tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23494929265420661872009-10-12T23:13:13.530-07:00The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-2531755326756269652007-08-04T20:42:00.001-07:002008-12-08T23:50:42.450-08:00

Having done a little to restore and bring our 2nd hand oregon pine front door & frame back to life and full potential, we put her in..Wow, doesn't she look great..?You can now sort of get the idea or the concept of the design.. to have the front door of the house open up and then you can look straight through the house directly onto the distant view and more specifically onto

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-10212571483447436112007-07-26T21:00:00.001-07:002008-12-08T23:50:42.584-08:00

We now start getting some of our stored 2nd hand window and door frames ready for installation into the house.Sonia and myself have spend a lot of time over the last year and a half finding nice, used and sometimes abused 2nd hand building materials.Like this lovely used Oregon door frame.. it is already in prity good nick.All it needs is to be sanded down and then treated with ProNature Outdoor

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-67993694710510518272007-07-24T12:15:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:42.850-08:00

The walls of the house and some of the rooms are starting to take shape.I must admit the raising of the cob walls is taking longer than I expected.Be warned..Cobbing is a labour intensive process.The other things is.. it is consuming a lot of my harvested soil.By the way, I dug a number of holes on my property to harvest the building material, commonly known as soil. The Americans call it dirt.I

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-63554883665342925202007-07-08T22:02:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.151-08:00

The house is being built in two phases: Phase 1. Centre & West Side (Guest & Living Area) Phase 2. The East Side (Family & Quiet Area)Cob walls (mud, clay & straw) have started going up on the east side which includes: kitchen, hearth, gym, laundry, guest toilet and then upstairs we have two guest rooms with on-suite bathrooms.We will move in after completion of Phase One and then complete

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-36708406124206723442007-06-14T12:55:00.001-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.442-08:00

Stem Walls are done using new rock-face clay bricks, recycled stock clay bricks and some maxi bricks.Due to the width of the cob wall at the bottom (560cm), the stem walls have to be wide enough to support them.Thus we opted for building up the stems with single brick lines on the outside & insides and then filling them with either compacted soil or building rubble.Next we put a lime topping to

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-80634043312305077142007-06-10T13:05:00.001-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.580-08:00

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-77937578507531233822007-06-10T13:00:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.723-08:00

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-75373357685605570082007-06-10T12:24:00.001-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.846-08:00

Foundations were dug using a TLB.According to Engineer specification the strips had to be 1 meter wide, reinforced with 10mm re-bar (round) and had to be filled with concrete 250mm thick. The problem with this method is: concrete, re-bar and of cause the TLB are not the most sustainable choices when it comes to building an eco-friendly house. Concrete and the re-bar which is made from steel,

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-1567586869979089732007-06-04T13:13:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:43.990-08:00

When we run out of material or work on the main house we work on our side project 'The Gazebo'.The gazebo will be our entertainment area, our conference facility where we can host earth building or other greenie type training/seminars, weddings, parties, drumming, socials, etc.As you can see, it is constructed with a combination of Cob (mud & straw), & rock sourced from the farm.Here you can see

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-21490862236993566682007-06-04T11:29:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:44.361-08:00

The House was designed with massive help from our enduring architect Charlotte Smit (CAES Architects).Principally the house was designed to be lived in by the family. So there is a space or room for all our (out-of-town) needs such as a gym, a Music/Movie room, Library, Bed rooms, open plan Kitchen 'come' Kids Homework area, Dinning room, safe room, Guest rooms, twins rooms, etc.Passive Heating &

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-59241521291270447072007-06-04T09:59:00.000-07:002008-12-08T23:50:44.474-08:00

A view of River Bend Farm from the river side (South).The Guest House will not be visible from this side of the hill. The house is built on the north side of the hill, over looking the Roodekraans Game Reserve and Rhenosterkop in the distance.As can be seen from the photo, the farm is surrounded by virtually untouched natural bushveld (Bankenveld), grassland, farm dams, rivers and wildlife.It

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349492926542066187.post-42880549734819297212007-05-28T19:31:00.000-07:002007-05-28T20:24:40.220-07:00

Project Overview:We are building a Cob/Straw Bale & Adobe Guest house in the Rhenosterspruit Nature Conservancy (www.rhenosterspruit.co.za), near Pretoria in South Africa.My wife Sonia, my children Luke, Liam & Aimee-Louise are all part of the designing and most importantly of all, the building phases of the project.My construction company 'Insynch Sustainable Technologies Pty (Ltd)' is building

The Armstrong Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00588911006309517110noreply@blogger.com0