Octagon Documentation

Insert lots of pictures

Foundation

The octagon cabin rests on nine main posts and two extra for the bump out. The posts are mainly locust trees that were felled on the land. The center post is a power line post taken down from when Lisa and Elizabeth went off-grid. The post holes were dug to go below the frost line so that they wouldn't rise out of the ground when it freezes during the winter. The posts were then debarked and put in the ground. To make them stable we tamped dirt and rocks into the hole slowly with sticks.

Flooring

The octagon floor is made of eight triangles. Because our posts didn't quite end up in the right place, each triangle is slightly different, but all follow the same general shape. To make them, we cut 2x6 boards using a chop saw powered by our generator, but some cuts had too sharp of an angle, so we cut them by hand. Above the triangles is a sub-floor made of locally cut and processed wood. It was full of worms so we covered it in deck stain to kill them.

[insert plans for triangles]

Wall Frames

When we designed the wall frames, we started by inventorying the windows we had and figuring out where they would work best to maximize southern sunlight. Beyond that, we followed rules about headers and stud placement. To make the wall frames, we cut 2x6 boards on the chop saw and assembled them with screws.

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  North Wall

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  North-West Wall

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  West Wall

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  South-West Wall

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  South Wall

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  South-East Wall

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  East Wall

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  North East Wall

Insulation

The octagon insulation is made up of sections of light straw clay and bottle walls. Both required a multi-step process. For the light straw clay, we sifted clay harvested on the land, mixed it with water to make a clay slip, then tossed it with local straw and packed it into the walls. We tried stomping at first, then pushed it in with our hands, then started just pushing the edges of each section down with sticks to keep the center less packed. For every two feet we went up we put in a piece of wire to give it support. For the bottle walls we cut four inches off the bottom of wine bottles and then taped two pieces together to make an 8-inch long section to put into the 5.5-inch thick walls. [insert rest of bottle wall process]

Roofing

[insert roofing stuff here]