[Shalina Luna] We're building a straw bale house.
[Ben Griffith] It's a lofty goal.
We have never built a house together.
[Shalina] It's gonna make us or break us.
Straw bales. Have to keep them dry.
[Ben] If they get wet, they're ruined.
[Shalina] Uh-oh!
[rain pattering]
[Shalina] Every time we start to get somewhere...
Something happens.
[Ben speaking]
[Shalina] I don't know what to do.
- [Ben] Push. - [Shalina] That was crazy.
[Ben] That was absurd.
[Shalina] I'm feeling pretty defeated right now.
[drilling]
I almost started a fire.
[Shalina] It's getting scary.
This mud has to settle before it freezes.
[Ben] We have to be very resourceful out here
- to make things happen. - [Shalina] Pushing my limits.
[Shalina] It's very frustrating.
[narrator] Are you ready to go Off The Grid?
[drum roll]
[Ben] Careful.
One of the really cool things about this property
is we are actually on reservation land.
So, when we decided to build out here,
we wanted to really use from the Earth.
And kinda give back to the history of what was here.
- A whole lot of cactus. - [Ben] Let's walk over here.
- I'm Shalina. - And I'm Ben.
[Shalina] And we're building a straw bale house in South West, Colorado.
- [Ben] This way. - [Shalina] Okay.
[Shalina] We bought this land about a year and a half ago.
[Ben] It's very hilly with arroyos going everywhere
and very dramatic. Got some cliffs on parts of it,
with lots of giant, sandstone boulders.
- You need a rock in your living room? [laughs] - Yeah. Sure.
[Shalina] The site is located in Ignacio, Colorado
which is about 30 minutes southeast of Durango.
I really like this spot right here.
[Ben] Yeah, it's already cleared.
- We wouldn't have to take out any trees. Yeah? - Kinda flat.
- I think this is the spot. - I think it's a good starting spot.
I think this is good.
[Shalina] It's just gonna be a lot of labor.
When I bought this property, there was already an existing
straw bale house that was here.
But I met Ben and our families started coming together.
Currently living in the house is Ben and I,
my 18-year-old daughter, Joli,
my ten-year-old daughter Norissa.
And then occasionally we have his son, Adrian, who is 16,
who comes and visits as well.
Okay, get the corn for the chickens.
I think it was a big...
change for all of the older ones for sure.
Yeah. No wifi, limited power, limited water, everything like...
- AC. [laughs] - ...that. AC.
It's like glamping here all the time. [chuckles]
[Shalina] Okay, who's going for eggs?
I have a lot of animals. A lot. [laughs]
Eleven goats, ten chickens, a rooster, five dogs, a cat.
- Did I miss anything? - I think that's it.
I think that's all right now.
Well, we had a horny toad yesterday but I had to let it go.
- Yeah. - [chuckles]
[Shalina] I'm looking for eggs.
But I'm in a hurry because the rooster doesn't like when I steal them.
He's the cranky one and he will chase you down.
So, reason for buying this property was,
I've always had this thing for my kids,
when they turned 18, they were gonna build their own house
and they would always have a home to come to.
So, my daughter Joli just turned 18 and we decided
it's time for us to build her her home.
All right, let's do this.
I'm very excited.
Because this is gonna be a house I can call my own,
and a house I can go to whenever I need.
[Shalina] We are building a straw bale house
that will be covered in cob and lime plaster.
We'll be starting with a 34x17-foot concrete slab.
There will be two 12x14-foot rooms on each side,
one will be a living room, and one will be a bedroom.
In the bedroom, there will be a loft,
which is where Joli's bed is gonna go.
And in between the two rooms will be a six-foot wide kitchen and bathroom.
We're getting all of the materials here from our own land or right around us.
[Shalina] For our off-grid features,
we're going to have solar panels for electricity.
We'll be hauling water in and have a tank under the kitchen sink
that will run off of an electric pump.
For heat, the straw bales are gonna do most of the work,
but in the dead of winter, we do have solar-friendly ceramic heaters for warmth.
And my favorite off-grid feature is going to be
a cob hot tub powered by a wood burning stove.
Our total budget is $10,000.
And our timeline is four weeks,
[Ben] It's a lofty goal. But I think we can do it.
