and my sisters Emma and Audrey came up to help us cob. We mixed 5 batches today!
Today was a very rewarding day. Thank you to everyone who has helped us this far!
Our total cost for the house at this point is $129.95
Incredible! Keep the posts up, I love seeing everything that you guys are doing – it’s truly unique!
Thanks Katie! You are welcome to come any time. We started cobbing (of course) and are about to put the first row of bales up. Hope you are doing well and that we see you out here soon!
It was interesting. I liked laying up the cob(not sure what to call it, laying it up seems right) but I didnt think mixing it with my feet seemed like something I would like. Emma and Audrey liked it, just like playing in the mud when they were little. All those buckets of clay and sand, poor Lex. (hope your back holds up) and you are right about the steep hill. I will be back soon to help. I LOVE YOU. Keep up the GREAT work!!!
🙂 You were a wonderful boss and great help. Thank you for coming out! I love you too mom.
Oh and your right, it does look like giant legos.
I am very pleased to see all your progress. I thought of you guys when I was recently in Arta, Mallorca – a small town on the island off the coast of Spain. The houses were very small, very thick walls, and built close together. It seemed almost like a Cobb village. I made a not-too-popular comment about building a beltway around the island – and I was quickly banished.
I will check back to see your progress. If I come to help I will have to bring Alex, Elizabeth, Tracy, LaFonte and others.
Regards from inside-the-beltway,
Frank
Thank you Frank! I can see how that might not have been the most popular comment 🙂 Ha ha I hope you guys do make it out! You would have a lot of fun, I promise!
Your home is going to be so beautiful!!! I can’t believe how hard you guys have been working, gathering all those materials!
I’m so excited about your house, I can hardly stand it!
Love you guys!!!!
Thank you Danielle!! It is all because of you 🙂 You introduced us to cob and taught us everything we know. I hope you make it out sometime soon! We love you too! AND miss you terribly.
hey hey! it’s so great to see cobbing happening here on the east coast! I was wondering what the building codes where you live in west virginia? I know here in PA(chester county) we have an experimental code–which permits us to build a cob structure but not live in it.
Hello Brianna! Thank you! Here there is a 400 sq ft limit. As long as your building isn’t bigger than 400 sq ft you can build whatever you like. However right up the road from us there is a county called Hardy County. In Hardy county if you don’t have electricity then you can build whatever you like, however big you want! A way to by pass that would be to build it and then get a permit for electricity. Do you have a blog? I would love to see your house! I will be in PA in a couple weeks near Hanover in McSherry Town. How close are you?