Sunday earth plastering crew

Sunday earth plastering crew

Today we were pleased to welcome old friends and new – the Freckle magazine crew of Lynn, Hannah and Mick, with Andrew and Liam. Together we earth plastered the last of the walls, and gained some mountains and geese, as well as applying some finish coat plaster...
Month of Mud

Month of Mud

Thanks to the amazing generosity of both our crowdfunding backers, and a small army of volunteers, we have made great progress with our classroom space over the winter, and now we are on the home stretch, with the aim of completing it this summer. The majority of the...
Power station progress

Power station progress

  A bit of early evening winter sun means we get to catch a few last volts before it gets dark. There’s now 1.5kW of PV up on the roof, which suffers a bit from shading late in the day – just one of several issues to work around. We’re setting...
Earth plaster update

Earth plaster update

  Stage one of our earth plastering is now complete,and all the bales have a coat of clay slip. Some of the holes have been filled with clay slip mixed with a generous amount of finely chopped straw, and it is looking a little less undulating around the edges...

Strawbale rendering part 1..

Yesterday we began the process of rendering the strawbale walls by applying a coat of clay slip (just a runny clay and water mix) to the surface of the bales. Messy work, as transferring it from bucket to wall involves about half ending up on the floor, but it will...
Straw at last

Straw at last

  Now that the floor is fixed down, we’ve been able to get on and get the strawbales in. First, wooden spikes made of willow are driven into holes in the floor – Then the first layer of bales is placed onto the spikes which prevent them from moving...
Getting creative

Getting creative

  Pargeting isn’t a word you hear very often, but it’s a wonderful technique that involves making raised designs in (commonly) lime or earth plasters.  From the very start, this is something we’ve really wanted to have a go at, and here are some...