When Barbara and I undertook the building of our homestead in the desert, we committed to doing things ourselves as much as was reasonable, even some things that were perhaps unreasonable. One project that began as a DIY and morphed into using a manufactured product is roof trusses.

Our adobe Bear Cave, the first building to go up, was also my first attempt at DIY roof trusses. I read articles and books and looked at pictures and drew sketches by the dozen before creating a plan for a roof that I liked. We decided on a simple shed roof truss with the porch rafters attached to a plate at the front of the truss to create a gabled roof appearance. 

 As the only level place on the building site was the well-tamped sub-floor, I laid out a couple sheets of plywood inside the building, fastened them with a scab and laid out a truss jig. Because I was hauling all our dimension lumber on the roof rack of my old Blazer, I was pretty much confined to ten-foot lengths. As the bottom cord of the truss needed to be 16 feet long, I had to make a joint in two 8 foot 2 x 4s. With an 18 ft top chord to provide an overhang out the back of the building, I used a 10’ and an 8’ 2x4 for each truss.

The result of all the labor was a system of trusses that was satisfactory, but just barely. Our lumber was off-the-shelf dimension lumber from a big box building supply store and tended to twist and warp. Because we were using purlins rather than sheathing, nailing was not the disaster it might have been. To compensate for screwed and nailed steel joining plates, we put extra scabs on the trusses to reinforce them. Once they were mounted on the bond beam and secured with bracing, they work just fine. But compared to manufactured trusses, they just don’t make it for me. Way too much work for very little savings.

On the other hand, when it came to be time to build our main house, we shopped around within 75 miles of our site and got bids from three different truss manufacturers. Our chosen vendor was able to custom-make and deliver trusses, vent plates, and end trusses with vents for $63 USD in 2009. Our hand-built road is too narrow and curves too tightly for a flatbed trailer, so our trusses were dropped off at our neighbor’s place. When we were ready, we loaded them in Dan and Anneke's horse trailer and carted them over to our site.

With a 100’ tape, we measured and marked the truss locations on the bond beams before lifting them into position. Then, again with the able assistance of our neighbors, we lifted the trusses to the top of the wall. Two lifters on the ground pushed the trusses up to the two catchers on the wall. It took less than an hour to move them all into place.

We began with one of the end trusses, cut to accommodate the vents, and a second truss. Cross braces were installed from the end two trusses to the bond beams to make a secure, rigid box.

Then it was position each truss in its turn, check for plumb, and fasten it with hurricane straps. As the trusses were secured at the bond beam, a cross brace toward the roof peak was nailed into place and vent plates at the roof edge were installed.

It was such a great feeling to look down the peak of the trusses and see the perfect alignment and know that the sheathing and the steel roofing would go on with ease. This was the payoff for the extra time we took to square the foundation, the walls, and the bond beams as we built. The trusses were all mounted and secured in one mornings work.

Our DIY work in almost every other aspect of our buildings was more than satisfactory. But the ease of installation, the comparatively low cost, and the quality of truss construction with our purchased trusses make them a no-brainer for us. Happy Building!

From installing the window and door bucks to topping the walls with bond beams, this crew of four completed the exterior walls on this DIY 720 sq ft house in four days. Next comes the roof!

Barbara and I retired from teaching high school the last week of May, 2009. With the help of our neighbors, Dan and Anneke, we moved lock, stock, and barrel from Tucson to Cochise with a couple round trips in a pickup with horse trailer, Chevy Blazer, and Barbara’s little Corolla. After a day of resting from the move and getting organized, we were ready to build. This blog is not just a chronicle of our straw bale house walls going up, it is a “thank you” to our neighbors, Dan and Anneke. They not only got us moved, but devoted their time and energy to helping us get our walls up. They are the kind of people that put the “good” in good neighbor.

About a week before we retired, our ranch supply store delivered about 180 straw bales freshly baled and tightly packed. Bales from different machines can vary in size, number of strings, and the length of the straw strands. Our bales averaged about 4 feet long x 15 inches high x 24 inches wide.  The bales we bought had long strands, which made a variety of building chores easier than a chopped straw bale. The market here at that time was $6.50 per bale. Thus, our walls, without rebar pinning or bucks, cost us $1,170 delivered. The bucks and rebar pinning added a couple hundred dollars more.

