Shelving visitors

I had a feel good week at the cottage site, and was thrilled to have Elaine (sister) and Ian (nephew) come visit and see what I had accomplished. It was an inspired 5 days. I didn't actually get much done in terms of preparation work for plastering, because I was too busy building things that were never in the plans.



A saw a piece of slate sitting around, and thought it would make an adequate bedside table. Margaret (the future dweller) commented that she much prefers a two-tiered bedside table so that she can store her current reads on the bottom shelf. After a bit of searching, I came across a matching piece of slate. I "cobbed" them into the existing wall, but needed some support on the suspended corners. Here was my chance to use roundwood. After shaving off the bark, planing down the knots, chiseling out the notches, and drilling holes for the horizontal roundwood braces, the support post was ready to perform its function.

I was happy with how the peg joint turned out.



I found a nice forked length of roundwood to use as a hanging support for this shelf, which will be above the end of the bed.

A fantastic space to store books, or little boys. Notice, also, the new little niche carved into the wall near the tall, vertical window. This will be a good place on which to perch a candle, or a statue, or glasses during sleep.





Here is Ian, in his hunter-gatherer mode, collecting stray chunks of dry cob.


I've spent a bit of time every day thinking about how I might go about creating a door to fit into a very strangely-shaped opening. The problem was that there are bumpy foundation stones along one side of the door opening, a bumpy threshold stone, and a curved top arch. To build a door that would swing shut into this negative space and still keep out drafts was an overwhelming thought. After 5 days of letting the problem marinate in my mind, I gave up on the near-impossible, and decided to retro-fit the cottage entrance with a wooden door-frame.

The horns at the top of the frame are integrated supports that perform two functions: they add extra strength to the frame, and create a support structure upon which a shelf will go. This way, when Margaret slams the door, everything on the shelf has a good chance to come crashing down on her head. Notice the 3 "deadmen" attached to the right vertical of the door frame. Deadmen (usually gnarly tree branch cut-offs) are used to secure something into a cob wall, in this case the door frame. The more strangely-shaped and gnarly they are, the better - they'll have more "tooth" (grip) into the cob. I used a hammer to chisel out the cubbies in the wall into which the deadmen are places. Then I screwed the door frame onto them.

Below, I have begun to bury the deadmen (you see where the term comes from) in cob. The pieces are bamboo are in place to keep the door frame evenly-spaced and plumb while the cob dries (at which point it won't budge an inch).




Pull-up.


I like how the shelving looks with things actually shelved on it. You can see the stove pipe entering the building near Ian's head.




Eventually, the little boy escaped, and we all went home.

I'll be back on site tomorrow, getting serious about plaster prep. Next weekend, we'll host a "plaster party" to coat the interior walls, and the following weekend will be the party for the exterior. If everything goes super-smoothly, we might get the floor poured in the between week.