About | ourgreendesigns

Welcome!

Hello my name is Sarah and I'd like to welcome you to this website about building a straw bale house. It is partly an online scrapbook of the adventure Robert and I began ten years ago, and partly a space for friends and family to follow our progress. If you’ve stumbled across it by chance, I hope you find it interesting and enjoy the photos. If you have any questions, please feel free to use the contact form.

Building a house was a long-time dream of mine, and with Robert’s help my dream has become a reality. He had previous experience building a farmhouse, so understood just how monumental a task it might be. I was completely naive about the scale of it all—otherwise, I might have thought twice! We first found the land in February 2014 and by May of 2015 had permission to build a straw bale house with a green roof and a matching garage.

So... let me give you a quick history of what Robert and I have been doing over the past decade.

Backing up a bit, once we had settled into Rob's converted static caravan, and while waiting for planning permission, one of the things we tackled first was building a compost loo. We needed one but it also gave us a chance to practise working with clay mixes for the walls which would be an important skill when we came to working on the house.

Next we started the garage to have a go at making a green roof. This involved laying a large piece of rubber on the roof to keep it watertight and then cutting a hole in it for a skylight. The house was to have six main skylights and it was important to get this right.

Once the garage was weather-proof we began work on the house itself.

You can see photos of the building process over time (here) showing the transformation from an empty plot of grass to where we are now (as of late 2024). The next phase will be building the conservatory on the front of the house.

Alongside the building of buildings, we have planted a vegetable garden and an orchard (which also involves the harvesting and preserving of produce), as well as keeping goats and hens. We have also worked on the infrastructure, installing solar panels for electricity, solar tubes for hot water, a water supply from the springs in the field and a biomass boiler to use in winter for hot water and to heat the radiators.

More recently, we have gone back to working on the garage, which has been used as a wood store and workshop. Robert is now preparing the oak planks to make the garage doors.

While all of this was going on, I managed to find time to focus on art and crafts, creating both decorative and practical work for the house. The land here is incredibly beautiful and has been a constant source of inspiration. I have recently started selling plaster casts which you can find here.