To accommodate openings less than 4 feet, we had to retie bales into shorter lengths using baling twine and bale needles. Retying with long strand bales was a dream compared to the choppy bales our neighbors used. A long-strand bale holds its shape, while a short-strand or chopped straw bale tends to crumble when retying. Ugly!

To retie our bales, we measured our new bale length and pushed a bale needle through the bale near one of the existing strings.  We pulled a loop of new baling string up through the bale and tied off in both directions, creating two new shorter bales. Once a new string was tied next to all three original strings and the two new flakes were tight, the old string was cut and put aside for the next use.

I made the bale needles from a couple pieces of galvanized fence end strapping that were salvaged from a neighbor’s project. Our needles were about two feet long, excluding the handle. I bent the handle in my vise and used a grinder to cut a retaining notch and make a point on the needle. Cost = Zero. It is possible to purchase “professional” bale needles from a variety of resources, but why?

Wall raising day arrived. We were rested and ready to go. June is hot here in southern Arizona and our neighbors have their own ranch to tend, so our work day usually started about 6 a.m. and stopped about 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Our first day was something of a shake down. We got our tying system running well and the door and window bucks installed and the first course of bales on the stem wall. It felt good to get started. After Dan and Anneke left, we did clean up and got ready for day two.

 On the second day, the wall grew to four rows. We began pinning the wall at the fourth row. Five foot lengths of 3/8 inch rebar were cut and driven through the bales every two feet to stabilize the wall. We made sure to drive the rebar entirely into the top bale to avoid tripping or kneeling on an exposed end. With the bottom course of bales firmly pressed unto pins sticking out of the stem wall and the additional rebar pins every additional third course, we had a strong wall.  

At the corners, we impaled each corner bale on a piece of 3/8 inch all-thread three feet long. The first section was anchored in the stem wall. We joined each length of all-thread with a long nut to give us an adjustable mechanical tie from stem wall to bond beam on each corner. This helped secure and level the bond beam. We were careful not to cut any bale strings as we drove the rebar pins.

There are many methods of stabilizing straw bale walls. Interior pins, exterior pins of bamboo tied through the bales, strapping and on and on. If done well, all will do the job, I suspect. We found that exterior pinning caused cracking in the plaster on the Annex wall, so chose interior pinning for our home.

 As I am getting to be a bit “long in the tooth” and much closer to 70 than to 60, I don’t try to buck bales above four courses anymore. When I was 20, it was a different story, but – Oh Well!

As a consequence, we used Dan’s little tractor bucket and a scaffold to work the wall as it rose. I must admit that walking along a wall made of a single row of bales as it shifted and moved is no longer a source of entertainment for me. And when the job involved reaching into the bucket of the tractor with a hay hook and dragging a bale into place on the wall - well, I’m glad it’s done.

Once the bond beams and final pinning was done, the wall didn’t move at all and working the trusses in the next phase of building was a breeze.

By the end of the third day, we had the end in sight. We had originally intended to build a wall only six courses high. But when we were through with the sixth course, we discovered that the door and window spaces had left us enough material for a seventh course.

Nothing in my body wanted to do that as I was one tired puppy.  But in retrospect, I’m happy we pushed the wall up one more level. Our interior ceilings are about 9 feet now and, although our house is pretty small, the fact that the interior space is pretty open and the ceilings are high makes it feel much more spacious.

The fourth day was comparatively easy. We had few bales to cut and tie as we were above the doors and windows. We had our system down pat by now. The job was finished with lifting one last row of bales and the placement the bond beams. Each 8 foot section of bond beam was attached to the next with carriage bolts and shimmed level.

We drilled holes and drove our second round of rebar through the bond beams and down three courses of bales to further strengthen the walls. The protruding all-thread on the corners was fastened with a large wood washer and a steel 1 1/2 inch washer to lock the corners into place. The following day, we began the roof. But that’s another story!

