Overview
- Square footage of 384 square feet (16 feet x 24 feet) with 192 square feet of loft space. 448 square of exterior covered porch space.
- Pier and beam foundation.
- Load bearing structure is timber frame construction consisting of rough sawn large dimension timbers (e.g. 8x8s, 8x12s) using mortise and tenon joinery.
- The walls are 8 to 10 inches thick infilled with light clay straw. Light clay straw is straw coated with clay slip(watery clay) for binding. It has significantly more straw than the typical cob mix resulting in better insulative qualities. The R value of light clay straw is 1.5-2 per inch depending on how tightly it is packed.
- Internal to the load bearing structure is framing of dimensional lumber (e.g. 2x8s) that provides attachments for windows and doors and supports light clay straw infill.
- Cathedral ceiling with exposed rafters and 2×6 tongue and groove decking.
- Rigid foam board mounted on roof deck provides roof insulation.
- Vented roof deck with standing seam concealed fastener metal roof panels.
- Supplemental cooling provided by 12000 BTU electric mini split air conditioner. Supplemental heating provided portable propane space heaters.
- Not connected to public electric, water or sewer facilities and incorporates the following elements:
- 4 kilowatts of solar PV modules located on the south facing monoslope roof.
- A 48 volt 20 kilowatt-hour flooded lead acid battery bank.
- Two 1650 gallon above ground rain water storage tanks
- Composting toilet (bucket system)
- A branched drain gray water system
- Propane tankless water heater
- Propane range
- Other finishing and furnishing elements
- Interior and exterior finished with earthen plaster consisting of sand, clay and straw
- Alternating tread stair for loft access with counterbalanced raising mechanism
- Slide out under counter top opening fridge(converted from chest freezer)
- Custom built banquette with integrated storage and pedestal table
- Bottle wall made from recycled beer bottles
- An office desk that folds up to conceal wall mounted monitors
Gallery
Video Series
Posts
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Received Learn to Timber Frame by Will Beemer yesterday. Has cleared up square rule layout method I’ve been having difficulty wrapping my head around.
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Staked out approximate corners of cabin footprint and flagged trees that need to be felled. Planning to call in professional help to take out larger trees. I’ll use our 14 inch electric chainsaws to limb and get the smaller ones.
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Site Layout and Preparation
On Friday I staked out approximate corners of cabin footprint and flagged trees to be felled. On Saturday and Sunday we cleared the under story and some of the larger trees. Exposing the roots to cut them Attaching a cable to the upper section of the tree A Stumpery
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Site Preparation: Felling Dead Tree
More clearing today including felling this large dead tree
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Water Usage Calculator
This week I’ve been studying water usage to determine rain water collection tank sizing. Texas A&M Agrilife Extension has a useful rainwater harvesting calculator. Plugging in roof water catchment area (in my case 870 square feet for the main building and porch roofs), monthly average rainfall amounts, rain water collection tank size and monthly water…
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Design Page Updated with Floor plans
I added floor plans to the Design page.
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Updated 3D model with wrap around porch
I updated the 3D sketchup model with walls, windows and the wrap around porch. Click on the design tab to check it out. I also found a timber framing extension for sketchup that I wish I had come across earlier. It will make quick work of creating shop drawings.
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Saw Horses
Paul made me a couple of sawhorses for working the timbers. For timber framing you want shorter than typical horses because you’ll be climbing over timbers to cut mortises. They also need to be sturdy to handle the large timbers.
