USING NATURAL BUILDING MATERIALS

Re-roofing a Tiny House Including Carpentry

The tempest of 1999 destroyed a great raft of tiles, which came off like falling dominoes, all the way along the front of the main house...read more

Renovating our House - Sourcing and Using Ecological Materials

You may be eating organic food, exercising, managing your weight and stress levels but you can still, in effect, be being poisoned in your own home...read more

Sourcing and Using Lime/Hemp & Lime/Linen Mortars

Like all organic matter linen and hemp react to their environment so although there are some indications as to the quantities used to make up plaster, there are no actual...read more

Using Natural Earth and Mineral Pigments in the Home and Garden 

The Alchemy of Artists' Materials - whether painting a leaf motif or a window frame, it's  so much more fun than opening a tin of paint...read more

Mixing and Using Lime Mortar

I’ve used lime mortar a lot in our present house firstly because it is obviously appropriate to a 300 year building, as it is sympathetic to the original build of stone laid on a bed of clay mortar...read more

Home-made Ecological Paint for Interior Walls Part 1 Making Wheat Paste

Ecological paint, like a good organic food recipe is made up of just the basic necessary ingredients, it is simple ...read more

Home-made Ecological Paint Interior Walls Part 2 Claypaint

When the wheat paste was cool we were ready to go ahead with the next part of the process. We decided to add a little of our earth pigments, a red and yellow ochre, to avoid the grey tone that you can get with clay and flour paints...read more