 9 |
| The Draper Barn in San Anselmo looks a lot like the train-repair buildings not far from where I used to live in Minnesota. I like this configuration. The plastic on the outside of the walls is temporary, just to keep the rain off until the stucco is applied. |
 10 |
| This looks enough like the infamous Guadalupe Project to make me think that it is. A veritable army of unskilled volunteers raised the walls and installed the roof bearing assemblies, roof trusses, and roof sheathing in a single day. If this is the place I'm thinking of. (Something to understand about strawbale construction is that there's a LOT of it going on - more than any one person or organization can keep track of. I know from personal experience that it might not seem that way: you might feel like you're the only person within thousands of miles who has even heard of this crazy idea... when in fact, chances are excellent that there's a number, and perhaps an appreciable number, of people right in your area who feel the same way you do. Some of them may have already built and still feel that aloneness. The difficulty is in finding these people. The CREST-sponsored straw-bale construction email list is one way, but it only represents a fraction of the activity (and some would state, probably correctly, that it's quite a small fraction at that)... a subscription to, and back-issues of, The Last Straw can also help identify people to connect with in your area.) Rene comments: "Yes, this is Guadalupe. We met local building inspector Mike Shimkus who explained how he came from being strongly against the idea of SB to being an active advocate. After visiting this house, we had a very nice Mexican meal at the trading post/market - one of the many excellent Mexican meals we had. Mexican and SB seems to mix very well." Ah, I remember the trading post! That place was great. |
 11 |
| I think this place was the highlight of the caravan for everybody: the Songdog Ranch house. They built this place with their own ingenuity in 1987, before The Straw Bale House or Build It With Bales were published. There are some things they'd do totally differently in light of other people's experience and knowledge - things they wouldn't have done in the first place if they'd had all the resources about strawbale available then that we do now - but many things they'd do the same. Like the earthen plaster. |
 12 |
| Another view of the Songdog Ranch house. |