I'm good at lofty goals. [chuckles]
- She is good at lofty goals. - [chuckling]
[Shalina] So we got the foundation in,
and it was actually an absolute nightmare.
One of the things about living off-grid is...
Sometimes your machinery doesn't quiet fit up the drive.
And so, we had to park half-way down.
- And they had to-- Truck it all up. - Truck it on up.
That was a lot of work.
The foundation is in, it's set. Now we wanna go vertical.
We are spacing out our studs, our straw bale's depth,
and we'll stand these two up and then do the outside walls.
[Shalina] Straw bales are here on site, half of them
I've been keeping dry for about eight months.
The other half just got here yesterday.
Have to keep them dry.
[Ben] If they get wet, they're ruined.
Ruined. And there are no more in this area. This is it
- [Shalina] until next year. - [Ben] Last cut of the season.
Joli...
Can you help me with this wall, please?
- [Shalina] Where are we going with this, before we... - [Ben] Just up.
And then somebody can hold it, up.
I have got my sister Amanda here helping
and she's brought her four-year-old son, Asher.
And also my friend, Mike's here as well.
I'm gonna do 11, 10 and-a-half.
We have never built a house together.
We're also kind of building the foundation of our relationship at the same time
we're building the foundation of these houses.
So, it's gonna make us or break us and I think that
- we're doing a great job at it. - It's gonna make us.
[Shalina] I think it's gonna go great.
[Ben] That is money.
We're all here. I say we put up these front walls.
We need the moisture barrier before we put anything down.
- We do. We should get that out 'cause we're like there. - Can't forget that step.
[Shalina] The moisture barrier's probably one of the most
important things when you're dealing with straw bale,
because, if you put your straw bales
directly down on any store of ground
where water is going to penetrate,
then your straw bales... That moisture is gonna get inside
and they're gonna rot from the inside out.
A lot of this I'm doing on the whim.
- I guess we just eyeball it. - Just see if it pokes in, is that what we're doing?
This piece is honestly my first time doing it from the ground up.
[Ben] So, we'll stand this wall up.
Boom! In place.
- On the plastic? All right. - [Ben] On the plastic.
Yeah. Wait--Wai-- Too much. There.
- [Joli] Perfect. - [Shalina] Right there, perfect.
[Ben] So we got this first wall up.
And now, we install the second plate.
And this is gonna get filled with pea gravel to take up this void.
And then we'll s-- You know, stab our bales on this.
All the way up to the top plate.
The goal today is to get at least one room,
completely framed and up.
So that we can be ready to roll tomorrow on
straw bales and a kitchen.
Come here, Joli. You're gonna help me pour this pea gravel in here.
[Shalina] Okay.
The house is like a living home.
So it almost is like it has to breathe.
The moisture has to be able to go through the straw bales and dry out.
- That looks good. Cool. - [Joli] Yeah.
[thunder rumbling]
[Joli] Look at those clouds, Mom. Is that rain?
[Shalina] Uh-oh! Okay.
[rain pattering]
[Shalina] I've lived on this property for a year and a half
and it's probably rained a handful of times.
And of all times, the first day I need my straw bales dry, we've got rain.
I'm so sad!
Every time we start to get somewhere, something happens.
[Shalina] Uh-oh! Okay.
[rain pattering]
[Shalina] We've been fighting for so long to keep these
straw bales from getting wet and worst case
that could happen is a downpour.
And, that's exactly what happened.
[raining]
- [Shalina] That was crazy. - [Ben] That was absurd.
[Shalina] You think it's gone?
[Ben] That looks like it's going that way.
[Shalina] Everything seems to look okay
but everything is pretty wet.
We got lucky with the storm. It was actually pretty quick.
Miraculously the straw bales stayed dry.
There were a few that were wet.
But being this far off the grid, we kind of knew
that we might run into some issues so we did get some extras.
However, our pea gravel and our base of our moisture barrier
has probably a quarter of inch of water just sitting in it.
Soaking wet, all the way through.
Look at all of that water in there.
That's a "I'm not stacking straw bales" kind of problem for today.
So that's a big delay. We were hoping for straw bales today.
We cannot put straw down, like this.
Winter is gonna come and we need warmer temperatures.
