Better late than never. :) So finally after a couple months we have completed the ag building. Yay! After the bales went up it took a while to get back out and start the process of patching any corner holes where the straw was not flat. We used clay from the land site which was sifted for rocks then mixed with water in a large trash can. We let it soak overnight then mixed it with fine straw fiber to create a good earthen plaster patch. This was used to even out areas of the wall that had depressions too large.



After all the patching was done we were ready to run welded wire mesh across all our bales. Now in California due to the earthquake zones you are required on all structures to account for lateral stresses. Normally on a stick frame house the external plywood sheathing takes care of this. In a post/beam structure you need to either brace each wall with a steel X bracing or thanks to the research of the some CA SB engineers you can also use a heavy guage wire mesh on the inside and outside of the wall with stucco. Since the ag building is licensed as an ag exempt building we didnt really need to get an engineer to approve it using this method. But we wanted to make sure the building was going to be strong, and stucco was the fastest way to get it done.

We used 14 guage Galvanized Welded Wire Mesh (2"x1" grid). I would have preferred to used a 2"x2" grid but I couldnt find anyone in our area who carried it. Heres a picture of the stuff in rolls.



This stuff was cut to length then stretched across the top beam and bottom sill plate and using 16 guage staples, stapled every 2-3". This creates a very nice rigid basket around the bales. Every course we poked through 14 guage wire and tied the wire down to the bale walls to make the mesh nice a tight for the plaster. This process was continued on the inside and outside walls. Everywhere we had a normal plywood surface, we ran standard stucco netting. We used extruded metal lathe (blood lathe) to create nice curves at the corners and window details.







Once the building was all meshed up and the mesh was nice and tight we were ready for the final step of plastering stucco on the inside and outside. It took me a long time to find a good reasonably priced stucco team for the job. Everyone around the area was either backup for 2 months or didnt do work where they didnt do the wire mesh. So...luckily I found a company who recently started doing work near us that moved here from Sacramento. They gave me a fair price and were able to get started immediately.

Heres some pictures of the stucco team applying the first scratch coat.






It took til evening to get the Scratch coat done.



I went out and helped for each coat and got to learn a lot about the process. We used Omega Products DaimondWall Stucco Cement which comes pre-mixed in 90lb bags. It contains small fibers in it which help to reduce cracking. This stuff was used for the Scratch coat and Brown Coats inside and outside.

We had to keep the stucco wet for the next 2-3 days by spraying it down once a day to help it cure and not dry out too fast. The brown coat was applied next and was used to even out the walls a bit more.





We went with LaHabra Santa Barbara Mission Finish with a custom integrated color for the Finish/Color Coat. Red on the outside, white on the inside. We were very happy with the results. Before the Finish coat, me and renee felt the building needed something more personal and so Renee came up with the idea of just adding some tiles to the outside. It turned out great, and was not expensive to add.

Voila! The finished building.











Now that its finished we are using it as a place to store tools and supplies. It's also quite nice to sit in the building on a hot day when you need a rest after working. It stays quite cool even when its 99 degrees outside thanks to the bales.

While this building was getting done we got our final plans approved by the Tehama County building department for our main house. This was a monumental accomplishment for us and we immediately started work on getting power to the property so we could run our well and not be bound to the generator anymore. That will be discussed more in the next entry!