What Chic STRAWBALE LIVING in an ECOVILLAGE is Like

here at dancing rabbit eco village we live a hardcore sustainable lifestyle we provide a model for how a small community can address the ecological problems our world faces by cooperating and sharing resources besides reducing our footprint there are many other benefits and positive side effects to living sustainably a few years back i did a tour of a half-finished roundhouse hassan hall was working on at that time it was called the tea cozy and like a lot of buildings at dancing rabbit eco village it's made with mostly natural materials specifically straw bale now the house is finished and it's been bought by a member of the community who not only lives in it but works in it [Music] if you want to see the way the house looks underneath the finish work check out those videos linked with cards in the top corner here and in the description below the finished house is named cat's cradle after its new owner kat well i love this space i love the light that it brings in here the natural light it's performed very well for me i was here last winter and it's it's a bit larger than i would really need as a single person it's about 850 round feet i don't like to say square feet being in a roundhouse so as a massage therapist i love having a space where i can work in my house i think one of the most beautiful things in this room is the glass bottle wall and often in the afternoon when the sun is setting this wall will be lit up with the uh the sun coming through and it's really spectacular to have the colors come in through that i love those glass bottle walls they allow so much light to come on in yeah yeah and it's so decorative and beautiful yeah and this is one of the things that i talked about with hassan in the last videos and he had sort of set it up with wood to hold the bottles in place so they could do this workshop um and and just not have to place all the bottles as they were building the wall so it was kind of a unique way of doing it but it turned out yeah i've seen amazing yeah and so this window though like in the winter time you can open this to the sun room and then it will sort of bring in some of that heat from yeah exactly and then you've got these windows over here that are south facing for some more passive solar yes yeah yeah i'm able to do massage in here with no external heat i just have the wood stove and there's no extra heat in this room and it works out perfectly wow that's great yeah i'm very happy with it this is another favorite room with this beautiful southern exposure that we get in winter and all of the decorative touches that have happened in here we've got our little turtles up there at the top we've got a gorgeous mural of a face and we have larry the lounge lizard that never quite got finished one of these days he's going to get some marble eyes and some scales on his tail in the winter i bring trees in here i have a peach tree that lives outside in a planter and in the winter it comes inside to live here until it's planted permanently so that's its little spot how warm do you think it can get here oh my gosh in the wintertime does it get really warm yeah yeah i'd say close to 80 really on days depending how cold it is outside so you just come in here and sit at the table or whatever and hang out and read or whatever yeah wow that sounds great it is it's a lovely space in the winter very sunny and bright it's so pretty too it's like having your own little conservatory in your house it really is so this is the main room uh this is the kitchen in the living room space and again very decorative and beautiful cork flooring which is a very natural product these internal walls are partially water and dab the cord wood goes through the wall and then i believe at the top is light straw clay so it was designed to let the heat rise up and then flow through the house in the winter i heat with a wood stove during the winter and that's my main cooking source in summer i use the induction burner there and my toaster oven and i bake bread almost every day winter and summer and i notice this beautiful uh live edge table you have here where'd you get that uh hassan had built this before he left it was one of the big features in this house and i believe it's one piece of walnut black walnut is my understanding and this is where it started to branch up okay yeah wow it's a beautiful table yeah one of our neighborhood cats comes in and uses this as his scratching post which i don't know how i feel about that it probably can hold up to it is that uh is that osage probably i believe yeah yeah so i think it can handle it yeah that's cool i love to cook in the the kitchen is very adequate for my needs yeah it's a big kitchen a lot of open lot of space you know yeah one thing i did to improve the kitchen and its functionality was i had some custom slider drawers built and that really improved the storage capabilities of the lower cabinets yeah this light tube allows natural light to come in and illuminate the entire room so other supplemental light isn't needed at all on most days i'm always amazed at how much light these things can kick out looking at this cordwood wall i can't imagine how much time and care it must have taken to smooth out the finished coat of plaster and burnish between all those logs [Music] all the molding for the house was made from locally harvested and milled walnut [Music] and these bottles in the wall filled partly with broken colored glass just add another aesthetic flair to the walls while allowing light to pass through from room to room okay so this is the bedroom here yeah i've got my little desk area here and the plan is to put some bookshelves in between the window trim to make a small bookcase there let's see what else the other plan for this room would be to build a solid headboard with a sliding pocket door so this could become a walk-in closet behind it just takes time and money yeah yeah but it's again a very comfortable room and how do you like the fact that it's round like this round shape does that cause problems or is it is it fine yeah i think it's fine it's it's again it's a unique house and it's just one of those things to get used to yeah i'm happy with the way everything fits in here for my personal needs and it's just yeah lovely beautiful i have great breeze from this direction um next summer i do plan to put some uh cordage on the outside in an a-frame shape and grow vines up to give me western shade in the afternoon sun so that's going to be a project for next summer this little bathroom features a sink bowl with running water and a humanure composting toilet the walls are made of reclaimed maple flooring the house is sided with locally harvested lapped wood siding and you can see on the south side the more obvious passive solar design with windows leading into the sun room and the bedrooms the house also has a small power system and is connected to our village-wide renewable microgrid if you look closely you can also see more detail mosaics in the earthen plaster around the windows and doors add aesthetic flair and the drip ledge at the bottom of the siding is lime plaster with broken glass mosaic i wanted to take a moment to thank my new patrons full name and cheese for signing up to contribute to the production of more videos if you want to support my channel by becoming a patron click the link below in the description your contributions are making possible new and expanded production of videos on my channel i plan to reinvest your contributions in new equipment so that i can improve the quality of my future videos you can also contribute directly through paypal or by becoming a client of my solar powered bookkeeping business soul power bookkeeping links are in the description below well thanks kat thanks for the tour it's great to revisit the house and see what it looks like with someone living in it and find out from their perspective how great it is you know it's a really beautiful place and i'm so fortunate to have it it's performed great for me thanks dan [Music] if you're inspired and want a natural house like this one built from the heart check out hassan hall's website linked in cobwellbuilder.com description below [Music] before you click away if you haven't subscribed to hardcore sustainable do that now and click the bell for notifications also check out the hardcore sustainable facebook and instagram pages for more inspiration about living sustainably [Music] you

Channel: Hardcore Sustainable

Views: 9,386

Keywords: natural building, strawbale building, earthen construction, cob house, tiny house, earthen plaster, lime plaster, unusual houses, unique houses, tiny homes, natural building techniques, natural building materials, living roof, eco homes, green building, eco-friendly homes, dancing rabbit ecovilllage, natural materials house, tiny house living, natural plaster, natural plaster finish, strawbale construction, earthen floors

Id: HrGi_q5k6mo

Length: 10min 34sec (634 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021