But as others have found, there's something about straw bales that makes you think you can do it. Mostly we stack horizontally, but some places like this we have to go vertical. And sometimes we have to get the sledgehammer out, do a little fine tuning. The Ames house sits on 70 acres of woods and pasture half an hour west of Duluth. With its green metal roof and half-log siding, it doesn't look like straw from the outside.
Dimensional lumber supports the roof and frames the doors and windows.
At first we estimated that it would take 600 bales. I think we actually overestimated. We put about 400 in. It has to be dry - you don't want to put bales in your walls that are moldy and musty and unpleasant. Several years ago the Ames built a traditional house in the suburbs.