Our wood floors from recycled lumber

A few months ago a friendly neighbor donated us some lumber that his father had stored decades ago in his shed.  These chestnut, cedar and cherry timbers were kept from a dismantled structure on their property.  Others were milled from trees on their property and seasoned.   Then they had a very long shelf life probably longer than my life at the least.  We took these rescued lonely timbers to the local band saw mill and had them sliced into 20 mml planks for floor boards😀

Working with earthen plaster

Although the smell is pretty bad we have chosen to reuse the earth from the mud walls that we previously demolished, to make plaster for the interior walls.  Earth is a very forgiving medium to use for plasters and other building projects and allow for creative artsy work:)

The faraday cage stucco mesh

Among several "Earthing"techniques we are incorporating in this home to protect us from the worlds harmful electro magnetic fields, our electrician ken introduced us to the "faraday cage"!

In order to block out E.M.F's ken suggested simply grounding the metal lathe that surrounds the whole house.  The lathe is installed for receiving the layers of stucco but will now serve a dual purpose.

The idea is to create a living space that is completely grounded. Below is an image of how a grounded cage can protect a human from direct electric current or in our case harmful electro magnetics in the atmosphere such a wi fi waves.

There will also be a grounding floor in the house for health purposes to learn more on the benefits of earthing visit the Facebook page Earthing Japan!

Making doors from scratch!

When you walk through a modern home what do you see in comparison to a 100 year old house??  The difference is that most modern homes are an assembly of brand name products.  From windows to doors and plumbing fixtures, most things we find in modern homes are stamped products fresh off an assembly line..  This is fine, the only problem is the originality has been taken away.  In the old days all of these things had to be hand crafted meaning only every door, window staircase etc was ORIGINAL!  We are trying to do our entire rebuild in this manner hence our doors made from scratch and they are also all recycled and donated lumber！！

Straight back to work in 2016!

Today my wife started the rebar work for the south bottle windows and also got a skill saw lesson :) we also went over some basic layout methods tonight we lay bottles!!  Meanwhile I installed some recycled glass windows.

今年の初作業には私はリサイクルガラスの窓作りに奥さんは南向きボトル窓の段取りと丸ノコレッスンに頑張りました^_^

Happy New Years from Ecojima !!

We would like to thank all of you out there for supporting us in our adventures in the last four months.  With hard work and a very welcoming community we have made great progress with a not so easy job site .  Despite many obstacles this 80 year old house is starting to shape up!  Our goal is to educate ourselves and others to a more sustainable lifestyle and build to support this lifestyle.  Happy New Years!!!

This is the house four months ago

This is how it looks now still lots of work to do but a lot has changed

Wooden doors from scratch

The doors and bottle windows give an idea of the image naturally created from the recycled materials used to rebuild this home.  The bottle windows will be finished with cob on the interior.

リサイクル木材のドアとボトルレンガの窓が出来上がりました。ゴミから出来たアートです😊ボトルレンガの目尻は土で仕上げます。