Once we got to the stage of finishing out the inside, we knew we were getting close to being able to enjoy our straw bale house. It was becoming a home! Ahhhhhh.
For our interior look, we wanted things that were nice, but we did not want the inside to look like everything came directly from the shelves of our local home building supply store. We wanted character and personality. We also wanted inexpensive. For instance, we bought our kitchen sink, a cast iron enamel sink worth $300 brand new for $20 from Habitat for Humanity. We had to spend an hour cleaning it up, but it looks awesome.
In the kitchen, our straw bale house construction plans call for unfinished prefab pine cabinets. We finished them with Briwax, which gives a nice rustic look. For the counters, we built a framework above the cabinets and poured concrete which had a stain added. We used a sealant and natural beeswax to finish off the top. Above the stove, we applied a hand painted tile mural from Mexico and we added bright turquois 4" tiles for the backsplash to give the color of an spanish colonial hacienda. And, we finished out the windows with a similar look. Our breakfast bar is wrapped in corrugated tin to continue the rustic look and the bartop is a 3" thick of Sugar Pine, 9' Long and 20" wide, rough edges and cool as can be. Our equipale bar stools look fantastic up against the bar.
Due to the walls being as thick as the straw bales, all the windows have very deep insets, which is obviously typical of strawbale houses. This adds a nice feel to the room as the window areas are large enough to hold decorative items. Also, they provide a great place to add a blast of color against the earth colored walls. All windows are finished out with painted insets and Briwax treated pine 1x3.
Of course, the interior surface of the walls along the exterior shell are all earth plastered. However, all the interior walls are traditional 2x4 construction with sheetrock. We had the texture guys do a "hawk and trowel" texture finish to go along with the trowel textured finish of the earth plaster.
The greatroom of our straw bale house, which has the large windows to the south, has the window insets painted in the turquois, again, for the rustic look. Our small Jotul woodstove is positioned directly in the center of the room to give off the necessary heat. This, coupled with the two large extra energy efficient ceiling fans and the open floorplan are what allow the heat to generate and flow easily throughout the house. We ran Cat5e cable for all telephone and data connections and RG6 for satellite TV. In this room, we added the personal touch of our daughter's handprint directly into the mud.
The utility room has a stacked front loading washer and dryer to minimize space requirements. This is also where our dogs sleep. We used a pocket door here and throughout many of the doorways to allow for better use of the space.
The hall bath has a full size tub/shower, tiled in, a regular low flow toilet and custom shelving tucked into a little leftover space. The bath vanity is made from the same unfinished pine cabinet as in the kitchen, but topped with a large piece of mesquite and a Talavera sink also purchased from Mexico.
Our daughter's bedroom is pretty much as expected....pink walls. However, over the earth plastered walls, we hung a cable around the room and draped sheers to soften the room. Also, when finishing her walls, we carved a niche into one of the straw bales and used a piece of mesquite left over from the bathroom vanity for a shelf. Again, keep in mind that we will still be adding a finish coat over the earth plaster showing in the pic below. One cool aspect of straw bale house construction is that the you can work on things as your schedule permits.
The master bedroom, which is in the northwest corner of the home, has a transom window fairly high in the room to allow for proper summertime ventilating from south to north. The doors are painted a fairly rich natural green color to provide the burst of color.
The master bath has a walk in, tiled shower with a normal low flow toilet. The vanity was made from 2x8's and stained with briwax. The vessel sink was purchased across the border in Mexico for an awesome price.
All in all, we feel we did quite well. We have achieved our extremely energy efficient straw bale house with a very low cost of operation. We have achieved our rustic hacienda style look. We have a very open, user friendly floorplan perfect for a family of 3. And, we ended up being about $10k under budget.
While building like we did required some fairly intense work, we're very proud of the finished product. And, while we hired the contractor to do most of the normal home construction leaving the bale and plaster work to us along with the finish out, there are many contractors, at least in this area, who will take on the entire straw bale project.
We hope you enjoyed learning about our experiences with building our strawbale home. We are very happy to know we are living in a "Green" home and using natural products.
Should you have any questions on anything discussed on this website, please do not hesitate to contact us at hummingbird800@yahoo.com
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Other Important Links:
The Canelo Project has lots of useful info from Bill and Atheena Steen.
www.caneloproject.com
SolarHaven has some pretty interesting info about strawbale life in Southern Arizona.
www.solarhaven.org
Strawbale Registry is a great place to register your strawbale home or to locate some near you to check out.
Strawbale Registry
Straw Bale Manor offers a couple of rooms for rent and is in an ideal location for birders.
www.strawbalemanor.com
Here is a link to our architect, Judy Guentzler-Collins. She is local to Sierra Vista and was a pleasure to work with, easily taking our ideas and turning them into something that was buildable. She did a fantastic job of drawing up our straw bale house plans.
guentzler collins concept group
The link below will take you to a relatively new forum site for discussions on strawbale building.
StrawBaleHomes Forum
The largest hand-picked green directory on the net: Find organic food, cheap solar energy (free daily updated solar panel price survey), sustainable architecture, organic cotton, a vegetarian date, sustainable investments, an organic farm, a sustainable community and much more...
EcoBusinessLinks - Green Directory
A Great Site for Self Defense Weapons, Stun Guns, TASERS and PHAZZERS is Smart Stun.
SMARTSTUN
A helpful portal to relevant renewable energy websites of individuals, governments and organizations. The links are cross-referenced to help homeowners, engineers, hobbyists, teachers and students find quick answers to issues relating to alternative energy.
Discover Solar Energy
An interesting survival products website which includes emergency food, survival gear, stun guns and tasers.
Emergency-Food-And-Supplies
Charles Melton is a professional local photographer who specializes in nature photographs. His pictures have been published in books, magazines and calendars and are quite spectacular.
Near Famous Website
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URL: http://www.energyhelpline.com/
Description: At Energyhelpline we can help save you hundreds of pounds per year on your gas bills.
For a great handcrafted gift, visit Rustic Dove. My wife makes these handcrafted metal crosses adorned with gemstones and glass beads. Quite Stunning!
Rustic Dove
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Another website I maintain providing up to date information about mattress types and selecting the right one for YOU.
Facts About Mattresses
