inside

we're working our way inside with plastering and it's looking and feeling really great. i'm very happy with the window sizing and placement and the quality of light within the building.

there's still lots to do, but it looks like we'll get all of the building plastered, inside and out, the windows installed and the building secured for winter by the end of october. we're about a month behind schedule, not too bad considering that we're all volunteers. the weather has been fabulous this summer, perfect for construction.

i've installed a few moisture sensors in the walls so that we can watch what happens in the bales over time. each location has three sensors (two stainless screws in a piece of wood attached to some telephone wire), one on the outside, one in the middle, one on the inside. because straw bale construction is somewhat experimental it's a good idea to have a way to look inside the bales to see what's going on. i put two in the shower area because that will have a substantial amount of moisture that could make its way into the bales.

this coming weekend we'll be pouring the porch foundation, receiving the timbers for the porch, and we'll start carving those timbers for a mid-october raising of the porch. we'll also continue with plastering and finishing up straw details.

we've decided to put off any more work on the dining hall, which attaches to the kitchen, because we're close to the end of our budget. the group decided to move ahead with the dining room this year at the annual meeting, but we have spent so much effort on construction that we haven't had time to do much fundraising. that will be this winter's project.