why rising earth?

The title of this blog draws from my time as an apprentice at the Cob Cottage Company in costal Oregon. If you spend time with natural building folk, you'll eventually find yourself around a fire, sing silly songs about cob and natural building. Folks usually refer to these oftentimes improvised tunes as "cobsongs". I often sang..."There is a house in old coquille, they call the rising earth, it's been the work of many hands, and you know what that's worth..."

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Interior plaster

Natural plasters are great for creating hand made finishes on conventionally built walls. Plaster has more soul and fewer toxins than paint and doesn't require highly finished drywall.

This purple plaster is made from dried pottery clay, lime, sand, wheat paste, and a small amount of chopped straw. It will dry to a less saturated, lighter purple gray in a few days. Below is the opposite corner of the room, and mud room.