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Requested Estimates for Timbers
I requested estimates for the timbers and 2×6 tongue and groove decking from Ryan Wholesale and McCoys. I also requested an estimate for just the decking from Wamplers in Bastrop. Ryan Wholesale and McCoys both supply Douglas Fir. A friend of mine with a lot of timber framing experience highly recommended Ryan Wholesale. McCoys supplied the…
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Exposed rafters and Insulating the Roof Deck
I’ll be using 4×10 rough sawn timbers for the rafters. The roof deck will be 2×6 tongue and groove cedar planks. Exposed on the interior of the cabin those elements should look rather dramatic. Moving from drama to the practical side, the question of where to put the insulation surfaces. In a house with an…
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Pier and Beam Foundation
I’m planning on using a raised floor, pier and beam foundation. Most houses in my area are on a single monolithic slab (termed slab on grade). I have several reasons for choosing pier and beam over slab on grade: Logisitics: To pour a slab the site would have to be accessible to a concrete truck…
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Ground Broken
We finally broke ground on the timber frame cabin this week. This is the first hole of total of nine for the pier/piles. Each hole is at least 18″ in diameter and 18 inches deep. We typically encountered 6-8 inches of dark loose foil followed my a caliche clay/limestone mix. After hand digging this first…
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Foundation Poured
This week we did the form work and poured the concrete pier foundation. I cleaned out the holes we dug last week, leveling out the bottom with road base and adding some gravel. I’d been vacillating for a while regarding how to create the piers and creating the form work took longer than it should.…
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Timber Framing Joinery: The Posts
The lumber for our timber frame was delivered last week before we poured the piers. My friend John came out to the site Monday to show me how to lay out the mortise and tenon joinery. I started cutting on Tuesday. The weather took a weird twist. I started out the week in short sleeves…
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Timber Framing Joinery: Continued
We finished up the posts this week and moved on the first of the beams. I thought the 8×8 posts were heavy but the 8×12 are real monsters. I’m really glad we upgraded the wheels on the timber cart. Loading up the first 8×12 beam on the timber cart. This will be a tie beam…
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Timber Framing Joinery: The Beams
The joinery continued on this week with the tie beams and plate beams. We also managed to do some rafters and braces as well. The building has three tie beams that tie the two long walls together. They are the most complex pieces calling for a tenon on each side and mortises for braces and…
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Last Beam Finished and Floor Construction Begun
I had hoped that I could I have titled this post “Last Beam and Floor Construction Finished” but alas the elements conspired against me. The week began warmish and dry but soon devolved into cold wet nastiness. I finished the last beam on Monday which completes my principal joinery. I have a few joists to…
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Sub-Floor Finished
This week was all about flooring. Structural flooring that is. The architectural, aesthetically pleasing portion of flooring is still a ways off. We started off the beginning of the week doing the joinery for the floor joists for the loft and finished the week putting the plywood sheathing on the ground floor. With the sub…
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Larry Haun: House Framing Wizard
While researching for this project I’ve watched many a diy construction video. Several months ago I stumbled upon Larry Haun. With his genial and easy going manner Larry Haun struck me as kind an amalgamation of Bob Ross and Mister Rogers who does house framing. Larry passed away in 2011 but someone posted a how…
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Floor leveled and rafters cut, sanded and stained
When we installed the grade beams I didn’t have complete confidence in the stick level readings. So on Monday, I rented a builder’s level (transit) and took some readings. We checked the elevation of the floor at each pier and found there about 3/4″ height difference between the highest point and lowest point. Using a…
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It’s only a model: Planning Framing Day
The joinery is cut, the sub-floor is installed and so the time has come to raise the frame. Barring adverse weather that day will hopefully be this Saturday. To work through the raising process myself and to help everyone get on the same page I made this animation of how the raising should theoretically go.…
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Laying out the bents and preparing for the frame raising
This week we made preparations for raising day. Top of the list of the preparations was assembling the bents (wall sections). To do this we laid out the posts, beams and braces on the floor and put all the joinery together. Then we checked that everything was square and that the posts parallel. Happy with…
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Frame Raising Day
Leading up to raising day the following questions had been dogging me: Will the weather hold up? Will enough people show up? Will all these pieces go together in real life like they do in my head and on the computer? I’ve gleaned from several frame raising accounts that these concerns are pretty common. Regarding…
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Roof Raising
“Give a cob house a good pair of boots and a a good hat and she’ll last forever.” – The Hand Sculpted House We were really fortunate that the thunderstorms that were forecast for raising day never materialized and this past week was beautiful. The biggest obstacle of the week was getting the ten rafters…
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Wall Framing
After much deliberation as to how to frame the walls and some tinkering with window sizes and locations we started framing the walls this week. I also removed the temporary loft flooring and installed the tongue and groove decking. Here’s a time lapse video of this past week: And here are some still shots with…
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Framing and Furring Strips
Work continued this week on framing the exterior walls. We finished the front of the cabin but didn’t have enough lumber to complete the rake walls. Our supplier had run out of the 2X8s we were using and wasn’t able to get the rest of order to us until Friday afternoon. So, we started adding…
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Framing and Porch Foundation
