This weekend at Solar Springs three walls of the new project received some attention. Carl covered the new kitchens west wall with local milled pine. The walls insulation was 6″ of clay slip (straw, clay and sand mixture). The clay slip dried fully after two full months. The outer wall is also pine, with a plastic seal, then the slip. It was important that we did not use a plastic seal on the inner wall to allow the clay to breathe. We have two more exterior walls in the dinning/teaching room that also have clay slip, which will get covered by pine later this week.
Two interior walls of that room were covered with bamboo lath and earthen plastered by Matthew, Dan and Nathan. It took them two days. Each morning the ground was frozen enough that they had to wait until mid-morning to sift clay. The plaster is smooth enough that it only needs one more coat. This coat can be a thick earthen paint, or a light plaster and then a thin paint. It will likely be ready for the second application in 2-5 more days. It’s already started to dry.
