Simplicity and Imperfection—PERFECT!

Toby and Liz's strawbale abode

I thought I would put up a few pictures from the past. A couple years ago some friends of mine, Toby and Liz, decided to hold a "straw raising" party to get some help putting up the walls of their soon to be guest house out in the Arizona Desert. They needed to build the guest house first in order to have a place to stay while they built their main house out of tires.

They did all of the tedious prep work and all the finish work. About 20 of us spent 2 days helping them with the easy stuff—putting up the walls. It was a lot of fun and we got to go back recently and take a few photographs of some of the many unique and creative things they did there.

Toby and Liz built this casita the way everyone should...they let the building build itself. They just sort of figure it all out as they went with no pre-set plans. They are true artists. Both use whatever happens to be laying around and make beautiful things happen.








Here I am playing with chicken wire.













After the first day's plastering.





Notice shoulder high by the door you can see the large snake head that Toby is creating beginning to take shape. The snake eventually wraps itself all the way around the building.






A finished interior shelf up high.









Bed loft with skylight and cool window.










Awesome little kitchen








Here they made a really cool copper "skylight" around the opening for the chimney.








And here is a picture of a great deep tube-shaped window framing a view of the mountains.











The finished product.

Their little guest house could not have been more than 400 square feet with a sleeping loft overhead, but once they started living there they found it to be so comfortable and easy to live in, that they never moved out!







Some of the items used in creating the guest house (now main house) turned into a little art themselves.










Photos by Monica Van Hall