Pouring the piers for the porch I’ve gotten a little behind with the weekly recap. Late April and early May we received some significant rain which kept us off the job site for several days. When the weather was good we were able to frame out the rest of the exterior walls, frame the interior…
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Roof Installation
Back in April we installed the 2×6 tongue and groove roof decking and put down some felt paper to provide some waterproofing until we could get the materials together to complete the roof. A very wet end of April and beginning of May kept us from the work until a couple of weeks ago. The…
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Porch Deck Installation
Our porch deck materials were delivered a week and a half ago. As we’ll be on hiatus for the latter half of June and the first half of July we pushed forward with finishing the porch deck before our break. The reasoning being that lumber treated for being in close contact with the ground has…
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Porch Roof Design and Construction Overview
Construction has resumed after our mid-summer break. I finished up the porch deck a few weeks ago and have started on the roof. The roof design has been a point of consternation for me for a while now and has evolved fairly significantly from the original concept design. Here are some of the changes: Chain…
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Porch Roof Construction Part 1: Posts and Beams
We had a big stack of lumber delivered a few weeks ago so I sharpened up my chisels and dusted off the chain mortiser and got to work. Here’s a time lapse of cutting the joinery and raising the first section of the porch: And here are some stills with more details: It’s feel good…
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Porch Roof Construction Part 2: Rafters and Decking
Work continued this week on the rafters and decking for the porch roof. Cutting the rafters was the most complex joinery I’ve done but so far but it’s looking good so far. Installation was a game of dodging the sun. Here’s the time lapse video: And here are stills with more details: Cutting birds mouth…
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Plumbing Rough-In
My goal is to have the walls ready to be infilled with light clay straw by the end of September. To reach that end I have a whole list of things to get done including but probably not be limited to: – Roughing-in plumbing drain, vent and supply lines– Roughing-in electric lines and outlets– Installing…
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Porch Roof Construction Part 3 – Gutters and Metal Cladding
Central Texas has been experiencing something of a dry spell for the past few months. As the heat presses on through September and the vegetation turns a crispy brown I have this vision of pouring rainstorms coming in October and I think, “It sure would be nice to capture some of that rain.” There are…
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Electric Rough-In
The month is almost over and we’re close to having the wall ready to be infilled with light clay straw.Over the past week I’ve been installing outlet, switch and light boxes and running PVC conduit to them. Eventually, I’ll pull electric wiring through the conduit but in the meantime we can infill the walls. The…
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Water Tank Pad Preparation and Tank Install
Well, we’re on our way to rain water collection. In late August we ordered a couple of 1680 gallon water tanks. While we were waiting for them to come in we prepared two pads using screened road base and coarse sand. The tanks came in mid-September. With some help from our neighbors and family members…
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Light Straw Clay Construction: The Orientation
The plumbing and electrical have been roughed in, the furring strips have been installed, and last week 109 bales of wheat straw were delivered. It’s time to fill the walls in. Light straw clay (LSC) construction involves lightly coating straw with clay slip(a very liquid muddy mixture) and packing it into wall cavities using temporary…
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Inaugural Straw Light Clay Packing Party
We invited a bunch of people over Saturday to help us pack the straw light clay in the walls and surprisingly a lot came and appeared to have a good time. Over the past week, Jean, my parents and I have been tinkering with the process, testing the equipment and chipping away slowly at some…
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Straw Light Clay Packing Party Part II
The walls are about 2/3rd packed at this point. We had another work party last weekend that put a significant dent in the walls downstairs. Here’s a video of packing day: And here are some stills with more details: We moved the tumbler to other end of the porch so the the tumbled straw could…
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Straw Light Clay Wrap up
We had another small work party in early November that got us to around 85% complete. Over the latter half of November we knocked out lots of detail work and the bottle walls. Here’s a video recap: And here are some stills with more details: Ferrying straw bales to the worksite Mixing the slip. Adding…
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Straw Light Clay Tumbler Design and Build
We’ve moved on from the straw light clay phase of the build. I’ll have some posts up soon about pulling in electrical and putting in windows soon. But I decided do one last video about the design and build of the Straw Light Clay tumbler itself.
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Straw Light Clay Curved Wall
In her book Light Straw Clay Construction Lydia Doleman has loads of diagrams like this one that really flesh out building details. We added some sections of curved wall around our windows and in the office and foyer. Check out the video for more details:
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Electric Wiring
We finishing up wiring the house in early January. I’m currently working on installing the solar power system so we don’t know yet if everything is working correctly. Check out the video recap of the wiring process below. And here are some stills with more details: This is the circuit diagram for the ground floor.…
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Windows Install
“Dry-In” means that the building shell has been completed sufficiently to keep out wind, rain, or the weather in general, thus assuring that weather-sensitive materials or work can begin indoors without those materials suffering weather damage by rain, wind, snow, etc. InspectAPedia With the windows installation complete as of mid February we are very close…
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Earthen Plaster (Base Coat)
Sand, Clay and Straw, the cornerstones of a well balanced natural building endeavor. We’ve had many conversations with people that go something like this: “What are you using for insulation?”“Straw light clay.”“What’s that?”“Well, it’s straw covered in clay with some sand. We’ll also use cob in some places.”“What’s that?“It’s sand, clay and some straw.”“And what…
