# Building a stone home



## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

Hey guys,

The couple of threads about log cabins got me thinking . . .

I have had plans running around in my head to build some buildings from stone when we finally find some property, so i decided to Google the topic and found one really good step-by-step how-to site. It seems that they also sell a book that goes into actual detail, but this seems like a good over-view.

Building our slipform stone house on Main Street: an ongoing journal of the building adventure, Part I.

One nice thing is that they used a ton of recycled (i.e.- second hand or factory discards) materiels, with the initial goal of spending $10/sq foot. i think he said they wound up closer to $15/sq foot, but that's still pretty cheap for a permanent structure.


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## Concerned_ Citizen (Jan 20, 2010)

Freekin awesome! I really hope we will be able to build our own home one day...how inspiring!


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

I'm reading (on and off) a book by Helen and Scott Nearing called The Simple Life. It's honestly a little dry, but it's full of information about their giving up the rat race to live self sufficiently in New England years ago. They built most of their buildings of stone by slip forming them and had nothing bad to say about the method or the results. Check out the book and you'll find a bunch of info pertinent to your question.


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Cool story. :congrat: I don't see myself having the ambition to build from the ground up.


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

Jason said:


> I'm reading (on and off) a book by Helen and Scott Nearing called The Simple Life. It's honestly a little dry, but it's full of information about their giving up the rat race to live self sufficiently in New England years ago. They built most of their buildings of stone by slip forming them and had nothing bad to say about the method or the results. Check out the book and you'll find a bunch of info pertinent to your question.


Yeah, actually I found their site before the one to which I posted the link, but they don't have much info on the site itself. Looks great, though, maybe I will pick it up someday!


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

UncleJoe said:


> Cool story. :congrat: I don't see myself having the ambition to build from the ground up.


Yeah, it looked like their project took the better part of four years, but they did it all themselves and it's really cheap!


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## Jason (Jul 25, 2009)

They say several times that they weren't out to set any speed records and that they were extremely meticulous. And you are correct-they did it all themselves and they did it very much on the cheap. They reused the forms and used all local stone.


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## JeepHammer (Oct 10, 2008)

That's a REAL GOOD example of what can be done with 'Scrap' and some Sweat!
Most guys don't want to put the Sweat into things, others don't want to get their brains in a cramp trying to figure out what should be done next!

I LOVE those natural stone homes! No maintenance to speak of on the exterior of the home and virtually impervious to nature unless a tornado comes along, and then you are screwed no matter what...

The less time you take to keep the house up,
The more time you have to IMPROVE on the place and get important things done!


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