11 years later so it feels like time for an update! The house is still going strong. We ran a successful accommodation facility there for many years, currently that's not available though: many family members still live in the house, though sometimes we're open for visits. There are also a number of events held at the house, such as a workshop this weekend (which is full and has a waiting list) using principles from the Work That Reconnects. The house website cobhouse.co.za is in process of renovation but is potentially a little bit of history if you find the information very out of date there! You can still reach us on thecobhouse@gmail.com or there's also a Facebook page for Samhitakasha: Muizenberg's Cob House where we will be posting events. 

New blog post about our "old" building project (and B&B!) - at the great new resource, Eco Atlas !

 http://ecoatlas.co.za/blog/?p=95

What we've been up to...!

We've been living for over 4 years now in our beautiful cob house. As with many building projects, having moved in, we've put certain things on hold for the future while we have got on with life. Besides running our organic B&B in the cob house, we also have a sustainable and conscious day tour company operating in the Cape area, OffBeat Tours (also visible in French), and our latest joint project is - Simric's new CD of performance poetry, with artwork by Carey (on eco-friendly packaging, of course), which you can find out more about here, listen to tracks from here and read the lyrics to here!

Organic Building Consulting

Well, we've lived in our organic house for nearly two years - and we learnt an awful lot about what to do and what not to do during the process of building! And an increasing number of people have been asking us to pass on this knowledge. You'll find plenty on this site, but if you're wanting more specific help, give us a call and enquire about consultancy work for particular projects, consulting advice with setting up work teams etc. We also provide workshops on green building and related creative activities for organisations. Besides this we are happy to set up tours of our house, though we are not actively building on site at present. For more details contact us - Simric and Carey Yarrow - on 021 788 6613, thecobhouse@gmail.com

Samhitakasha (A Place of Unity)

Welcome to our new logo - for our house's official name and for the Organic B&B!Contact us for more details, 021 788 6613.
Here's what it looks like outside, still some new things with the garden etc. to come.
And here's the north face of the house

Welcome to the Organic B&B...

Separate entrance...
The beautifully mosaiced mirror donated (and made) by our friends Nan and Daniel, thanks again guys!
And here are some inside views, though they've come out a little dull - there will be others soon on our new site for the B&B, www.cobhouse.co.za , coming soon...

Interiors

OK, a few views of what the house looks like these days. First, the wonderful hand-embroidered wall-hanging we won at the school raffle!
Then some more playing - this time Carey playing with oxides on the wall, above what we've left as a cob brick "throne"...and lastly the new bookshelf, decorated with wrapping paper on our daughter's birthday!

Short update

Sorry for being so quiet, we've had somewhat other priorities recently and are living comfortably in our house (despite the intensity of this summer). Cob workshops are temporarily on hold as we're waiting for some other bits and pieces of non-cob work before we can go further, hopefully will get going again after Easter. Our organic food B&B is fully (naturally) furnished and up and running with happy clients, but on a very low-key level at the moment hence no advertising yet (proper website to follow also after Easter....!)

Return of the cob workshop

After a lengthy break as we slowly acclimatise to the house, we are going to start workshops again: now on the second Saturday of each month, i.e. next month on December 13th, from 9am to 1pm, tea provided, R50 donation to building costs suggested (but we won't turn you away if you can't make that in these financially constricted times). The one after is on January 10th. For more info contact us on 021 788 6613.

Seagrass in the guest room

Brightfields have kindly sponsored us a natural fibre carpet - made from seagrass. This is one of several types they sell, and makes a welcome alternative to most carpets on the market.
The area carpeted is our guest bedroom of the B&B, which is (in a low-key kind of way)open for business, contact us if you want to know more for this summer season! The furnishing is quite a slow process as we seek the most organic options. More photos of the room coming soon!

Still a construction site, at a slower pace!

We got through this cold winter without much need for heaters but still we do want a proper fireplace for next year. Here'a view through the hole we've cut upstairs where the flue will go! Other planned constructions still to come are some internal strawbale/cob seats, and some more shelves cobbed in to some corners.
OK, so it's early days, but we've been playing inside too, with the first stages of creating an under-stair cupboard, hidden by adobe brick walls. These bricks were donated by Gary and Anthea (thanks guys!) as they had an excess and we had a bit of time constraint about getting our own strong enough and dry enough to use. As mentioned elsewhere, adobe is handy for thinner walls that go up quickly, if they're not as structurally essential. We're going to cob in some sleepers above the big cob counter you can see, which has wood storage holes, made with the help of a bit of chicken-wire framing. There's a small seat emerging to the left of the fireplace too.

Interior painting too...