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The Front Door
I was inspired by this custom made door on an earth sheltered house I toured while in Montana this past summer. You can see it’s a pretty sturdy. It’s about six inches thick. There was something about the heft that I found appealing. The cabin already has lot of over-sized elements so why not the…
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Solar Power Install
The cabin is now powered by the sun! Check out the video below: And here are some stills: Wiring the cabin circuit breaker Making battery cables Wiring the 48 volt battery bank Installing cable to run power from the solar array to the charge controller Moon rise over the cabin The first link in the…
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Water Collection System
Here’s the plan for our water collection system. Red circles are down spouts. The blue circles are rain tanks. We finished our water collection system in mid March just in time for our spring rainy season. Check out previous posts about installing the rain water tanks and gutter below. Water Tank Install Gutter Install The…
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Earthen Plaster (Finish Coat)
We finished plastering the inside of the cabin a couple of weeks ago. Check out the recap video here: And here are some stills with more details: With the highest sections of the wall plastered it was time to remove the scaffolding. For most of the house we we’re going for a buttermilk color with…
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Water Distribution System
Within a few weeks of plumbing in our gutters to our water tanks the tanks were full. The next thing was to get the water from the tanks to the house. Here’s the video documenting the process: And here are some stills with more details: The first step of the process was building a central…
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Flooring
Sorry for lack of posts recently. We’re were pretty pushing hard in June and July to get the cabin livable so we could move in by the first of August. We’re in now and my computer is set back up so I can start processing pictures and videos again. In May, we installed 3/4″ tongue…
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Kitchen and Dining/Living Room Furnishings
With the flooring finished it was time to get started finishing the interior. Several months ago we found a giant apron style hammered copper kitchen sink we really liked so we decided go with copper or antique bronze for all our metal finishes. We got cabinet quotes from Home Depot and several on line suppliers.…
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Plumbing Revision/Winterization
In February 2021 central Texas experienced some extremely cold weather. There were at least five days where the temperature did not get above freezing which is pretty unprecedented here. Three days into the winterpocalypse our pipes froze. This fall/winter I’ve been working on making the plumbing system more robust. I focused on reducing above ground…
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Septic System: In Pursuit of a Variance
This is part 1 of a 3 part series of designing and installing our onsite sewage facility or septic system for the timber frame cabin. Part 1 covers my attempt to get a variance which was ultimately unsuccessful. In the end we installed a conventional gravity system but you might find my tale of lofty…
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Septic System: The Design
A conventional septic system consists of a septic tank and an absorptive drain field. I’ll cover sizing and locating both in this articles. I’ll also refer and link to Texas Administrative Code Chapter 285 fairly often. It’s the statewide code for on-site sewage facilities otherwise referred to here as septic systems. Sizing the Tank A…
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Septic System: The Install
Note: This is part 3 of a 3 part series covering the design and install of conventional septic system for our cabin. Part 1 goes over my unsuccessful attempt to get a variance for a smaller system. Part 2 covers the considerations and process for designing a conventional septic system. The Machinery I rented a…
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Off-grid Living during a Texas Heat Wave
My Google news feed is determined to feed me a constant supply of stories regarding Texas’ unprecedented drought and heat wave. The summer of 2023 in central Texas has been the one of the hottest and driest in recorded history. ERCOT, the organization that handles the flow of electric power for most of Texas, has…
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Trellises, Humanure Bins and Food Forests
Trellises A project that’s been on the list for a while is creating a shade structure for our water tank on the south east side of the cabin. The tree canopy and tank roof protect it in the morning and midday but by from 2-6 pm the afternoon sun bakes the western side of the…
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Timberframe Cabin 2024 Remodel plans
You build your first house for your enemy, your second for your friend and your third for yourself Over the past four years of living in our suburban off grid cabin I’ve discovered many things I wish I had done differently. In lieu of building a third house I’m planning to undertake a fairly major…
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Loft Conversion Completed – Full Build Video
While Jean was away I managed to finish Phase 1 of our 2024 Cabin remodel plans. If you missed the plan to fix some of the design mistakes I made building the timber frame cabin check out this post. To recap phase 1 was to extend the loft. This allowed me to create some separation…
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A Tale of Thermal Bridging and Raised Floors
Last week I started Phase 2 to the Timberframe cabin expansion. Here is the plan overview if you haven’t seen it yet. Phase 2 consists of taking in an approximately 100 square foot section of the existing wrap around porch and converting it to a dining/living room. The first order of business was ripping up…
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Cabin Porch Extension: Interior Finishing and Light Clay Straw Wall Removal
Before opening up the existing cabin indoor space to the new porch extension I wanted to get the extension as close to finished as possible. For the interior walls I opted for a lathe and plaster finish. The technique consists of fastening thin strips of wood to the studs and and then applying an earthen…
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Cabin Porch Conversion: Exterior Finishing and Final Walkthrough
We wrapped up construction on the Timber frame cabin porch conversion late February/early March. Here is a video covering the exterior finishing with a walkthrough at the end: Here are some before pictures: And here are some after: