by Steve Byrne | Feb 9, 2018 | buildings, natural building
One of the hardest things about producing your own food isn’t growing it, it is storing it afterwards. It really wants to break down as fast as possible, and all manner of creatures want to eat it first. Until now we’ve stored food all over the place – hanging up in the living room; in cupboards. In short, not ideal. Another issue that we had was that our 4000 litre rainwater tanks and pump were not terribly pretty and very exposed to cold temperatures. The pump especially has been badly damaged by freezing twice now. The problem, as they say in permaculture, is the solution, and in this case takes the form of a strawbale barn, which incorporates the water tanks as its back wall.
by Steve Byrne | Jul 20, 2017 | natural building
The recent incidence of DIY chain store B&Q selling Valspar branded paint that turned out to smell terribly of cat pee once applied, and some of the suggested remedies for those unfortunate enough to have applied the paint, have highlighted some of the reasons why we won’t use regular paints here in any of our buildings.
by Steve Byrne | Jul 19, 2017 | buildings, natural building
One of the last existing buildings that we took down here was the old wooden garage outside the cottage, and the time has come to replace it with another useful structure that will be used to store garden produce and tools. We want to build it on a tiny budget using reclaimed or local materials to create a natural looking structure that has minimal visual impact.
by Steve Byrne | Jul 8, 2015 | buildings, natural building
Another excellent video from Permaculture Magazine, produced by Permaculture People and narrated by Kevin McCloud. Many, many good reasons in there why natural building is the way to go. More info here
by Steve Byrne | Jun 12, 2015 | natural building
As you can see, the new room is coming on now, and we are on the final layers of clay paint, having gone through progressively finer mixes until we are now using just clay, fine sand, wheat paste, and occasionally some colouring – in this case tumeric....
by Steve Byrne | May 22, 2015 | buildings, natural building, off grid
After two weeks of hard graft, our latest wwoofers, Brodie and Molly are on their way, but what a difference they’ve made. We promised them building work, and our first task was fitting out battens and wood-wool board in the little cottage. Then they moved on...
