Interior Wall Finishes For A Green Home

    To brighten up the interior, unpainted white walls were used to complement the natural earth plastered colored walls. The straw bale wall with the window has a quarter-inch finish coat of gypsum plaster on top of the one-inch-thick brown earth plaster. The adobe wall to the right has a finish coat of white mud. White mud is made from mixing powdered white Kaolin clay (available from a ceramic supply house) with white sand, a bit of powered wheat paste, and water. Even with the two walls meeting in the corner, it is difficult to tell which is gypsum and which is earth plaster. The mud is much easier to apply as it does not have the fast set-time of gypsum plaster.
     For detailed information on the earth plastering techniques used in this home, see chapters 10 and 12 of the Building With Awareness Guidebook and Chapters 10 and 12 of the Building With Awareness DVD video.