Especially to do the cob, the mudding on the outside
and we gotta get this done.
We need that southwest sun!
[Shalina] Tomorrow we can come back in and
start full force on the bales.
[Shalina] It's a new day today. The sun is shining.
And the pea gravel's dry. So, it is time to stack some straw bales.
So how many do I need?
[Ben] I think that's good and uh--
I think you guys throw them up and see what we got.
We gotta get this flushed with the framing.
[Shalina] Yeah, so go back a tiny bit.
[Ben] Ready to push?
Hey, watch out for rebar in your hands.
[Shalina] Yeah, don't push your hands.
Just shimmy it.
Oh! We're so close.
Here it is. There's one.
[Shalina] This is gonna be so nice and so sturdy.
It's a crucial aspect to have straw bales that
are all very taut and similar in size.
I've definitely had straw bales that were not tight.
And when you're making a wall you need them to be very sturdy.
So I lucked down on these.
It's almost there. Okay, that's it.
- [Ben] Looks like a wall. - [Shalina laughs]
So, we were stacking our bales and on a roll and very excited
to see bales going up and happy with how fast it was going
and then I think you realized we forgot a step.
By the way, aren't we supposed to be doing some lathing here?
- Yep. - [laughs]
- [Shalina laughs] - Oh no!
- [Shalina] We skipped a step. - [Ben] We just forgot a whole thing.
Our intent was to put these little kinda angle brackets
every course of straw bale.
- It'll keep the studs and the wood connected together. - Yes.
We forgot to do that. [chuckles]
- [Shalina] Good test run, everybody. - [Ben] Yeah.
Glad everything fits.
- Take it all down and let's start over. [laughs] - Yeah.
[Ben] Rough start.
- [Joli] Is that rain? Maybe. - Yeah but that's way over there.
[Joli] We're gonna ignore it.
[Shalina] No repeat of yesterday. If we have that,
I would probably just cry.
This is the piece that we forgot to put in between the bale.
And what we're doing is we're securing it with staples
to the wood and then we've got...
- There you go. - And sod staples into the bale.
[Ben] We had lots of family and friends helping today.
And it didn't take too long to re-do it all.
Even the kids were helping.
- It's what it's all about. Family. - Yeah.
[Ben] We started with the easy walls,
the full bale walls. But, we do have to cut quite a few bales.
So we gotta re-tie bales to go into
the spaces that are not full bale length.
I re-thought an entire window,
all because I didn't wanna re-tie that many bales.
[Ben] And I'm gonna take this baling needle.
Our pieces of twine that I've already cut.
String them through. Then I gotta tie a Miller knot.
These are three-string-bales so,
three... Three ties for each side.
'Cause what's gonna happen is, I'm gonna get this piece...
I wanted and this piece is gonna stay compressed
and maybe be used somewhere out.
[Shalina] So then, we'll just be able to pull it apart,
and have two-- Our two bales?
[Ben] In theory...
I should pop this existing blue string,
and have two bales.
[Shalina gasps] You just popped your orange.
[Ben] I thought this would be pretty slick
and go pretty fast but, I didn't practice my knots enough.
And, they failed on my first cut bale.
I'm feeling pretty defeated right now because...
The wind's coming in. I see very black clouds.
I don't like it.
I think we gotta revisit this.
I think it's a good time to just tarp everything off
and clean up and hit it again tomorrow.
Second day in the row we've been shut down due to weather, due to rain.
And it probably hasn't rained here in three months.
The wind is always blowing when you're working with tarps.
Over the past couple of weeks we have been focusing on
getting all of the straw bells cut and in their place
and putting them in the framing.
[Ben] This is the last straw... bale.
[Shalina] Did you really just say that?
- [Ben] I'm ready to say that, actually. - [Shalina laughs]
[Ben] The last custom bales.
Yeah, we had a storm this week that shut us down for
three days. And there's snow on the mountains.
So, it went from summer to late fall, in a week.
And so, I'm gonna cut it open the original,
cut the original twine and I should have two little bricks.
Redemption! I finally figured it out, I think.
I don't think I will ever forget this knot.
Forget me "knot."
[Shalina] Another project that I'm working on
is creating shelving in the kitchen,
by cutting niches into the straw bales.
