Strawbale House

Andrew and Steve have been busy again and have already produced a second version of the preliminary plans for our new home. On the right you can see the newest iteration of the floor plan which is a very close to how Rosalba and I would like it. (For a more detailed look, click on the image of the floorplan to see a larger version).

The few changes that we have asked Andrew and Steve to incorporate are as follows:

To save a bit of room, Rosalba and I have decided that we’ll put the laundry outside and change that small laundry into a cupboard. Having an outside laundry works really well for us where we are now.

The main entrance door needs to change back into a double door, as Rosalba and I have already purchased two doors for the main entrance (see related post “Front Door“).

On this plan it looks a little like there are some louvres or similar in the walk in wardobe. We are both not so sure that is a good idea. We fear that some of the smaller wildlife, such as bugs, mice, and snakes, would find the louvres an inviting entrance into our wardrobe.

To have a look at some elevations of the house have a look at this gallery. Again, by clicking on any of the images you get to see a larger version with more detail.

On Wednesday we met our Architect, Andrew, again to discuss the fist draft version of the floor plan for our new home. I have included a scanned copy of the draft that was drawn by Steve (the Building Designer working together with Andrew) below for your enjoyment. (Click on the plan for a larger version of it.)

As is usually the case, Rosalba and I have identified some areas where we would like to see some change. I’d also like to see any changes we requested as (hopefully) valuable feedback for Andrew and Steve.

First of all we’d like to change the bathroom and toilet to be an ensuite instead of separate. The toilet should still have it’s own door to allow for proper reflection even when another person is using the bathroom. Having the bathroom and toilet become an ensuite starts making sense once I tell you that what is marked on this plan as “Bedroom 2″ is actually going to be my office.

We don’t intend to have many visitors staying overnight in our new home but instead we are also planning to build a separate little granny flat or guest house at a later date to make overnight visitors more comfortable.

We have also asked for a second toilet to be included on the plan next to the back door. The main reason for this being that we’d like to be able to get to a toilet without tramping through the whole house, if we are working outside.

We are quite happy for the laundry to become significantly smaller to free up some space for the second toilet, as both Rosalba and I can’t see that we are going to spend a lot of time in the Laundry. In our current house we have an undercover outdoor laundry that works quite well for us.

The outside walls are designed to be made of strawbales. Looking at the plan the walls look not quite as thick as I would have expected because Andrew and Steve designed them be built with the strawbales stacked on-end instead of laying flat as I expected.

The advantage of building the walls with strawbales on-end is that this makes the walls stronger according to Andrew. The disadvantages are that it makes it harder for the render to stick to the strawbales and that building some alcoves into the walls is quite a bit harder as well.
Rosalba and I feel that we’d rather make the render stick better as the walls should still be quite sturdy with the strawbales stacked flat.

Rosalba has also asked for more bench space in the kitchen and the inclusion of space for a wall oven instead of an oven underneath the stove.

All in all, Rosalba and I are quite happy with this first draft of the floor plan. It is very close to what we imagined without any big or nasty surprises.

Also according to Steve with the plan as presented our new home would have a 9½ star rating. This compares to a standard brick veneer home having about a star rating of 4½ stars. Both Steve and Andrew believe that we would not need to heat or cool our home at all and the fireplace would be used more for aesthetics than heating.

So what do you think?

As prize in our first ever competition, we are giving away the book of house plans by Peter Lees (pictured on the left). This book contains a large number design sketches but does not contain finished plans. Nevertheless there is enough information to help you work out what you’d like or not in your house, though.

The competition starts now and runs until the end of August. To be in the draw to win this book of house plans, all you need to do is leave a comment anywhere on this site.

In early September I will draw a a random entry from all comments left on this site. So to have a chance of winning all you need to do is leave one intelligent and civil comment. Multiple comments do count as multiple entries so if you are really keen, feel free to leave multiple intelligent and civil comment.

Also, please remember that if you win I will need to be able to contact you so make sure that you enter a valid email address at which you can be reached with your comment in the “Mail” field.

So go ahead and leave lots of happy comments. Good luck.

Your email will not be published, is only accessible by myself and will only be used for the purpose of this competition.
Rosalba and I reserve the right to judge what constitutes an intelligent and civil comment.
Our decisions are final and no correspondence regarding them will be entered into.

While reading through some magazines to work out how we best could get what we wanted out of our future home we came across this ad for a book of home designs. Wanting to build with straw bales we were intrigued by that book as the ad mentioned all sorts of building types including straw bale houses.

The book is published by an architect named Peter Lees and very reasonably priced at only $29. Now this book does not contain finished plans but enough information to help you work out what you’d like or not in your house.

I bought this book thinking that it would give us a head start in the planning phase. This was not the case in the end as Peter Lees has some strong views in favour of loft houses and both Rosalba and I have strong views against multiple levels in our future home.

To be fair though, if you are open to multi level living than this book is certainly worth the small cost and it does feature some nice home designs. If you are interested you can find more information on Peter Lees website at www.cheaphomedesigns.com.

As you usually do, we have come up with a very rough floor plan to get an idea what we want and also to be able to communicate our dream better to the architect.

The bottom of this floor plan is orientated towards the view. We want our master bedroom, the living area and the dining area to see the marvellous view we have.

We also plan to have a veranda all the way around the house with the veranda on the side of the kitchen being deep enough to fit a proper outdoor table and chairs so that we can have breakfast out in the fresh air.

Andrew, the architect thought that it is a nice and simple plan so far which should help to keep the costs down.