A Little Granola

Right now we are working on researching slipform stone masonry as a possible building method for our house. We are attracted by its relative ease but even more by its permanency. A stone house lasts, and lasts, and lasts. You don’t have to paint it, carpenter ants won’t be interested and various critters have a tough time tunneling in your walls. It is also nicely fireproof and the material for building is just lying around. One downside is that it is fairly concrete intensive, however it should last centuries, which may partially make up for that. We still really like straw bale but I think we have decided that in our climate it may not be worth the risks.

Right now I am a bit hung up on the floor plan. A small house that lives big is not an easy thing to design, and it doesn’t help that I am not any architect, I don’t even have a very good spacial sense. How do we fit everything we want into a relatively small square footage and keep the form compact and inexpensive to build?