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The Project: A 2,163 square foot house utilizing dry stack concrete block construction with a central courtyard and based on the Spanish colonial-era missions in San Antonio. The Challenge: Can a forty-something married couple design and build an attractive, efficient and mostly paid-for house while remaining sane, solvent and married? With no actual prior construction experience? Hmmmmm - let's check in on our Contestants and see how they're doing... |
| Not to get too arty here, but sometimes we're struck by the beauty of what we're building. We are doing our best to cover this temporary skylight with a roof, but it does look pretty on a bright, sunny afternoon. |  |
| A close look at the edge of the barrel vault which you saw us constructing in the previous installment. We have built up several layers of cement, chicken wire and nylon mesh. My emperical, methodical scientific testing of this structure (standing on it and bouncing up and down) has shown this to be structurally sound and ready for a final coating of shotcrete. |  |
| Ooops, slipped up and got arty again. Shadows fall across the front face of the house, which will need one more hand coating of cement to fill it out. I can almost hear Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo..." |  |
| This photo of the cementitious lamination process shows the edge of a chicken wire reinforcement layer in the ferrocement. All kidding about the aforementioned scientific stress testing aside, the amazing strength of a half-inch thick skin made with this lamination process has to be seen to be believed. The final shotcrete layer will contain nylon reinforcement fibers to further strengthen this section of the roof. |  |
| The recent tragic fires in California only reinforced our notions that we're building the right way. Here, a member of management supervises as we burn some trash against a wall of the house to shelter the fire from a brisk wind. Management is obviously not afraid of an open flame against the house walls and with good reason.In the two years of building this house, we've gotten e-mails from people from the western US during fire season and the eastern US during hurricane season. DIY and concrete are the answer! |  |
| Want to see a rough floor plan?Want to be notified when we post new pictures? Just e-mail us! Want to see the rest of the story? Click on Gimme Shelter Home Page. |
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| Next installment: The Fire of Prometheus Click HERE |
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