Casita de Melanie

In April 2011, Casa de Tierra broke ground for a guesthouse on client Melanie Hamilton's land in San Juan del Sur. Melanie has visited Nicaragua many times over the past decade, and was ready to lay down roots, and build an ecologically-friendly home. Together with Melanie, we chose to implement a rubble trench foundation with a conventional grade beam, earthbag walls with natural plasters, thin earthen and nicaraguan bamboo partition walls, an earthen and stone floor, an interior composting toilet system, and a rancho roof constructed with wood posts and beams and finished with cane poles on the interior and laminate tile on the exterior.

Gallery Click on photos to read the captions

Drainage pipes are laid in the foundation trenches

Gravel-filled bags are set into the pins for a capillary break

The earthbags walls are going up

Framing the roof is complete and the cana castilla are being installed

The local, hardwood window and door frames are set

A bird's-eye view of the casita

The earthen plaster base coat is applied and the red roof is on

Base plasters are up

Working on the fine finish plasters

placing flagstone and drainage canal for exterior porch

Installing the eco floor

Melanie's artistic bottle installation

The interior is coming together

Paint primer is on

There she is!

Casa de Tierra was featured in San Juan del Sur’s local newspaper, the Del Sur News, for their collaboration with Melanie on her earth bag home. Check it out: http://delsurnewsonline.com/alternative-building-methods-nicaragua/