- [Shalina] Is it niches? - [Ben] It is niches.
- Niches, na-ches. - Niches.
I'm doing my little niches. [laughs]
- [Ben] I think it's niche. - I think it's niche because...
I don't know.
- It's niche. - Well, you're notching it out.
Notching out a niche.
We're notching out niches.
It's like I like to get all this straw out so that
it's deep enough that can mud an inch and a quarter
and still have enough shelf to set your spices in.
Whoo! I almost started a fire.
I hit a piece of metal. And it sparked into the straw.
At the state that the house is in right now,
it'd probably go up like that. 'Cause this is just dry straw bale everywhere.
[Ben] It's a framed tinderbox.
All right, I'm not going any higher on that.
It's getting scary.
[Shalina] So if there was a little spark,
we don't have a faucet that we can go turn on a water hose
and spray it out. So we have to be very careful to not have
- anything like that happen. - Very careful.
[Shalina] You got vanilla.
- [Joli] Cinnamon. And pie spice. - Cinnamon.
[Shalina] You're in charge of Thanksgiving dinner this year.
- I'll try. I'll try. - All right. That's gonna be perfect.
Our next project is to post and beam in between
the two structures. For the kitchen and bathroom.
We acquired some really cool beams.
It'll give it kinda like a farmhouse feel, I think.
I think timbers and straw bale go well together.
They're in good marriage.
[Shalina] These are gonna be going across the top of the kitchen.
So one of these is gonna be...
The post is the corner walls.
And this is gonna be the top part.
- [Ben] You wanna handsaw it? - You wanna handsaw it?
- Yeah. - Okay.
[Joli] I love helping out when it comes to
just anything in general, but I'm really excited
to help out with this house.
Because, I could put all my effort into it,
just like all my family members are.
[Shalina] Good job, Joli.
[Joli] Thank you.
[Shalina] You girls, you gotta step back, please.
- [Shalina] How much is it-- - Come up a little.
Boom! It's gonna work.
- Okay. That's perfect. Okay. - All right, let's set it down. Now we have our beam.
[Ben] So before we attach this beam,
we will need to install the post it sits on, first.
[Shalina] Come down a tiny bit.
More. Perfect.
- Yeah, that's good. - [Shalina] Nice.
Since we are drilling new holes,
we gotta epoxy the rebar into those holes so it doesn't go anywhere.
- [Ben] Oh! I need a gun for this. - [Shalina] Oh no!
[Ben] I don't think we have one.
So, what do we do? What does that mean?
[Ben] I don't know, we need one.
It would be a one hour drive to town one way
to go get this, so, let's see if a friend can bring one.
Oh! I have no service. Do you have service?
Without the caulk gun, can't put these posts in. So that's just another step backwards.
[Ben] We need to drink a beer.
[Shalina] I didn't even know busy signals existed anymore.
Oh! I have no service. Do you have service?
[Ben] So, we're installing these really cool
posts in the kitchen. But I just realized I don't have a caulk gun.
I need the caulk gun to put on the adhesive to attach the post to the floor.
That would be a one hour drive to town, one way
to go get this, so,
we're gonna see if our neighbor Frans can bring one.
Every call gets dropped.
Oh! Wait, don't--
[Shalina] Are you there? Hello?
Can you hear me?
Okay.
I'm gonna be real fast.
Do you happen to have a caulking gun?
Are you ser-- [laughs] He's looking at one right now.
- As they're clean-- - [Ben] That's fantastic.
Okay, thank you so much. Yeah when you head this way,
if you'll just bring that with you, I'd greatly appreciate it.
We have to be very resourceful out here to make things happen
and I think we rely a lot on our friends and family.
I'm very relieved we got in touch with Fran,
'cause if not, we'd have to wait till tomorrow and...
Every single day that we wait right now, is just
super crucial and it throws something else off.
We're not at a standstill because we're gonna build
a five-foot wall over each of these houses that's gonna be a loft bed.
And, so we'll be able to move on now and do these walls for the... for the loft.
- Hey, look who's here! - Yeah!
- Hey, guys. Got the caulk gun. - Caulk gun in hands.
- Ready to rock. - Did you bring muscles too?
- Perfect timing. - [Ben] We built a heavy wall
and I don't think we can put it up there.
