Russ and LC painting snowboarding jumps.

Just too beautiful to pass up!

Sunsets from Our Front Yard

Pictures taken by our friend Nate. It seems like
every sunset these past few weeks has been
amazing!

Garage gets a Face lift

New floor sealer being applied thanks to the
Good old NPS store in SLC.

New Finishing Touches

This time last year we were putting the 5th and final
orange earth mud coat on the outside of the house.



















The weekend before last we finally got around to
putting in a back splash behind the kitchen sink...
The earth mud was dissolving every time I watered
the plants- oops!



















Then this past weekend we finally put trim on both
porches. We've had the wood up- but there has been
a wasp friendly gap all along the edges where the
ceiling met the straw bale walls.

Bedrooms are Finally Feeling Cozy!

Landscaping is Coming Along....Slowly but Surely

Flowers are Always a Good Thing

The flowers above were grown from seeds my
friend, Jenni, gathered from her garden. They
are hiding the sewer clean out pipe. :)

The flowers below are for Bella. She always
made me smile and I needed something that
would bloom through the fall and help me
through the grieving process.

Bella loves our patch of grass so much she's even smiling about it!

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Summertime at our straw bale. Don't be fooled by green in the front. Weeds are very persistent. Our tax rebate trees are very happy and starting to fill out with leaves. We've planted 9 other trees on the west side of the property to hopefully have some nice shade in the not so distant future. More landscaping will happen after a nice long break.

Our little patch of grass (with straw over struggling sections) on the west side of the house for outside entertaining!

Finished concrete mold patio. Only $80 and lots of sweat!

Concrete paver mold with color added. At the far end you can see the color they will dry to. Planning to plant steppable thyme in between! Total cost will be about $75 in quickrete and 8 hours of labor for about 152 square feet of patio. Not too shabby!

Last night I made the 100 mile drive to SLC to pick up the blinker covers, a great looking dash, and a GTI grill. All I have left is a head liner and the VW truck is totally done.

1 of 2 bigger trees we bought with part of our 1st time home buyer tax credit! We want to get some shade started in our south facing yard for cooling in the summer. Everyday is earth day!

The body is not totally done! Rustoleum bed liner and I put it under the skirt in the front to keep all the rock chips from killing the paint. Reassembly soon to come.

going green

VW truck with new paint. This is not a car paint. I picked up 5 gallons of Sigma Coat II paint from the NPS store in Salt Lake City. Mixed it way down with reducer and got a one of a kind finish. The truck is a pearl or satin kind of finish because the paint had Iron flakes in it. So it has this truly unique finish.

The cold weather we had last night messed up the roof with a little condensation so I had to wet sand it and redo the roof again this morning. Now it looks great...we might actually keep this one.

Trailor home :)
Moving the shed we built before the house- to a new home beside the garage! Quite the ordeal.

Yarrrrr. So here is a picture of the exhaust problem. The truck ran like crap and I noticed a lot of exhaust in the engine compartment. Turns out one of the springs that hold the exhaust down pipe to the manifold was missing. I put one back on and it ran even worse. So there must have been a blockage. When the truck was in storage for so long a mouse must have made a nest in the back of the pre muffler (thing in the picture cut in half). I could not dig it out it was packed in there so tight. So I cut it in half cleaned it out and welded it back together. New exhaust gasket and spring and she runs like a top. Nice consistent idle and clean exhaust.

VW truck number 5 I think. I have been rebuilding these for the last few years and making custom vegetable oil kits for them. Welding custom tanks and cutting in switches and such to make them really clean looking. Just started rebuilding this one in the last few weeks. Body is in great shape except for a big dent that was on the side. Pulled it out and this is the bondo work you see. Original engine and she runs great after a few new parts. Air filter, oil change, timing belt, and cut, cleaned, and welded exhaust...more to come on that.

GREASE CAR NEWS!

Well 3rd grease car we have built is now complete. First a 2001 Jetta, piece of junk. Then a restored 1980 vw rabbit pick up. Great truck and many memories. We have now moved on to the rare 1996 vw passat tdi wolfsberg addition. This car was manufactured in Germany and is the most coveted TDI ever made from VW, besides the wagon version.

It had been a great car on diesel for the 6 months or so that we owned it. Now that the house is done I got around to converting it to veg. On that same day that I finished it a very strange thing happened which involved many trips to the local mechanic, (no answers), downloading VW's VAG-COM software, and finally ordering a new quality controller.

It turns out this is what happened. While driving on the maiden voyage on vegetable oil the switch from greasecar.com was bad. This pressurized the injection pump causing the over flow valve to pop out. At the exact moment that happen my foot was on the gas but decelerating. The spring shot out and got trapped in a tiny spot holding the throttle open. This in turn resulted in the car starting but the computer shut off the accelerator because the throttle was stuck open by the spring. Lots of head ache latter I figured this all out and fixed it. The scan tool for the computer said the injection pump was bad $2200.00. Turns out the part I needed was $50 good thing i took it a part first.

Energy Costs

We are thrilled about our energy costs these first couple of months! Our electric for the house was $24 in January and $22 in February. Our gas bill was $92 in January and $70 in February. The appliances running off gas are our oven/stove, dryer, on demand water heater (for two sinks, shower, clothes washer, and dish washer), and the 40 gallon water heater that sends water thru the floor to heat the house.
So as the days get longer our electric will drop because we will be using fewer lights. And as the weather gets warmer our gas bill will continue to drop due to less need for heat. We are thrilled that January, the coldest month of the year, our gas was under a hundred dollars.

The joy of not building....much easier projects- like making a headboard and curtains!

1 of 4 deer that live in our yard and like to look in our windows.

All Done!

There you have it! If you scroll all the way down to
the bottom of the blog you can see the process from
start (August of 2008- purchasing the land) to finish
(December 21st, 2009- the move in day). The actual
building time was 4 days shy of 6 months. The actual
building cost was just shy of $87,000. And we are
officially the first straw bale house in the county to
be financed by a bank! Thanks to all of you who
help support this process, either physically or
mentally. We are so so happy!

He's so excited to work in the garage he's not even waiting for doors.

garage should finally be done by the end of the week! It's hard when you have to wait on other people :)