{"id":568,"date":"2010-09-06T17:48:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T21:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=568"},"modified":"2010-09-06T17:48:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T21:48:25","slug":"the-truth-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2010\/09\/06\/the-truth-window\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth Window"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Steve Charles<\/em>\u2014Joe Trumpey \u201988 says that most straw bale houses have a truth window\u2014a hole in the adobe on the inside where you can see what the walls are made of.<\/p>\n

In the house that Joe and his wife, Shelly, have built, the truth window is a small lattice-work door in an ornate frame that looks like it came from a Buddhist shrine. They found it in Nepal, and it honors their daughter, Autumn, who is from that high country, and who I photographed opening that window.<\/p>\n

(See photo albums from the home <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The minute I took out the camera I could tell Autumn wasn\u2019t comfortable having her picture taken. Unlike her little sister, Evelyn, who is from Ethiopia and beams for the camera.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Autumn\u2019s light is different. When she opened the door of that shrine, she fixed her eyes on the straw inside, the guts of the house she\u2019s had a hand in building, and even though she\u2019s probably just staring at it so intently so to ignore the fact she\u2019s having her picture taken, in that photo she appears to be looking at something surprising and wonderful.<\/p>\n

In a sense, the Trumpey\u2019s house is a truth window\u2014a manifestation of lives lived faithfully to the values Joe and Shelly try to hold themselves to.<\/p>\n

Realtors promise buyers a \u201cdream house.\u201d Contractors tell customers what\u2019s what they can build for them.<\/p>\n

But Joe and Shelly\u2019s home is no dream house. It\u2019s a house of vision built with their own hands. A house from the land that fits the land, facing south for maximum passive solar effect, is outrageously energy efficient, and doesn\u2019t contribute to global warming. It\u2019s off-the-grid, powered by a solar-array that looms over the pasture and their Scottish Highland cattle, Jacobs\u2019 sheep, and goats. (And some of those are fainting goats\u2014Evelyn says Autumn can make them faint, too!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The more than 500 linear feet of stone Shelly has set in place (including the 35-foot high fireplace and chimney at its heart) came from the ground that surrounds the house, as did most of the lumber. The rest is from ash trees a nearby town took down and was going to chip into the landfill to control the emerald ash borer.<\/p>\n

Joe milled all the boards, had at least a hand in setting every one in place.<\/p>\n

From my notes from my visit last week I see these quotes from Joe:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought that if we could do it, it would be cool to try.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything took longer, and was more difficult, than we expected. But sometimes you have to take risks. And after awhile, it gets in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

And these from Shelly: \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much work, how long it would take (not to mention that she would become a stone mason!) I think Joe had a better idea what it was going to take, but sometimes Joe has an idea and you go along for the adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved doing the stone work. It\u2019s kind of a zen thing\u2014when you\u2019ve got the mortar mixed just right, putting the stone together is like a puzzle. Peaceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Off the grid.\u00a0Outrageously energy efficient.\u00a0A small carbon footprint. Even the first generation Toyota Prius in the front yard.\u00a0All these things I expected.<\/p>\n

What surprised me were the details that seem to have evolved throughout the project\u2014the changes from the original plan that turned into some of the most livable, lovable spaces in the house. The \u201csweet spots,\u201d Joe calls them.<\/p>\n

This is the stuff of artistic process, not home building.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s that second floor balcony on the north side, the railing designed by Shelly to reflect the leaves on the trees of the forest it frames.<\/p>\n

The summer kitchen was in the original blueprint, I think, but its shape has changed, keeps getting better.<\/p>\n

There are the doorways of the girls\u2019 rooms\u2014Autumn\u2019s is shaped like Mt. Everest, Eveyln\u2019s to fit an Ethiopian angel.<\/p>\n

The details in the stonework under every first floor window.<\/p>\n

These are things that take more work and more time\u2014hard decisions to make after two years of work and an end only now in sight.<\/p>\n

Shelly tells the story of a friend who recently went on vacation and spending so much looking down at the ground she hardly looked up to see what she had come to see in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to do that while buiding the house,\u201d Shelly said. \u201cTo get so fixed on the end result we didn\u2019t pay attention to right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there have been moments of celebration. A bonfire last fall. Thanksgiving just after the roof was on. And Christmas around that glorious central fireplace and chimney.<\/p>\n

This year they took the girls to Disneyland\u2014Joe and Shelly\u2019s first real vacation in three years.<\/p>\n

And their first new piece of furniture in years\u2014a couch\u2014arrived last week, not long after the girls moved into their new rooms. It\u2019s the first piece in the house the five dogs aren\u2019t allowed jump up on. The dogs haven\u2019t yet caught on to that rule, and one\u2014a pugle\u2014probably never will.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve still got a ways to go\u2014the detail work that always takes longer than anyone planned. There\u2019s a wheelbarrow in the entryway, waiting to carry more adobe for the final coat. The brass handle and knob on the front door are still coated with adobe mud bearding the shapes of the fingers which have turned them so many times.<\/p>\n

Joe and Shelly will probably clean off that knob and handle when the house is finally finished. But I\u2019d be tempted to keep them that way as a reminder of the land their house has come from, and of the hands and fingers that shaped it. That sometimes you have to get messy to get things done, of what you can do when you\u2019re not afraid to take risks, and of the window you open for others to see when you stay true to your own way of living in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles\u2014Joe Trumpey \u201988 says that most straw bale houses have a truth window\u2014a hole in the adobe on the inside where you can see what the walls are made of. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/09\/autumntruthbox72.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}