A Montana couple spent $20,000 building a 2-bedroom house, and now they're debt-free. There's just one catch: The house is made of clay, sand, and straw.
Building an earthen home from scratch might sound daunting to some, but for Daniel and Katherine Ray, it's their way of life.
"After we completed college, we moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, so I could finish my master's degree in library science," Ray said."After we moved back to Montana, I didn't have a job lined up yet, and we were renting — so we thought it would be the perfect time to build a cob house." "It was a lot of work for over two years. I mean, if somebody was able to take a couple of years off to build their house, they'd probably be able to do it a lot quicker than us," he added.Not only did they design the blueprints for the house, but they were also responsible for sourcing the natural materials required to build the structure.Cob is made using water, straw, and dirt that has a high amount of clay content. To mix it, the mixture is trampled on by foot.
"We both graduated with anthropology degrees, and I have a master's in library and information science, so I'm really good at doing research," Ray said."We had zero contracting experience. Neither of us had built anything really, other than cabinets and stuff like that." Even though earthen houses are commonly found in countries like Mexico and India, this building method hasn't quite taken off in the same way in the US, he added.
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