We've added two bottom steps out of cob to our staircase. They have yet to be finished and sealed, unlike the floor itself - which you can see under the steps, with a similar 'paint' to that used on the interior walls, but also the sealant we mentioned before. It's not perfect yet, and will definitely need judicious use of rugs or even slate tiles in heavy traffic areas; but it is beautiful and surprisingly soft!
Here's our staircase, finished on the left - unfinished on the right! The finished wall has a similar paint to outside, lime, tumeric, and a redder clay than outside onto the plaster, plus an eco-friendly 'plaster primer' sealer.

Exterior painting

We've been sprucing up for spring! These are outside walls that have now been painted (and re-sealed, of course, in the case of the big window frames)The paint is basically a mix of lime, water, tumeric, and a little clay for colour, though we've used a darker oxide too on the south side of the house (not shown here).

All the photos

You can see all the photos from the blog - and a slideshow with Picasa - if you follow this link.

Cobhouse

The Tyre Wall

Those people that have been past our plot recently may have been bemused to see a load of car tyres around our perimeter (within the already rather unattractive basic fence we have had up during building). The idea is to create a 'green' security wall - with spiky indigenous plants at the top. Over time the tyres will get covered in foliage, though at the moment they need some reorganising to put them into place. We have in the mean time been focusing on the first bits of maintenance - re-coating the poles and big window frames in environmentally friendly sealant as they have been up and exposed for quite a while now! Soon we will be able to give the garden (or rather dust bowl...) the attention it deserves.

If you're interested in tyre walls, have a search on:

www.strawbalefutures.org.uk
my.gardenguides.com
greenlivingaustralia.com

Thanks to Rianna, our artistic neighbour, for the artist's impression!

Why we're doing it

"Not satisfied or confident that life can be renewed, unwilling and afraid to grow old, to gradually become magnificent, treelike elders, or die into cultural humus, the modern man or woman demands the permanence of steel cities and immortality... such individuals are like cornered cats, frozen in the anxious void of modern communities... Violence is close behind when people won't come together to remake each others' houses."
(Martin Prechtel, native American shaman).

Of course, if we maintain it, this house will last long. But it has been built by a community and will be maintained by communal effort. This is the kind of building - houses and communities together - that South Africa needs - urgently!

Finishing up

Well, we moved in a couple of months ago - so things have slowed up a little on the final bits and pieces. Externally, there are some plaster areas you can see here we've been waiting for a while to finish off: here Amos deftly throws up for Ntokozo to put onto the south wall.
The wood faces on the north side are difficult to waterproof - but Flanagan Construction have really helped us out here with good ideas on doing so while still leaving the work looking neat, thanks to Carl in particular whose work you can see here on the joins between floors, and of course to Charlie who helped us out with the bigger picture.
Here's Wazeer putting in the 'beam filler' - wood that all had to be individually cut to join the curved roof to the straight window tops.


Inside, most of the walls have been painted using our own mix of lime, clay and tumeric, on site, then sealed naturally. But in some places - like here in the kids' room - we wanted something brighter. Conventional paints play havoc with cob walls so we've tried a few of the natural options - this is a primrose yellow from Breathecoat.

Sculptural fun

One great reason for working with cob is it's ideal for creating niches and unusual shapes. Here's our bedroom wall - and the artist in her studio!

You can build in shelves out of spare pieces of wood, without needing any nails; or you can just knock holes out of the wall to create extra variety.
Here's our own little church/temple effect downstairs!

Sponsored Roof Window!

What we've really enjoyed about getting up on the roof and completing it has been the view. Now we have very kindly been donated a Velux roof window, by Andrew Renirie of Cape Loft Windows, part of Savati. It is a great example of passive solar light/heat as it captures the sun overhead most of the day; and it's openable so we can get through to the roof. We have also included an unusual central 'quiet space' in the house (known in Indian architectural theory as a 'Brahmasthan') which is open both to the ground (no foundation) and the sky. Waterproofing this area was quite a complex problem but Andrew and Savati have come to our aid again by creating and donating a kind of metal 'chimney' which should really help matters.

Laying the floor

The floor has had a concrete slab, as we're in Muizenberg by the sea and vlei and the water table level is an issue! However, we've put in a lovely warm earth floor on top of it. It's got horse dung in it in place of straw, as a binder. The dung has to be well soaked and separated or you get black patches of dung showing up in the floor (we had to fix a couple of areas); but otherwise it's similar to mixing cob (and really not smelly!)
If you lay the whole lot at once it'll crack as it dries, but if you do it in layers you need to ensure the top is roughened so that the next layer will bond nicely to it.
The next layer was much smoother but you need to stay off it for a few weeks. We humans managed to do so, but not everyone did...
This has then been fixed up and a thin top layer put in certain places, with the traditional 'feta lid' burnishing happening once things were fully dry. At time of writing downstairs has not been sealed yet - an Envirotouch rock sealant is going to be used for this. You can see something of the final burnishing through the pentagon hole here: this has just been closed up with a specially cut piece of plywood! The top floor has been sanded and then sealed with Envirotouch wood sealant for floors.