28 & 29 October 2015
Time to build that last wall. The first row of bales with the air vents cut into them went in, then we worked our way up the wall, splitting and fitting bales - the first wall we've done entirely on our own. It was quite restful, with lots of tea breaks, and no worries about getting things done to any schedule.
At the same time, we had a glass light channel-making process in operation. The bottles had been given to us by Jessica at Mamma Mia about two years ago, and they had been kept in the cellar under the decking outside the kitchen. So they had to be retrieved, the worst of the dirt washed off outside, and then brought into the kitchen for a hot soapy wash and vinegar polish.
Time to build that last wall. The first row of bales with the air vents cut into them went in, then we worked our way up the wall, splitting and fitting bales - the first wall we've done entirely on our own. It was quite restful, with lots of tea breaks, and no worries about getting things done to any schedule.
At the same time, we had a glass light channel-making process in operation. The bottles had been given to us by Jessica at Mamma Mia about two years ago, and they had been kept in the cellar under the decking outside the kitchen. So they had to be retrieved, the worst of the dirt washed off outside, and then brought into the kitchen for a hot soapy wash and vinegar polish.
Trying out the trial one - not clever, forgot it wasn't stuck together and the bottle fell out. Oops!
Dave constructing the channels: two scrubbed clean sparkling water bottles from Zagori and a length of 80mm tube to connect them. We cut the tube to 29cm to give a channel length of 54cm - which should protrude about 1cm each side of the wall after plastering.
The bottles are stuck into the tube using the clear silicon that we use to stick the window glass into the frames. Held in place with some masking tape until dried. Left untouched overnight to dry.
My bottle washing station: drying in a wine rack given to us by friends and finally found good use for
Bales in place up to the top of the door frame. The next level will have the bottles cut into it.
First bale in place with bottles cut in - from the inside. Pretty blue. Will look rather good when surrounded by plaster (we hope)
At this point we realised the awful possibility that we might not have quite enough bales for this wall. It seems that we will need 10 to finish the top two rows - and we have 9. How cruel is that? We will also need a lot of loose straw to stuff the corners and to make into chopped straw for all the plastering yet to do, so more bales are essential. We will ask around locally, as we just need good quality straw, not build-quality dense-packed bales.
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