Monday, May 21, 2018

All MIxed Up!

     2 mixes, stucco around the new door frame, and 20% cement mix for the entranceway. This pour seals the door frame and the foundation rows under the door frame. 

Desert Iguana http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Dipsosaurus_dorsalis/

Bright hot sun today, but too windy for a cowboy hat 
They named it right, it's a Champ!


A clumpy mix is a sticky mix!

Before

After something
when its all painted with the lime paint it will blend seamlessly, and its still wet here.




Desert Iron Clad Beetle
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/127519-Asbolus-verrucosus

















Friday, May 18, 2018

Get the Door on, Moron, Baño style

Baño dome door ON! These cheap doors seem to sag, this one just like the last one, forcing me to extend the deadbolt down and creating a small gap. No biggie, it locks and it works, its level and stays open on its own. But I may just get a carpenter to help me on the next one, so I can figure out what I am doing wrong.

 I am an Arkitekt!!!! 

$10 Iron Maiden Camo hat FTW!!!

Oh yeah, and the door's on!

I am thinking egg blue, with faux rust as a paint job, whatcha think?


The door was flush on this side, so no foam needed. I don't know what I'm doing.

sexy foam close up

Insulating foam in!
Plaster will go over the seams 
The door opens a full 90 degrees and stays open,

The jar lights do more when there is a door

The painted floor is easy to sweep clean! 

Locked and secure!

3 Desert Iguanas! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_iguana

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Just a blue floor.

It is amazing what a coat of paint can do. We spent most of the day fiddling with garden irrigation at the house. I think it was time well spent though. I hope to get the door on, next build, and plaster around the door.













Sunday, May 6, 2018

3 days work, Tues,Wed, Sunday (Happy Days) 
These days are  aaaaaa  aaa   aaa ourrrrs  oh Happy Days!

     Its late, and I've been painting with Lime all day, what do you want from me? Pictures eh? okay. Here's 3 days worth of work. Oh - Monday was rainy, I sanded the interior of the Bano Dome, and sealed the floor. I swept out the big dome completely and I left all the equipment and tools, and everything out, in hopes of plastering around and painting on the floor in the big dome the following morning. That was my plan.  

     It rained from the middle of the night right through to morning. With everything soaked, and a steady rain all day Tuesday, I could only put everything back into the dome, tracking in more wet clumpy sand. I did manage to plaster around the bano floor. Today was the first time I've used Type S Hydrated Lime to make my own mix. I din't make a putty with sand, but I will next time.  No more La Habra, it's paying for sand and carrying it. Instead, I used it to make a lime paint. I needed to paint a wash over the plaster walls, but there was a learning curve. Also the inverted rows of the ceiling plaster needed a stickier, thicker mix, to stick at all. The thicker mix seemed like it was cracking/peeling in places and I can't have crumbly walls for any reason. Once I thinned the mix out, to like a milk consistency, it was going on nicely and absorbing into the plaster and coating well. I'm not looking for perfection, I want character and I can't be doing a million coats, I need to finish. 

I did ask for rain.

 

Mid Sweep. This mask worked surprisingly well, considering I was engulfed in cement dust for an hour plus, with ZERO issues. They were just the cheapie masks in the home depot paint section, but they weren't the thin ones, these were kinda fluffy and sealed great!

Work tunes, old school cd book!

Patched floor! It will sand down a little bit, then we will seal/paint.

Only an insane person with zero architectural or building experience would make a door like this. Whatever!

It usually does this around this time. 

I found this on the other side of the main dome. So the question is who? Coyote? Snake? Lizard? Roadrunner?  
After the rain, washes away the tears

I was much more pissed off than I look.

Wet La Habra 100 around the poured floor edge

Another glorious angle. 
Plastered around the pipe up to the porthole.

Other porthole. This one is lower, and positioned so you can look out of it when you are sitting on the future (composting) toilet. Seriously. Sorry I don't have that view :(


Door frame, concrete, sand, plaster.

Oh yeah, I also took apart the big scaffold. It's my neighbors scaffold.

This was Sunday morning.

He is a desert Iguana!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_iguana#/media/File:DesertIguana031611.jpg

Oh wow, dried plaster, how life changing.

It ain't gonna sand itself.
This is a borderline obsession, no one else cares THIS much about the border.
Type - S lime plaster paint test. Too thick, but not horrible

Wow! That's white!

 Magic White (Type - S Hydrated Lime and water)

Its spreading

Time lapse 3 hours later? The sun moved, that's all I know. That's what the desert does to you, puts you back on REAL TIME.


Yeah it sorta seals the cracks. Cracks in plaster happen when the moisture in the plaster evaporates as it dries and the plaster shrinks. I like it, so I hope they don't all go away. (the cracks)  Everything inside is "painted" Outside comes next. But I want to get that door on first.

Up close there are some pits where the paint didn't penetrate, I don't want to be to obsessive. I already mentioned that I'd like to finish and character is more important than perfection. I'll go back with a wet mix before I paint the floor (oops) blue.

I mean damn, it really looks nice. The only issue is when its applied too thick, it peels! it needs to be watery enough to absorb into the la habra layer.

These hands look like big strong hands, don't they?

This is where I 'd test the thickness of the plaster paint. I'm gonna paint that wall anyway. 
This will wash off in a jiffy (he convinces himself)

The Lime plaster paint has alleviated my fears about making the finish look "good enough" (as long as there is no crumbling!) 
I was on the floor, splishin' and a splashin' the plaster paint on the under side too.

Under the sink. It just drains into a (future) flower bed. Organic, permaculture, plant safe soap only please. :)

This has been an outlet of creative and artistic something.... It has been satisfying and challenging. Challenging means swear inducing.

These darker images surprisingly were taken with the flash and it brings out the contours of the plaster and underlaying SuperAdobe rows. 
I am getting excited. The top surface needs to be waterproofed, counter and sink. At this point I am thinking Epoxy, but maybe there is something else, better.



An angle we haven't seen since the new dome was built, or not in a while anyway. 
It is cool how it blends into the environment, It is also cool how cool it is inside, 70 max on a 95 degree day in May! When you have earth and cement walls over a foot thick, the thermal mass keeps it cool in hot weather and retains the heat when it's cold.


Random weird phrases can sometimes be copied, pasted into a search and a bit of light is shed. 
Cinefiles or lyricmongers know this.