Here’s a rough drawing of the kitchen design. In this sketch you can get a sense of the shape and arrangement of the building. On the east is a wide covered porch for outdoor cooking in the summer. The building has a sizable greenhouse on the south side for starting seedlings and additional heat in the winter, and a west-facing balcony can be accessed from the loft above the dining area on that side of the structure. There are three roof lines — I think the building sorta looks like a duck in this drawing. Outdoor eating will be on the east, along with a cob oven and perhaps even a cob wall along the north border of our “warren” (plot of land) for privacy / a windbreak / aesthetics / sound protection.
If I could find our floor plans drawing, I would post that too, but I actually want to make a more accurate one now that the trench has been dug. Unfortunately it’s hard to measure the drainage trench when it’s covered in snow. Anyway, expect those soon!
Posted in: Design.
Tagged: Design · floor plans
The design for the kitchen is coming together bit by bit. Thomas and I have recently touched upon wall systems in our dicussions, and I expressed my interest in doing the west and north walls of the kitchen in balecob style.
There are but two printed resources for balecob building, both of which are short articles in the Cob Web, which is published by the Cob Cottage Company. The bale cob building technique seems pretty clearcut to me, but I’d love to hear from natural builders who have worked with bale cob and can speak to their experiences with the technique!
If you have bale cob information and experience, please comment on this website! I’d love to hear folks’ opinions on the matter.
Posted in: Bale cob.
Tagged: Bale cob
The rubble trench for the kitchen has been completely dug and filled with gravel, thankfully in time before it’s gotten to be too cold.
Continue reading →
Posted in: Trench.
Tagged: drainage tile · drainage trench · Foundation
Beginning last year and continuing into this year, I maintained The Year of Mud website to document my first cob building experience. I have received lots of great feedback from readers throughout that continuing process. The documentation process has been very rewarding, and I hope that The Year of Mud continues to be a valuable resource on the web for those interested in cob building.
Now that I am building a shared kitchen with four friends and community mates, I have yet another opportunity to share new building experiences, techniques, and stories. The House That Millet Built will be the website for sharing this new building adventure.
It is safe to say that you can expect the same kind of documentation that I have shared on The Year of Mud. If you have any interested in natural building, especially cob, please follow along as we build our new community kitchen! This is going to be an exciting process.
Posted in: Uncategorized.
I, along with four others, have embarked upon a new building adventure. We have just begun the very early phases of building a shared kitchen and social space. Thomas, Ali, Liat, April, and I are part of a sub-community at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Thomas, Ali, Liat, and I started discussions last year about working and living more closely with one another. These talks and many more discussions throughout this year lead us to design a kitchen space that we can all share. We started eating together during this summer in a rugged outdoor kitchen setup (we keep our food in a filing cabinet, for example), but we definitely want a more permanent structure. Continue reading →
Posted in: Design.
Tagged: Design · staking