- If you guys can help us with that. - For sure.
Frans and Mike are a couple of friends of ours.
And they're our neighbors.
So, the plan is to get this on these rails.
[Shalina] This thing is ridiculously heavy.
[Ben] And then, we'll push it up these rails,
balance it up there,
and then, we're gonna lift it up and set it in place.
[Mike] All right, ready?
[Shalina] Woah!
[Ben] The uncertainty here is that this thing is super heavy.
Yeah, I got it.
It's precarious being up there
You got it?
[Frans] I'm not tall enough anymore.
[Ben] It could fall either way.
Fall in the house, fall out here.
We just don't want anybody getting hurt.
- [Ben] Make sure it's flushed on the outside, love. - [Shalina] I sure will.
[Ben] All right.
It's a wall.
[Shalina] Not having the caulking gun kind of put us on a delay.
But luckily we were able to move on to another project
and not let that just hold us back.
- [Shalina] Now it's not such a mini house. - [Ben] It's not.
I can't wait to move in. Joli doesn't even know I'm taking it over. [laughs]
[Ben] It's been a busy couple days.
Since we got the caulk gun, we were able to install
the kitchen beams and posts.
[drilling]
Oh!
[Shalina] And with all the extra hands, we have on site,
we wasted no time raising the second pony wall.
[drilling]
We even installed the roof rafters.
I'm deathly afraid of heights.
This is already pushing my limits so much.
[Ben] And we put up plywood sheathing.
We feel stressed out a little.
We're definitely exhausted and...
But we can't stop. We just gotta keep going.
[Shalina] I'm about to start mudding the front part of the house
where we've already placed our chicken wire.
Right now, I'm getting my clay kinda cleaned out.
I'm gonna add sand,
in that.
And there isn't an absolute recipe because,
no matter what you look up, it can say like
"Two parts clay, one part sand."
Every piece of land is different.
So your clay content is different.
So you have to just kinda feel it and work with it
until you find the mixture that's right.
Then I'm going to add water. And I'm going to add the straw
that we have that's been crumbling off the house.
And we're gonna make a cob mixture.
Now I'm gonna go ahead and make my ball
to see if I have the right mixture.
If I do, I'm gonna know I have the right mixture because
when I drop my ball, it's gonna form to the concrete.
Perfect!
So now, I'm gonna start smooshing this into my straw.
- That's my mud girl. - [Shalina laughs]
Hey, on our first date, remember, I--
- I got down and started playing in the clay? - [Ben] Yeah.
- [Ben] That's when I fell in love. - [Shalina] That was it.
[Shalina] All right. We'll go ahead and get our mixture now
and put it into the straw.
And it's so important to get this now, because
once the temperatures start dropping below 40,
we can't do the mud. Because it's gonna start cracking.
So, it's warm today during the day,
but come six o' clock as soon as that sun starts to set,
we're gonna start getting to the 40's.
One of the cool projects of this house is we're gonna make a bottle wall.
We're gonna have to cut the bottles on each end,
and then they'll be placed together.
So now these will go together.
And it'll be a cylinder of light
that you just kind of see through.
So, I will mud my bottles,
and then I'll transition into mudding the house.
So it'll just be a very smooth finish.
So, there we go. We have our first one.
What do you think of those colors?
[Ben] Looks rad.
Can't wait to see it all finished.
[Shalina] I know. It's gonna be cool.
[Ben] We got Mike and Frans here to help us
with the solar today and get the solar tower up
that we will put our panels on.
- [Ben] You guys ready? - [Frans] Let's rock it.
[Ben] I believe this was a lighting tower
for a hotel and Shalina finagled her way into getting it for free.
We got three sides.
Watch those.
Hanging us up.
[Ben] Mike and Frans had made a pad for the tower
to sit on with the threaded bolts coming up
for the tower to attach to.
There wasn't enough thread sticking up to fasten the tower down.
So, yeah. It looks like that one,
and this one.
[Mike] We gonna grind down the concrete more.
Yeah, might have to.
These little problems we run into, you know that turn into
hours of work just set us back on our deadline.
In a perfect world, this thing would've just...
on to here. But, building off grid,
everything doesn't always go as it's supposed to.
[Ben] Oh! It's just annoying.
