[+] Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs | The Ten Common Stereotypes When It Comes To Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs?

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Grand Designs Straw House | Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs

Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs

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Grand Designs goes back to the land with straw bale house | Stuff ... | Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs

Heights Community Congress This home on Cedar Road is the alone straw-bale abode in the Cleveland area. Note the ample overhangs and abysmal porch. They board added aegis for the blubbery clay/mud admixture walls from the elements.

There was one analytical downside to growing up in a ample Cleveland Heights home with a supersize backyard big abundant to board ample comedy areas and a congenital pond pool.

"It was a lot of backyard to mow," says Chris Kious, laughing, now an developed attractive aback at his arcadian boyhood.

That amplitude accepted to be a advantage in 2007 for Chris' parents, Janet Kious, a registered nurse, and Dr. Gus Kious, arch authoritative administrator for Huron Hospital. The added lot -- which had the pond basin -- was the absolute breadth to body a new, environmentally efficient, we-can-grow-old-with-it home in the suburb they loved.

What makes the three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot house, completed in summer 2008, alike added special? It is the actual aboriginal straw-bale home congenital in the Cleveland breadth (there is accession archetype congenital in Akron).

The fruits of the Kious' activity and anticipation -- a sophisticated, beautiful and energy-efficient home -- are on affectation Sunday, Sept. 26, as allotment of the 33rd Heights Heritage Home and Garden Tour. Sponsored by the Heights Community Congress, the bout runs from apex to 6 p.m. and appearance seven homes and four gardens.

The Kious home, declared as an "Asian Craftsman," is acceptable to draw added absorption artlessly because of its architecture application 305 farm-harvested harbinger bales. The Bedford architectural close of Doty & Miller formed on the design, which was aggressive in allotment by home-building abstracts acclimated in Janet Kious' adolescence home of South Africa.

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Most of the autogenous walls (some in the upper-level attic breadth are approved wallboard) are accomplished with a clay-water admixture activated by the owners and accompany and "straw-bale" interns over two weekends in the summer of 2007, said Chris Kious, walking a aggregation through the abode recently.

The differences are accessible as anon as you access the home via a arced bean alleyway that apprehension through a Japanese-like garden and with a multilevel baptize feature. The advanced balustrade includes -- as you would apprehend in an environmentally acquainted home -- raised-bed breadth on either side.

The reclaimed advanced aperture -- begin during one of Janet Kious' abounding trips to breadth antiques food and the Amish country -- sets a accent of solid old craftsmanship. Inside, two carved archways (separated in the aperture by a table fabricated with old copse and metal grates) advance to an all-embracing active allowance and kitchen.

Arched windows and soundproof walls Both apartment are abounding with sunlight alive through angled windows, a accepted affection of straw-bale homes because adamantine angles are around impossible, said Kious. The walls, a admixture of clay, baptize and pigment, are hand-packed over the harbinger bales, which are placed on their abandon and are about 1 bottom thick, 18 inches aerial and about 2 anxiety long. This creates blubbery walls (so soundproof you couldn't alike apprehend the abundant midday cartage on Cedar Road or the acute chopping bottomward of an old-growth timberline abutting door) and abnormally abysmal windowsills.

The bales are so deeply packed, added Kious, that they are artlessly fire-retardant and don't charge added treatments. Not abundant oxygen can get in to augment flames, he said.

Mixing blush colorant in the adobe gives anniversary bank a active and affably asperous breeze of color. The palette -- best for this abode to be evocative of the Apple and the colors of Janet Kious' adolescence -- ambit from yellows and amber browns to abysmal purples and, finally, to magentas. The atramentous from amber beans is alike represented in the abysmal hues of the attenuated appointment off a alley that leads to the first-floor adept bedroom.

The accoutrement are a hasty mix of aged finds, bought by Janet Kious over the years, and appliance created by Chris Kious' company, A Piece of Cleveland. APOC designs and constructs accoutrement and accessories from abstracts salvaged from old barrio in the Cleveland area. (See adventure on the awning of this breadth about F*SHO, this weekend's home accoutrement advertise in which articles from A Piece of Cleveland will be represented.)

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Grand Designs Straw House | Straw Bale House New Zealand Grand Designs

Some of Janet Kious' finds accommodate a 100-year-old Amish carpenter's bank that functions as the kitchen island and the mantel over the large, bean broiler (with its attenuated firebox and angled soapstone walls) that is a salvaged axle from an Ohio barn, about 1870. Accession characteristic accession is a Victorian-era abstraction door, amid the active allowance and the study, begin on eBay. It came from a abode in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Repurposed abstracts accommodate a aloof vibe The reclaim of abstracts continues in the ample adept bathroom, aloof east of the library and bottomward a arched alley from the kitchen and active room. The tiles, with a Celtic attending to them, were created by Gus Kious himself. But the white-marble accents and ledges were fabricated from abstracts rescued from the above Adelstein's Pharmacy, which had been at East 79th Street and Cedar Avenue.

With its chapped walls and repurposed materials, abridged doors and copse floors (a mix of oak, blooming and maple), the home's vibe is that of a abundant earlier house. But there is additionally a aloof feel, acknowledgment to the apple tones acclimated in anniversary allowance and the amore of materials.

The additional floor, originally advised to be a baby loft, was broadcast primarily because the bend of the acreage created a angle in the roof that accustomed for a added all-embracing additional floor. A additional bedchamber is amid in this area.

The basement harbors the third bedchamber (three bedrooms is a minimum claim for new architecture in Cleveland Heights). At the acme of the summer heat, Chris Kious, his wife and toddler confused there briefly because the temperature (even after air conditioning) was air-conditioned and comfortable.

Thanks to the house's energy-efficient construction, the Kiouses almost ran their air conditioning this summer.

The absolute description of the energy-efficient, abnormal straw-bale home? What's old is new again. In a acceptable way.

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Tour information

What: 33rd Heights Heritage Home and Garden Tour.

Benefits: Heights Community Congress.

When: Noon-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26.

Theme: "Imagine if. . .," showcasing the assortment of homes in Cleveland Heights.

Details: Tourgoers will appointment seven homes and four gardens, including Cuyahoga County's aboriginal straw-bale architecture abode and a adequate 9,000-square-foot abode on Fairmount Boulevard.

Tickets: $20, advance; $25, day of the tour. Tickets are accessible online from Heights Community Congress and from bounded businesses. See heightscongress.org for a account of admission locations, or alarm 216-321-6775 for added information.

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