Shae’s Earthbag Bedroom
Episode 4
Laying the Foundation
The foundation is finally in!! This is the official starting point for our bagged walls! We are working hard to gain some progress on this building and it's definitely taking a little shape. Please enjoy and don't forget about this Wednesday's podcast at 6:00 pm pacific!
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http://mylittlehomestead.com/ep5-shaes-earthbag-bedroom-begin-to-%20build-the-earthbag-walls.html
Shae aka Winter_Apple
July 28, 2017
Video Transcript
last time Garen use the pressure washer
to assist in digging the lower section
of Shae's earthbag bedroom
[music]
Dad cuts in
the outline of the building to indicate
where the posts and earth bags will be
placed
now we're all working at this at
different times so when I went through
and drew my circles
we got the
heart-shaped setup
I came out I cut it
all in where we all needed to dig down
the simple way of making sure this had
everything in the right place
to get my point at the bottom of the heart
I need
to have this section between where this
circle intersects...
most of the time in our
buildings we've just put a post in and
drew a big circle around it
well here we had to have two circles that come
together
that's still not too bad
that's
only two stakes
but now we have this
third point
of our calculation
so where do we put the heart
and I saw a Tom Linghren
Thank You Tom
how a square
would fit in there and be that third
point
and this has to be a right angle
[music]
we needed a couple railroad ties
so we
looked online and there are some people
who wanted to get rid of theirs
we went
and helped them and dug them out
out of their property
and the ground was so
soft we could just rock them back and
forth and pull them out of the hole
we rocked them back and forth and they popped
out of the ground
if you're willing to
go and dig up some railroad ties for
someone then
you know if it makes them
happy
it makes us happy
it's a deal
[music]
I married way over my head
Yah 25
Got 25 more to go
or more
It doesn't seem that long
it's good 25 years
I recommend it
you can be together and
make it difficult or you can be together
and enjoy each other so why not be
together and enjoy each other
the stronger that Gary and I are as a couple
the better it is for the whole family
it does take a little bit of compromise on
both parts
even this property was
something that we weren't in agreement
with at the very beginning
we drive in to the property
I pull around and I am
just like psyched
I love this property
and I'm looking at the potential
we could do this and that
I have no idea that he's feeling this way about the
property and there's an old house and
I'm a little bit concerned because the
kids you know how they just want to go
explore which is great but I don't know
there's snakes - who knows what's
around there
I would have never thought
that this would have been the property
that
but when you came back you were so
excited and you started just casting the
vision and we were all buying into it
the next thing that we really
compromised on this property was
I wanted to go with a small house
I always plan to go small and Gary wants
to go big
yeah!
I built stuff you know arf arf arf
I wanted it out of Steel
and then no no no
I want to go straw bale
so we research everyone of these things
we went through so many ideas
steel, straw bale and log
and pretty soon it's like how about
that little house thing over there
just kind of live in there
so we remodeled it a little bit
enough that we could survive in it
it became "the house"
became "the place"
and there's something about smallness
because
the kitchens busy
if you imagine all six of us and they're
cooking
which is crazy and it's fun
once we lived out here for a while and
started getting different ideas of how
to live
those constructs we had in the
city that were very
boxy
yeah
and we start talking to people who
lived out here and then we started
thinking about where we really want to
put the house and we looked over here
behind this little house are all these
trees
why are we setting up here in the
middle of this plain area
eventually we
come to this idea of building these
houses around this little treed, courtyard
area
Are we going to keep being married?
absolutely
I think so
I would marry Gary all over again
it's one of the best decisions I've ever made
It hasn't cost her much either
cost me much?
[music]
this is an open design we have taken
the post now
we're going to be placing posts in certain areas and
headering over to help support the roof
that's what the posts are for
they're there
to put headers across and some beams
basically
and to set the roof on
the earthbags come all the way up to this
oh so you're
thinking for the posts
then we can just drop these too
a lot of times we'll just
be able to bury our post when they're
long enough
we have shorter posts
digging out the 3-foot step down into
Shae's bedroom and putting in posts and
getting ready to roof actually
the posts are for the roof
[music]
so we're actually placing them on a foundation
the concrete type block foundation
and then concreting in brackets that actually hold those in
and that's how we're doing all the posts
the white bricks here are a
foundation that we're putting
underneath the posts so that we can...
