http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7MhJ5h_c8
You can make textured walls, benches and other objects that look just like stone. This video and the article below show you the basics. I prefer the beauty of natural stone, but this is an option worth considering for special situations. Here’s one example. You could plaster your walls to simulate the color and texture of stone using earthen plaster. Then mist it with MICP to create rock hard walls. You could also plaster your walls with lime or geopolymer plaster and add stone texture and colors.
More info: How to Build Fake Rocks
Hi Owen and Kelly
Firstly thanks for the fabulous blog, it is a great follow-up to the article I read in Mother Earth News. What an attractive building that was, and a good way to introduce folks to the concept of earthbag building.
So I have a question only tangentially related to this posting, and I apologize if you might have already written about this, but I have been trying to read through all the post on all the sites and haven’t come across it yet.
I am wanting to build a “stone wall” type fence, of the kind commonly used to create boundaries in the northeast. Kind of like the earthbag equivalent of the Robert Frost poem, it would be more durable than fence and do a better job for the garden/chicken coop/kids play yard that we want to enclose. Of course it would also give us loads of “experience” before we tackle the earthbag Barn. :)
So I am thinking something along the lines of the bench, just taller and longer. We live in Colorado, along the Front Range, so have a little concern about winter/frost/etc. although I expect that building on the gravel/rubble trench you espoise would eliminate that worry, as we certainly don’t get enough moisture to cause any real problems. The idea does seem to differ from a lot of the other uses for Earthbags, like foundation walls, below grade walls, etc as there would be no dirt to berm against the wall. Ideally we would want something about 5-7 feet tall, depending on the topography.
So I am thinking a gravel trench, with the first couple courses of gravel filled bags just in case of flooding. If we do the barbwire, and make sure to fashion the wall more serpentine or sinusoidal that linear, I am hoping this will provide the strength. I did think about pinning the peak of each curve to the ground with rebar stakes, but would love to avoid that expense/effort. Then I am guessing a lime or cement stucco to protect the bags.
Am I missing anything, or have you done/considered anything like this previously.
Thanks so much for the feedback.
Richard
PS-I am wondering if anyone has had good experience with Lime plaster near my locale, as I think I want to try it. I know that you don’t do it where you are Owen, but wasn’t sure if anyone else knew anything.
Read this post on Privacy Walls: http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/earthbag-privacy-walls/
That should answer most of your questions, especially if you read the comments section.