Today, as I write this, it is 103 degrees outside. Our R-42+ walls keep our inside temperature about 68 degrees with the help of a small evaporative cooler that runs on low setting and isn’t cranked up until late afternoon. This past winter was cold for Arizona.  We had a couple days in single digits, the lowest being 2 degrees above zero. We heat with a small wall-mounted propane heater. When we went to bed on the coldest night, the interior of our house was 70 degrees. We turned the heater off at 8:30 p.m. and, when I got up at 5:00 a.m., it was 62 degrees in the house. Straw bale homes are great! 

When Barbara and I began working on our kitchen design, we started with the general and worked toward the specific. Naturally, design ideas from books and internet were the starting point for layout and efficiency. But then we got down to specifics, keeping in mind both my relative inexperience as a cabinet maker and the fact that I had a very small shop with only basic tools.

One of the specifics that evolved in our planning was a door-mounted spice rack. Our purpose was to keep the spices off the kitchen counter and still have them readily accessible.

Before building our straw-bale home, we lived in a stick and stucco “adobe look-alike” home with stock cabinets.  Barbara and I both enjoy cooking and got real tired of digging around in a big, corner-cabinet Lazy Susan for our spices.

So as we designed and built our cabinets, room was made for a easy-to-use spice rack. The selected cabinet was built with recessed shelving to accommodate the rack. The spice rack itself was built from scrap wood from the door construction, so total material costs were a couple dollars for scrap wood, a half-cup of Polyurethane, and a couple L-brackets.

We set our cabinet shelving back to allow for easy door closure with a rack that was 3” deep. By fitting the rack inside the rails and stiles, we could use the inside of the door panel as the back of the cabinet, maximizing the space for spice jars.

Rack retaining slats were pieces of pine left-over from ripping the cabinet door stiles and rails. Ripping 3” rails and 2” stiles from a 1”x6” select pine board leaves a very usable strip measuring about 3/4” by 1/4". I rarely throw any shop material away. I’m not sure whether I’m just frugal or have some pack rat genes somewhere, but I usually find use for scrap wood, even if it’s in the shop wood stove in the winter. Nothing goes to the landfill.

Sides for the rack were scrap pieces from the 3” rails used in the doors and the shelves and bottom were scraps of the 1/4" birch plywood used in the door panels.

When the sides had been ripped and cut to length, I routed seating grooves for the shelves using a 1/4" straight router bit set for a 1/4"deep cut. The jig was simply a couple pieces of scrap wood the same width as the shelf side. With one piece screwed securely on top of the other at EXACTLY 90 degrees and both pieces secured to the workbench, I was ready to cut my shelf grooves.

I clamped my shelf stock securely to the scrap wood of the jig and extended my router channel into the throwaway jig piece. This prevented splitting when the router bit cleared the back of the piece. 

The shelf side was clamped to align the router bit with the desired shelf placement. It is important to make corresponding shelf channel cuts on exactly the same line. This can be done with careful individual cuts or putting both pieces side by side in the jig so the router cuts both pieces on the same pass.

Care must be taken to firmly secure both pieces if they are cut with the same pass as the interior board will drift if not independently clamped. Ask me how I know this can happen.

After the grooves were cut, the bottom piece was ripped to be the same width as the sides and then was cut to length to fit inside the door rails and stiles. A temporary top piece was attached to square and secure the rack as the shelves and rack retainers were installed. Then it was easy to slide the shelves into the grooves, attach them with small brads and glue, and install the rack retainers.We removed the temporary top to facilitate taller canisters before installation.

Sanding and a good coat of Polyurethane completed the construction. A couple small L-brackets secured the finished rack to the door. Then Barbara had a wonderful time sorting and installing spices.

As has been the case with all of our do-it-yourself projects, we enjoyed the doing and the results. Hopefully, you will find as much satisfaction in your projects.

When Barbara and I decided to build our home without professional assistance, the decision was based on a variety of motives. First, we didn’t have a lot of money and we wanted to own our home with no loans, debts, or mortgages. Second, we wanted to demonstrate that a couple with little or no construction experience could build a safe, efficient, and affordable home. Third, we wanted to demonstrate that this experience was not confined to young people – I was in my mid-60s and Barbara was in her late 50s. Last, and perhaps most important, we wanted to know our home.