[Ben] Mike and Frans had made a pad for the solar
towers to sit on with the threaded bolts coming up,
for the tower to attach to.
There wasn't enough thread sticking up to fasten the tower down.
[Mike] Shave down a little more concrete.
[Ben] So, we had to get some grinding wheels
and buff out the concrete pad that was set on to...
let the tower sink down to give more threads to put nuts on.
[Frans] Ha! Looks good.
You ready to set this thing?
[Ben] Ta-da!
Solar power tower.
This is rad.
You guys did a great job.
[Mike] Thank you.
[Ben] Over the last few weeks, we have been working super hard.
We finished framing and siding the house.
The windows have been installed.
And even though, we don't have the solar panels up,
we are running electricity to the house through the batteries.
- [Shalina] Wow! - [man] Wow! You're electrified.
[laughs]
[Shalina] Yeah!
We've started our mudding, we did some test walls
this past couple of days.
And today, we move into Joli's bedroom and we start doing the walls.
So, let me show you where I'm at.
See, you're gonna start in this nook right here.
Only where the bale is wet,
Gotta be dry.
No. [laughs]
It's what we've been saying forever.
But now, the bales have to be wet.
I'm gonna work here. So, y'all start this way.
You're gonna love it.
[Joli] I hate mudding.
You know, that's not fun.
I took a clay pottery class once.
And that was enough.
[Shalina] This is your house.
I've done more than my part. I think this is somebody else's-- [laughs]
Just smash it into the straw.
[Shalina] This is a huge milestone.
This one feels really good because this is almost kinda like...
Once you've framed your house and you go to paint it
and you're putting on your coat of paint.
I've been looking at straw bales for a while now.
So it feels good to look at something new.
[Joli] It does.
[Shalina] We have less than two weeks to get this mudded
before the weather starts to get bad.
And I need the mud to set before we hit below 40.
So that it can actually cure.
But, I think that Norissa can do it.
You can miss school this week. It's fine.
Yeah. I would love that.
[Shalina] At this point, we are pretty much gonna be mudding
every single day. Until it's time for bed.
Mud. Mud some more. Mud again.
Wake up and mud. Go to bed. Get up and mud. [laughs]
I have a huge deadline right now 'cause winter's really coming quick.
And this mud has to settle for a little bit before it freezes.
If it drops below 40 and my mud hasn't cured,
it's gonna definitely crack.
We are gonna be in the mid-30's tonight.
So, we decided we're gonna have to pull an all-nighter.
So we finished the final mud plaster on the wall
and everything is smooth and ready for our lime tomorrow.
We're gonna put the curing blankets on,
and make sure everything cures properly
and hopefully we don't have any cracking.
The temperature is only probably about 43 right now.
We finished everything. We've tarped everything.
I am ready for bed and plastering tomorrow.
Last night we...
had to pull an all-nighter and get this wall plastered
because our temperatures were down to 36.
And we had to do the curing blanket because we were
risking cracks at that temp. So we're gonna take it down
and hope for minimal cracking like it should be.
And ready for plaster.
I'm a little nervous about taking off the curing blanket.
I'm not sure what we're gonna find.
But, worst case scenario, we could have some cracking.
[Ben] It's still quiet damp.
[Shalina] Well, it should be.
The blanket's off.
I am extremely happy there's no cracks.
The curing blanket did its job.
See?
It's gonna be nice.
[Ben] That's what you wanted?
[Shalina] Yeah, that's what I wanted.
[Shalina] The final coat to put on the house is a lime plaster.
The mixture is made out of lime, sand and water.
It's pretty dangerous stuff, because you can inhale it
and get it into your lungs and you can have respiratory issues from that.
And if it gets on your skin, it can actually cause third degree burns.
I would like to try and use a tool and see if it can go faster.
- Should I give it a try? - [Ben] Yeah, for a test piece.
[Shalina] We've mixed the plaster as thin as we can so hopefully
it'll work with the sprayer because it's gonna be thin.
It's not gonna come out.
Unfortunately it's not working the way I wanted it to
so, we're gonna have to do this by hand.
That means it's gonna take a lot longer.
The temperatures are dropping really fast
and could lead to some problems with the plaster.
Getting this to dry without cracking is gonna be almost impossible.
