Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Woman Made Gallery

Take a gander, our house is featured here, in the online show:

Woman Made Gallery

A real blog update before the end of the month.. I swear. Pictures of piles of dirt I move daily just hasn't inspired a post. But I will do one. Piles and piles and piles of dirt for you to see. I swear.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Slow and steady, finishing a room.

We've finished one room, completely. That is, besides three light switch covers. I can't believe how long it takes. I'd pound tires any day, over finishing work. We'll maybe not any day, but some of these days. The floor alone took about three months.

The Floor Alone

or The Mud Floor

The mudding a floor isn't three months worth of work, but it took almost that long. Letting the floor dry was a grueling patience inducing experience. The floor is three layers. The first is two to three inches, to flatten it out. This layer took over three weeks to dry. The second layer is about one inch, and took over two weeks to dry. And the third, bringing it to floor lever, is about one half inch thick, and not more than three quarters of an inch. The three layers are for strength, and to get it level. This last level took from sunrise to sunset to lay in one day. The last of which I had to do in the dark with a headlamp on. We finished. Or so we thought.

After this we had to seal the floor. We're rough on everything we own, so I wanted to make the floor as durable as possible. We sealed it with a 50/50 mix of boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits. The floor drinks this solution. It dries relatively fast, in a few hours. After that we put three more coats of this mixture onto the floor, letting it dry in between each of these layers. We increased the amount of linseed oil and decreased the amount of mineral spirits with each layer, until the last coat was approximately 60/40, linseed oil to mineral spirits. This process took 3 days. And is still smelling about a week later. I'm not sure if it's still the mineral spirits, or if its the polyurethan, which brings us to the last step in sealing the floor.

I painted on a couple polyurethan coats. I used the 'Earthship D.I.Y books' recommended Varathan brand. The Varathan says that one gallon covers 500-600 square feet. Don't be fooled, my gallon covered less than 400 square feet. I put two coats on my floor, then I ran out and decided enough was enough. I'm moving in. After one more seventy two hour wait. Added to that is the off-gassing, causing just a few more days of waiting. And we have a floor. A mop-able, sweep-able, live-able, relatively water proof floor. A floor that glistens in the sun, and emphasizes any minute speck of dust. I could paint the floor, but I do love the rich chocolate brown color of the mud, so I wont. Mud, unlike cement, is not hard on the knees, back, and joints. It's a healthy alternative. Not to mention the cost, which is $0. Unless time is money, because if time is money, you'd have to do some sort of 3 months of drying + not really knowing if it's going to work + my patience at a rope's end x's $$$. But, I'm no mathematician, so I'd have to say it cost about... $0.

The walls are mud as well. The darker painted walls are one layer of linseed oil. Most of the walls are unsealed adobe plaster.

The ceiling is stained rough cut lumber. I used a brand called Transtint, and it rules. The colors are awesome, and I could mix it with water, which was great.

So, besides this room, we've also closed in the greenhouse in the most temporary of fashions. But it's heating our house during the day. The sun sets and the heat leaves the uninsulated temporary doors within a few hours. It's nice to have this space closed in though. We can leave more stuff out there, and use it more during the day. But it's only for true sun lovers, as it gets to be about 100 degrees during the day. I'm no sun lover, but I did move to New Mexico, so I take it as it comes (daily, and non-stop).

Trying to maintain sanity. We now have two livable rooms. This will surely help.

Walls, Ceiling, and Floor

From Sept-Oct-Nov-2012

And a little greenhouse ceiling decoration, but we're not even close to finished with this.

From Sept-Oct-Nov-2012

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Flash Flood 2012

Yesterday early evening, we had the biggest rain storm of the season. It has rained everyday for the past four days, poured actually, buckets full.

The flooding arroyo in this video, or the temporary river is a road we usually drive down. Luckily there is an alternate road that we usually take. We drove down this "road" about 20 minutes before the flooding. I thank Lakshmi: we didn't. I thought we'd be struck by lightening, but in reality we would have been washed away. Well, who really knows, maybe I was running away from an adventure. Either way, I'm glad we were home to see it instead of stuck in the middle of it. This has only happened one other time, two years ago, since we've been here.

You will also see a hummingbird we rescued, it flew away after a few minutes, but that's not recorded, and also the first wall we adobe plastered. I still have to seal it with linseed oil. This wall is one of three in my bedroom. Two more to go, then the floor as well and a wood plank ceiling. Eventually, we will be back in that room. Two rooms! What a luxury, I can't hardly imagine.

The music in this video is by Single Moms, our band. The recording is very rough, but I thought it felt right.

SUMMER 20-12

Friday, June 29, 2012

With Googley eyes, we exist!

This just in: google has updated it's satellite pictures! The time has come! I don't know how long this has been up, but I do know that it is at least a year old. We don't have any roof up, and there is almost no greenhouse built yet!

I'm so excited about this, I have been waiting. Dain found it. I don't think you'd be able to find it, it's too far out there.

From the far right, our truck, and then follow our little path to our cabin (which has a blue and white roof), and keep going and you'll get to our house, what it looked like a year ago. The car isn't there, so maybe I'm at work. You'll notice the busy metropolis of bushes.