When I sit down for a meal, I can look around the house and remember every board and load of plaster and feel the love and care that went into the building process. Despite all these reasons for doing everything ourselves, I was nervous about constructing the cabinets. The precision and care needed for this part of the house was daunting.

I had had some building experience over the years. I worked on a house framing crew in Colorado during the 1950s and, about twenty years ago, did the decks and flooring on our Minnesota home. But cabinets? No way. I was the kind of carpenter that 1/4“ wood putty was made for.

When we built the straw bale house, we planned and set securing 2 x 4 anchors in the kitchen walls to support the cabinets.  But this was an area where we felt ok about compromise and buying a manufactured system. When we had our layout and design pretty much done, we paid a visit to our nearby building supply box store. The store designer was helpful and ran out a cost estimate for island, kitchen, and bathroom cabinets. Even with a lower end cabinet, we were going to spend nearly $9,000 without countertop tile work. Ouch!

Our straw bale home, including septic system, cost under $25, 000. No way in the world was I going to move that far from our intent to build as economically as possible. So it appeared to be time to learn to build cabinets. This blog is not intended to be a step by step guide to building cabinets. Rather, I’m hoping that the following pictures and narrative will give courage to anyone who wants to build for themselves and keep costs down.

Once again, we bought a couple books and read them carefully, comparing their suggested techniques to our needs and our available tools. We had hand tools, a router, an old table saw, a reciprocating hand sander, a chop saw and some power drills – hand held and drill press. It was time for another vertical learning curve. We did not have a big shop with planer, joiner, band saw, high end router table or many other power tools that would have simplified our process. We made a very workable router table from scraps and a piece of masonite and moved the cutting and assembly of large stock outside to our sawhorse and plywood work table.

We chose to build simple frame and panel doors using select pine for rails and stiles with a birch plywood panel. The cabinet boxes were 3/4” plywood with select pine for the face frames. The boxes, with the exception of the island, were built and hung first, starting with the wall mounted cabinet boxes.

We built the boxes complete with shelves and hung them for use prior to making the doors so we could move into our house that much sooner. It was a happy day, however, when we put up the doors so we could walk through the kitchen without taking an inventory of glassware, spices, and corn chips.

Being the size and age that I am, the prospect of either getting down on my knees or bending low to get into a base cabinet shelf was just not at all appealing. So, in nearly all cases, the base cabinet shelves are sliders. We did splurge a bit on the quality of the slider and drawer hardware and feel that it was a good investment in durability and ease of building.

We spent a fair amount of time designing cabinet function such as pots and pans, plastic storage containers, baking pans, etc.  By taking the time to do this before we built, we are able to avoid collisions when two or more of us are working in the kitchen. As our neighbor says, this is really a “two-butt kitchen”.

Because my wood shop is only 8’ x 16’, we do a lot of work on a sawhorse table outside. Thankfully, Arizona weather lets us get away with that, at least most of the time. When we were assembling the cabinet cases and screwing and gluing the face frames, we worked on our “portable” table outside the shop.

To fasten the face frames, we bought a jig, a special drill bit, and Kreg pocket screws. With this system, we never split a frame and the screws drew the joints together so well that people thought I actually knew what I was doing. 

After two coats of polyurethane, we shimmed, leveled, plumbed, and firmly attached our cabinet casework to the walls and base frames of the kitchen. After installing the shelves, we were ready for the tile counter top. We installed cement board on 3/4" plywood as a base for the counter top. Barbara did the design and layout of the tile and I did the cutting. We used an inexpensive, wet tile saw and it worked fine, albeit a bit slow. Then it was glue, grout, seal, and use.

The final step in the process was the assembly and installation of the doors. If I were doing cabinet doors again, I would buy a middle priced router table. My home-made version worked fine, but stabilizing the fence accurately was very time consuming and the lack of a feather board made for a bit of wobble when cutting the grooves and was not as safe as I liked.

Barbara and I want to wish all of you who might be taking on building projects around your place the best of good building and hope you derive as much satisfaction from the process as we did.