No!
[Shalina] I wanted to speed up the process by
using the plaster in a sprayer.
But the mixture was just way too thick to work.
It's not gonna come out.
We've hand-sculpted every piece of mud in this house.
So, this is just the final step with hand-sculpting.
Very disappointed the sprayer didn't work.
I probably could've been three times as far by now.
But we're gonna keep on going and we're gonna get it done.
We're gonna pull some more all-nighters and we may be cranky but...
We'll have a house finished.
[Ben] For the last couple of days. we've had a pretty big push.
We finished framing up the loft area as well as the bathroom.
[Shalina] We managed to get a decent start on mudding the interior walls.
We did really well on one wall, so we thought we nailed it.
And then, with the temperatures,
just the way that they'll be 80 during the day,
and we literally got down to 28 at night.
We wake up and the clay is frozen
and then the plaster's frozen and the water's frozen.
So we have to kind of, thaw everything and then make a new batch.
So, it's been a process.
[Ben] We're just gonna keep doing it.
We gotta beat winter and...
Get it done.
[Shalina] We have lots of projects still going on.
Inside, I have my friend Casey who's in there mudding
and Mike is gonna help me build stairs for the loft.
I found these amazing stairs online
that already had drawers in them.
Downstairs.
[Frans] Slide it back.
There you go, right there.
[drilling]
[Frans] Uh-oh! The battery's dead. I'm gonna go get another battery.
- All right, here's another one. - All right. Thank you.
- [Frans] Oh! - [laughs]
We've been using these house batteries now for three days
without solar panels hooked which is actually pretty amazing.
But today, we realized we tapped out the limit so...
They didn't get a chance to recharge.
Well, it stinks. I really wanted to get these in today
but, I guess that's part of building off the grid.
Every battery on the jobsite is dead.
We have limited power and...
We need to wait to charge these, so I guess it's tomorrow.
Every little delay sets us back and it's very frustrating.
We're getting down to the wire here. We have a lot to do, still.
[Shalina] We got this amazing recycled fiber insulation
which is denim and newspapers and cotton fibers.
It's a lot more work. Just like the rest of the house.
But, in the long run, it's better.
- Lots of plaster. - Lots of plaster.
Lots and lots of plaster and then more plaster.
I am very excited at how these stairs ended up
turning out. We did have issues with the batteries.
But, the next day we were able to come in.
They're very sturdy.
I feel really good with Joli being able to come up,
and get to the bed and be where she needs to be.
We've been keeping Joli away from the house for the past week.
So she hasn't seen it since it was mud.
And we really want to just be able to give her the key to the house
and walk in and be surprised.
I have been saying forever that I wanted to build
a wood-fired hot tub.
And, I saw this smoker and I was like "That's perfect."
That's gonna create the heat that we need,
so that we can cook and heat the water.
So, the idea is to run a copper pipe from the hot tub
and to use the heat from the burning fire to warm the water
before returning it to the basin.
And nobody's gonna say no to a hot tub.
What we have is a stock tank. Then we have a vapor barrier
that's gonna help with the condensation.
And then we have our construction waddles.
And that's gonna hold the heat in.
Because the stainless steel tank is very thin,
and the heat would just escape right away.
This is going to cook your food while you're heating your hot tub.
It's all wood fire.
So, everything is happening in
the most eco-friendly way that you can have.
Throw a pizza on, jump in the hot tub.
We're definitely running behind.
We're still plastering outside and
we're still finishing inside details which we need a few more days on.
[Ben] We have about a week to finish this place
'cause it's getting too cold for mud and plaster.
Things aren't curing. So we just have to, have to
get this done within a week.
I really hope it can happen.
[Ben] We built a house!
We had this Herculean task to do and we did it
just in the nick of time. It's supposed to snow tomorrow.
[Shalina sighs] I feel good. I think we have overcome a lot.
We weren't sure how this was gonna go
'cause we're very new and... we were building a house
and our relationship all at the same time.
There were a lot of challenges that tested us to our limits.
But we... We got through it.
I feel pretty amazing right now.
[Ben] Original budget was $10,000 and I think we ended up around 15.
$15,000 for a house is amazing. I'd spend that any day.
Our original timeline was four weeks.
