It’s been a few months since we’ve had a proper update. On site, our talented guys — Nathan Demar, Erik Navarro, and Sławomir Szumanski — have been hard at work plastering the interiors. Our plaster of choice is a homemade earthen plaster. In this case, we purchased the dirt from our adobe supplier – New Mexico Earth Adobes – screened it, and added sand. We always do several tests first to dial in the recipe, but the New Mexico Earth dirt, being the most finely curated raw earth this side of the Sandias, didn’t require much fiddling. We use mud plaster for both the adobe walls and the frame walls. The frame walls, after hanging and taping the sheetrock, are simply painted with a standard primer with screened sand in it. We add a bit of wheat paste to the plaster to help it adhere to these smoother surfaces. As beautiful as this raw earth plaster is, it is a little on the dark side for most situations. We’re finishing it with clay paint (keeping those earthen walls breathable and happy), except for the barn which remain its natural color. Meanwhile, Kenny has been at our workshop fabricating all the exterior doors for both buildings. The house needs a front door and double patio doors, both with transoms above. The barn has two large openings for carriage style doors. The opening underneath the portal will receive a double door, but the north facing “garage” door will actually be a triple unit: a pair of bifolds plus a single active door, each secured with slide bolts. These have been fabricated of solid pine, and will be finished with successive coats of penetrating and hard-wax oils to protect them from the sun and keep them looking beautiful. Its feels like we’re in the home stretch, but the to-do list is still long. Doors need to be finished, showers tiled, brick floors laid, closets built, cabinets designed and fabricated, countertop milled up and put together… and if we’re lucky we’ll finish our next house plans and get those submitted this summer, too.

May 16, 2024