Natural Building Series! Straw Bale and Cob

We had the honor of interviewing our neighbors, Karen and Bob. We consider them local experts in natural and sustainable building techniques. They built their own home, just the two of them, at over 50 years old. Getting to document a bit of their wisdom and knowledge for this series is priceless. We hope you enjoy the first installment in the new series of natural and sustainable building.

If there are any questions feel free to contact Karen and Bob directly here:

Check out the tour of their property here:

Check out our Giveaway here:

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We are a husband and wife team who decided to make the leap from living the city life to an off-grid homestead. We have no training in carpentry or electrical work. We've come armed only with two Permaculture Design Certificates and a whole lot of determination.

Join us on our journey to move beyond a sustainable lifestyle into a regenerative one. We chose to live in the desert because we love the location and we wanted the challenge of bringing this desert landscape into productive abundance.

[karenk.]

I wanted to get on and say what a wonderful job Jim did in making this video. Soooo well done!!! Also very generous of him to consider us"experts". One comment on that is you do NOT need to be an expert in natural building to get a good result. We were total novices and just learned along the way. We read alot of books and just dove in. It totally becomes easier as you do it. Cheers to all the folks young and older who are considering this way of life. karen

[sam-and-angela]

Great production, Jim! Even after building our homestead as we have and not being in an area like yours, watching this video still makes me want to do something like this -- great sign of a great video. :)

[AbigailNavarro]

Wow very interesting you guys are awesome thank u for sharing my friends👍👍👍God bless🙏🙏🙏❤💙❤💙❤💙❤💙❤💙

[CustomGardenSolutions]

Great interview Jimmy. Really cool stuff.

[CEREBRALKILLER]

What a great project! Impressive 👍👍👍 Thank you for sharing this ❤️❤️❤️

[bondpaz]

Omg! Jim! This is y’all’s best video yet! I can’t tell ya how inspiring it is. Made us realize that it’s not far off and attainable. I had tears of joy as I was watching. Bob and Karen are so awesome!!! Love y’all!!!❤️😃🙏👍

[WelcometoChickenlandia]

That’s totally incredible. I’m missing the desert so bad watching this. I love the architecture and I just think it’s amazing how they did this themselves!!

[FarmerG]

This reminds me one time I stuccoed a straw bale house. It was a neat house. Very efficient design like this one too. Cool video. 👍👍

[TerraFirmaX]

very good video. thanks for sharing this

[CBsGreenhouseandGarden]

Really cool video! Looking forward to part 2.

[deblong]

Amazing -- I am in awe! That is a beautiful handmade home!

[MetalGearMk]

Another options for heating and cooling is a "earth tube" you can use it passively or combine it with a fan. It's also known as geothermal. Great video! I was most interested in the indoor and door temps and their construction method of choice!

[heyitsagoodlife]

Really really cool, I love the concept!

[ericwilson]

Too bad there is music playing.why interview with music

[FoodForestPermaculture]

Very good intel from awesome folks . Nice when people care and share . Jim you did real good on the interview . Very Impressed with Jim and Jessica on the Green Dream Project . Worth while to get to know the green dream project .Food Forest Permaculture .

[LightZone]

Great video Jim. Pam's comments were spot on and I couldn't have said it better! Looking forward to seeing part 2! Thanks so much for the information.👍🙏

[blissfulacresoffgridhomest]

Amazing fantastic video! Thanks! We have been working on a rammed Earth tire wall enclosure. Very hard work we will probably not do this around the greenhouse and fruit tree perimeter as we had originally planned.

[HomesteadingtheHardWay]

Really fascinating ! When do you think y'all we be able to start your buildings?

[pgnanofarm]

What an amazing couple. They were very informative. I love the look of their home.

[TheBisbeebob]

Awesome video Jim! You did a great job of editing and putting in our pictures to illustrate what we were talking about. You made us look pretty good. Thanks!