Stucco gets a brown coat and the fireplaces get a coat of mud

This is a view of the house from the lower Gulch loop road. The brown coat of stucco is complete and will cure before applying the final color coat.



This is a view of the house from higher up on the lower gulch loop road.


This is the fireplace in the great room. The scratch coat of clay, sand, and chopped straw has been applied to the expanded metal lath. A second coat of this mixture will be applied once the first coat is completely dry.



This is the fireplace in the master bedroom. It reminds me of a Mexican bread oven. The scratch coat is still wet in some places.


Ben has joined the plaster team and is prepping the door openings by working a clay, sand, and chopped straw mix into the metal lath that has been attached to the wall and rolled into the door jamb.


The entry portal with it's copper flashing. The copper will oxidize to the color of an old penny in a few months.

Stucco brown coat goes on
After completing the scratch coat, the stucco crew started in on the brown coat. The scratch coat is put on fairly thin and then roughed up with a hand-held rake to give the brown coat something to cling to. The brown coat is not brown. It is a fibered cement product that is put on more thickly than the scratch coat and is worked to a flat sandy surface with a sponge trowel. The final coat will be the color coat and it is applied about 1/8 inch thick. We are going to hold off on the final color coat for awhile to let the first coats dry thoroughly.

Interior doors are installed
John and Griffin have been finishing up the installation of the interior doors. Once the jambs were anchored in place the doors were removed and taken to the garage which Jenny just finished painting. The doors will be stored there until the walls are plastered. The guys have been stapling expanded metal lath to the drywall around the door jambs and to give the plaster a strong surface to bond to.

We have heat!
Dave Himes has been working on the geothermal system and we now have heat. All the zones are wired together and a thermostat has been mounted in the office to regulate the temperature. Dave also got the domestic water plumbed and we can now use the hose bibs on the outside of the house to draw water. It will be great to pull the little sump pump from the cistern and secure the lid. I worried about critters falling into our drinking water.

The fireplaces get a first coat of earth plaster
I have been working on covering the expanded metal lath on the fireplaces with a mix of sand, clay, and finely chopped straw. The straw was placed in a large plastic drum and chopped fine with a weed eater. This mix was worked into the metal lath to assure that about 1/4 inch of it penetrated to the other side of the lath. When it dried, the surface was very firm and well anchored to the lath. I will add another layer of this mix to the first layer before we use a brown coat. The total thickness will be about one inch of material. I am very impressed with the strength of the earth plaster mix and like the idea that it is very low in embodied energy.

Electrical panels are powered up
I flipped the main breaker on the electrical panel that powers the heated space and also installed temporary receptacles in the bathroom dedicated circuits to have a good distribution of power throughout the house for the crew. It will be nice not to be dragging long extension cords all over. With the door jambs in place we need to avoid pulling extension cords around as it would damage their finish.

The entry and vigas are capped in copper
I had copper panels cut for the tops of the exposed vigas to prevent water damage to the wood. They are just wide enough to cover the top where snow would sit. The copper will heat up with the sun exposure and the snow will melt and slide off. The copper flashing wrapped around the entry portal turned out really well. The copper is very shiny right now but it will turn the color of a penny very soon.

We continue to make good progress and are getting closer to putting the brown coat on the interior walls. That will be another milestone for this project.