“The dream continues – an updated video of building a straw bale house and living life off the grid – somewhere in Kansas.”
I’m posting this updated version because it’s so inspiring. Watching this slideshow of their sustainable house and homestead project you get a clear sense “I can do this.” In addition to photos of their finished straw bale home, this version shows their summer kitchen, football field sized garden, animals, well, solar system and family life. They now have their own website Livin’ Clean and Green, and are offering numerous workshops in 2013.
Reader’s comments at YouTube:
“4 months to make the space “livable” – a bit longer to finish – 26′ diameter and the loft is over 3/4 so I think that translates to about 1000′ for 10k”
“Such a beautiful life…. Thank you so much for sharing some of it with us. The music was wonderful!!
“Wonderful video showing how precious life can be living off the grid! Your music & lifestyle says it all. Beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing this window into your lives. Living life as it was meant to be, centered, around family, music & hearth. Showing us all a great example of hard work, commitment, being self sufficient while helping creating natures much needed bio diversity. You inspire me!”
“Happiest children ever!”
Owen and Kelly:
Have you seen this video?
Very recent addition on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGXI151uqfU
What video is that, Jay?
Awesome.
Nice house and intelligently built.
I must admit that the hand dug well and digging the rock out for the root cellar made me wince in pain. That looked brutal.
A homemade EMAS well drilling rig would have saved a lot of back breaking work on that well.
That video got me thinking about the possibility of combining the concepts of a summer kitchen with an attached greenhouse/sunroom. If one uses the correct roof overhang, it should work well in middle latitudes. The space would get lots of sunshine in the winter when it operates as a greenhouse, and would get shade in the summer when it converts to a summer kitchen. If someone designed the summer kitchen cooking station appropriately, it could serve double duty as a greenhouse heater during the winter. Not only that, but designing a permanent long lasting solar cooker into the sun facing wall could be a integral part of the design too.
Heck… I’m going to throw down the suggestion.
Owen? What do you think the demand would be for you to generate plans for such a space that could be attached to most any structure?
I’m actually thinking along the lines of permaculture design principles integrated into the architectural design itself. Integrating energy inputs and outputs to have multiple uses. One system feeding another. Everything from waste water being recycled back through the system to irrigate plants to designing the wall between the main structure and the greenhouse/summer kitchen being adaptable as the seasons change. This would allow the greenhouse to help heat the house on sunny winter days, but also be able to close it off such that the summer kitchen doesn’t overheat the main structure in the summer.
As always, I’m just throwing out ideas. Feel free to use or ignore the idea as you deem appropriate.
It’s a good idea. But on things like this each project would be fairly unique and so people would figure things out and do it on their own.
This is the ideal type of blog post. I wish I could find enough videos, photos and stories of high quality finished projects. Most people don’t document their projects. Plus, I have only so much time to search the Internet. Please send us info on your projects.