We ended up doing it in a little over seven weeks.
We just had some things that came along.
That's just part of building off the grid.
Today I am going to be presenting the house to Joli.
And also showing our best friend, Liz.
- Wow! Look at how big it is. - Hi!
I love it.
We got the plaster on, it's all water-proof.
- [Joli] Bottle wall. - Bottle walls.
- [Norissa] You like it? - [Joli] I do.
- [Shalina] Solar power tower. - [Joli chuckles]
So, you're completely off the grid.
- [Joli] Wow! Not a bill in my life. - [Liz] That's incredible.
- [Shalina] Not a bill in your life. - [all laughing]
[Shalina] You wanna see the house?
- [Joli] Yeah, can we go in? - Go in.
Wow!
This is really cool.
Look at the stairs!
[Shalina] They're nice and sturdy.
Tall enough for you.
[Joli] I love the comforter.
[Shalina] Yeah?
Wow, Ben. You did a good job with the wood.
[Ben] Thank you.
[Joli] I got a nice view.
[Liz] I am so impressed with you guys. Like, seriously...
The blood and sweat and tears,
you can see it. It's awesome. I love it.
- [Shalina] Thank you. You wanna see the rest of it? - [Joli] Yeah.
[Joli exclaims] Oh wow!
Oh my gosh!
This is the kitchen of my dreams.
[Shalina] Every single thing that's up there,
[Joli] Uh-huh.
[Shalina] I want you to know, you're now the fourth generation.
That was my grandma's, my mom's, mine and now yours.
[Joli] I get the mashed potato maker?
[Shalina laughs] She is so excited for making mashed potato.
[Liz] So what is this...
Like what is this exactly? I'm not really sure.
This is a truth window. So you never forget what it's made of.
- [Liz] Oh! - [Shalina] You'll always see your straw bale.
That's straw?
[Joli] I like seeing the mountains back there.
This is gonna be really pretty during winter time.
[Shalina] You wanna see your little bathroom?
- All right, let's go. - It's not really an "outhouse"
- it's more an "inhouse." - [Ben laughs]
[Liz] Oh my gosh! This is so cute.
- [Shalina] Well, there you go. - [Liz] You have a water source.
You have a sink.
[Joli] This has hot water, in it?
[Shalina] It has water in it, so you can brush your teeth.
I got you a washboard too. You can wash your clothes.
[all laughing]
Mom-- [laughs]
[Shalina] Go see your study.
[Joli] Oh wow!
Book nooks.
- [Shalina] You have books everywhere. - [Liz] So amazing!
[Liz] You guys elevated the ceilings.
It makes you feel really big and homely. I like it.
[Ben] Yeah, as soon as we put the roof on, it felt a lot bigger.
[Joli] I like that big map.
[Shalina] You have everything you need to explore your mind
so that you know where you wanna go in the world.
- [Ben] Some inspiration. - [Shalina] Yep.
- I still have more. - [Liz gasps]
What does Shalina have up her sleeve? [laughs]
- She has a bunny in her hat. - [Liz laughs]
[Shalina] So now...
- [Joli] Wow! - [Liz] Wow!
- [Shalina] You have a hot tub. - [Joli] Wow!
[Liz exclaiming]
[Shalina] And you can cook your food out here.
And your hot tub's an octopus.
- [Shalina] Feel it. Nice and warm? Yeah. - Oh! Nice and worm.
[Joli] It's not what I expected. I...
didn't expect it to turn out this great...
But it turned out really good beyond my expectations,
and I can't wait to move in.
I am super thankful and appreciative.
So many people came out and helped.
And not many people really can say,
"I moved out at he age of 18, because my mom built me a house."
[Shalina] Feels really good to build
for Joli and to have her be a part of it.
- Ben, do you have a seven? - I don't know about this.
[Shalina] It's the first step to her empowerment in life.
And...
I really hope that... That this did it for her.
Shalina, do you have a jack?
You know I have a jack, I just asked for it. That's not fair.
- That's cheating! - [Shalina laughs]
That's cheating!
[Shalina] I really hope this was a good learning experience
for the girls. I hope that this is something that
not only they got to learn for themselves,
but they can take to the future with their children and just forward.
[Ben] That house is made with love.
It's a beautiful thing.