Learning from others

After our first strawbale home visit in the Spring of 2005, we began to research strawbale building intensively through the internet, library and personal visits. A family visit in Ontario turned into a strawbale adventure. We met Glen Hunter & Joanne Sokolowski (see their Straw House blog: http://glenhunter.ca/) and the folks at Camp Kawartha who built a mess hall out of strawbale (see: http://www.campkawartha.ca/retreats/meetingrooms.htm). An international strawbale builders conference will be held there this Fall.

Everyone in the "Strawbale Community" has welcomed us warmly over the past year. We're grateful to them for sharing their experiences and resources. It has been very encouraging.

This picture is of a simple strawbale guest house we found on the web. The relief of a tree in the exteriour plaster is incredibly inspiring for me... the tricky part for me would be to create a relief that is somewhat timeless and not too amateur.