Building in Phases

This week I recorded an episode of the Discovery Channel show "Dirty Jobs", and got my wife to watch it with me. The episode was titled "Brown Before Green", and one of the segments featured the host building a cob house.

Now this was my wife's first exposure to cob building (although she's listened to me talk about it till she's sick of hearing about it), so maybe I picked a poor introduction for her. After all, the host of this show is obviously focusing on the nastier aspects of work, in this case working with mud. But I wanted her to see the process of building cob at it's worst and see how she reacted.

To my pleaseure, my wife wasn't really put off by the dirty nature of the job. But it really struck her just how labor intensive cob building would be. She commented that I'd only be able to work for six months of the year (too hot during the summer, too wet during much of the rest of the year). Since I'll only get a couple of weekends per month to work on it, at best, given the distance from home, that comes out to about 12 weekends per year that I'll be able to put in, and that is probably overly optomistic.

"It will take you two or three years to complete a cob house at that rate" my wife predicted.

I think she's right.

So I had an epiphany - I'll build in phases. I've long had a rough sketch formed in my mind, but haven't been able to translate it into a drawing I was happy with. Building in two phases will force a solution to a couple of design issues I've struggled with, and helps me solidify my plans. And, more importantly, it will enable me to structure the work in manageable chunks.

I want a large ground floor and a moderately sized sleeping loft upstairs. With part of the house being two stories tall, the walls on that portion would have been thicker and thus take even longer to complete.

What I've decided to do is to build half of the ground floor in the first phase. Once that half is done, In phase two I'll start adding on the rest of the ground floor, with a loft above that portion. That means the first phase won't need the extra thick walls, shortening my build time.

The first phase will only be about 15' x 15', internal dimensions. It will have a Rumford stove, a nook in the corner for a sink and composting toilet, with built in seating around most of the perimiter, and a large arch leading to the future expansion. This arch will be filled with (plastered) strawbales or light straw-clay until the second phase is done. The roof will be a sloping shed roof, and on the high end I hope to have enough vertical space for a (very) small sleeping loft.

The second phase will be about the same size internally, and will contain kitchen, eating area, larger bathroom and the stairs to the upstairs loft. The loft will probably have a ceiling from 6' at one side up to 8' at the highest point. I will probably build in some closet/storage nooks.

I think I have a chance of completing phase one over the next year, and then take the following two years to complete phase two. This seems like a much more manageable plan - I'm excited!

Hopefully I'll have a sketch or two to post this weekend.