Cob: double-faced fire and floorplan help

[Amanda Peck]

I too like the idea of not having my guests see all the cooking mess!

Might look at some of the Frank Lloyd Wright designs.  Library should have 
books.  But Wright must not have cooked, from looking at those tiny rooms in 
the Usonian houses!  Well known for MISERABLE kitchens. My comment on the 
house I've been in (Rosenbaum--one of the few where Wright did the plans for 
the remodeling) was that the original kitchen might have worked for putting 
carry-out food on paper plates.  The revised one was better, but still not 
great.

And if your library has the Rural Studio book, you could check it as well.  
There's a building with three barrel vaults (think quonset huts) used just 
about as Bed Rooms for the grandkids. Bed Rooms--just enough space for a bed 
and a closet with drawers too, and maybe a desk and bookcase--aren't 
bad--for anyone, actually (says the person who thinks that separate houses 
would be good for a couple. Oh, well).

And, read Ianto Evans' (et al) book.

And, changing categories completely, try a handful of those plan books that 
come out every month as magazines.  The Southern Living one used to be 
better than it is, but will still help, and it's on the newsstands--in my 
area at least--now--ignore the McMansions, you don't want to have to mix and 
place that much cob.  Be sure and walk the plans in your mind, learn to see 
what it will look like from various places on the interior, what kind of 
stuff you have to go through to get stuff done as and after it's built.

And, lots of people advise one to live on (at least near) your land for at 
least a year before building.  You want to know if you were planning to put, 
say, the north-east corner of your house into a wet weather spring, or into 
the great collection of wildflowers that you would really have liked to have 
seen FROM the house.

Think rocket or masonry or Finnish or Russian stove for those whole-house 
stoves. And there's one that can be bought--Heatilator, maybe.

Go to Charmaine's website www.dirtcheapbuilder.com for information on them.  
Her rocket stove, though is not the kind buried in masonry.

I've wanted a masonry stove ever since I read in Dostoevski (Brothers 
Karamazov?) about someone climbing up on the stove and going to sleep.  It's 
literally the only memory I have of the book.

Read Ianto Evans' book.  Not all in the Hand Sculpted House, but he's done a 
lot of work on wood stoves.

We're glad to share, but we can't do this for you.  And you'd probably 
say--"no, but...." if we tried.

Yep, you can do two-story in different media.

BTW the cordwood house I've seen here--they stuccoed over the cordwood on 
the outside because of the invasions of Asian Lady Beetles, zillions of the 
blasted things every winter.  Now they only get dozens.  I think it's 
possible that this could have been prevented, though.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/lbeetle/





Jill wrote:

Does anyone else have a floor plan that would accommodate a large family of 
6? I keep getting stuck in the "squares".
I don't like the open kitchens to the livingrooms, so can a (masonry)  fire 
be open on both sides - one to the livingroom and one to the kitchen, and 
then pipes to the other rooms?
-jill


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