the posts are not quite far enough to go all the way down in
because these have to be three
feet plus two feet plus eight feet so we
got to add a little extra so we can get
them up in the air to hold the roof
Shae worked super hard
she studied a
bunch and she's got her permit
Very exciting
she did excellent
passed with flying colors
how does it feel Shae?
like I'm driving
you're doing a good job keeping you're eyes on the road
living in the country
you get a an education in driving and
being aware of your surroundings and I
think I was around ten when I started
driving
it's really good practice
[music]
originally we were thinking we had to
dig it all out
and then we realized we
really only have to do a doughnut shape
because as we're laying the bags we can
be taking the dirt from the middle and
putting it in the bag
like the cute kisses
hugs
Ugh!
you just want my bottle
that's what you want
[music]
okay so mom planted in there
I planted in here
Bryson was much more successful
but I got a few
you got a bunch in there
I made a little greenhouse
really quick out of a plastic bottle
just cut around it leaving the bottom
attached so I could just bend it up then
I've sifted some some dirt and put it in
we eat these little mini bell
peppers constantly and so I thought
we will use some of those seeds
planted them in my little greenhouse
homemade greenhouse
and they grew
we went ahead and planted them in the self
watering container
then we rebuilt our self water container back up
cleared it out make sure it is still working
and it was still down there functioning good so
we just put everything back together
the whole point of the self-watering
container is that when it rains
it fills up all these rain barrels
it's almost a thousand gallons of water
and this is
really the only self water container I
have hooked up to it
and I thought
well, I would go ahead and run the hose out and
water that tree there
and I left it on all night
I drained all 1,000 gallons of rainwater on that
one tree
so now because I did that
I have to come out here and
water these by hand
oh no!
until we
get another rain to fill those things up
[music]
thanks guys!
uh huh
sit
bye
[music]
the bottom layer is exactly the same length all around
okay so my suggestion
yeah
is that we get a string with a stick
tied at the right spot so that we can
take the stick out and line it
[music]
first earth bag
yah!
[music]
we together the foundation just
like typical
we do have some pretty nice
ground out here
we drop it in
two or three different rows down so we
get kind of a foundation
that's placed in
and then we start building on top of
that and gauging in where that
floor is going to set
before we start the foundation of these things
okay we put the plastic in
backfill
tamp that edge and
then we set the next row
and when it tamps out
it expands quite a bit this way
are you following me?
Shae and I are painting up a few
little things that need to be done in
the courtyard
sprucing some things up
all of a sudden she gets this creative idea
she spilt some paint on her hand and
all of a sudden it was became
interesting to her so she says well
let's put some more on there so she has
all this paint on her hand and then she says oh it
needs details
all of a sudden she's got
a box of paints out and she's in there
doing detail and having a lot of fun
so that's a little glimpse into to
the childhood
if there's a little
bit of creativity you just got
to go with the flow right
that's right
[music]
[music]
concrete
dun dun dun
a pole
Garen went ahead and set our first post
with the brick foundation basically that
has a bracket to connect to the bottom
got it in
he got them all
concreted and the brackets all set
couple of different points of security
on these types of posts
one is at the base when it's bracketed in and it
doesn't move in any direction
the second one is at the top when it's attached to
a beam
in our case we don't have just
two floating beams in the area
we have
three points like a triangle with the
three different points
the post need to be secured with the bags
look at that
beautifully leveled pole
it's gorgeous
[music]
we really appreciate you being here
stay tuned for next time when we continue building
on Shae's earthbag bedroom
we have a
podcast every Wednesday
last week Shae and I gave a list of our favorite facts
and conspiracies
you're invited to the next podcast and we hope to see you there
bye
[music]
please consider supporting us
on patreon
this is the dirt our
buildings are built out of
this is wet too
look at this
we got to cut it like a
brick
that's hard
are the silvetastic?
they are in support of Silver's Creations
Is that our string mom?
or are you just stringing us along
I'm on a roll today mom
I know you are
[singing] on the first day of the bag day
our family moved from the city to
the country
thanks for taking part in
our adventure
we have new videos every
Friday evening
if you would like to help
us out you can like this video
share it
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or support us on patreon
see the links in the description
[singing] if you knock knock me over I
will get back up again oh oh
but mom I want to get your mastery
on film
I want to show off your mastery
Diesel
move your butt
Diesel!
[music]