We met with clients from Uxbridge wanting to build a large round horse stable two years ago. They attended a workshop, and came back to the table last year with a set of plans for the building. The final version of plans included a 100-ft/30m diameter round stable, with a 50x40ft/15x12m two-story apartment and tack room, totaling over 12,000 sf/1080 m2. The tack room is attached to an Olympic-sized riding arena. We decided to make an exception to our rule of waiting until the roof is done before starting, knowing that the weather deadline was upon us, and arrived at the site the week after our Thanksgiving (October 12) to commence bale work. It is a bit mind boggling to arrive at such a large project and envision putting in bales, one at a time.
Set in a field on 100 acres in Uxbridge, Ontario (northeast of Toronto), the stable is a beautiful timber-framed round building containing 21 stalls. The majority of the stables are situated along the outside perimeter of the circle, with each horse being afforded a large window. The windows were framed with clay chimney tiles that were ripped into quarters, and then mortared into place. We find the junction where plastered bale wall meets the roof timbers quite pleasing to the eye. The dome at the top of the stable was recycled from a shopping centre renovation. Other reclaimed materials include the windows and metal frame of the arena, all of the posts used for the outer walls, rafters, and the stalls themselves. These posts were obtained from a former whiskey factory and had a pleasant bouquet. Interlocking brick was laid inside the inner ring of the stable, with radiant heat installed underneath. Lucky horses!
The majority of the bales in this project were hemp bales. They proved to be challenging to carve and cut and shape–we can see why hemp was used to make rope–it is an extremely tough fiber! It is difficult to separate into flakes, and none of our regular power tools would cut notches into the bales. A hand saw proved to be the most effective tool for this purpose. In a building with as many posts as this one, we quickly realized that having a combination of hemp bales for straight bale building, and wheat straw for breaking into flakes for stuffing, or for notching, would make the building go faster, so the owners ordered a load of wheat bales from a local farmer.
Hanging reinforcement mesh (we use plastic TenaxTM mesh) and stitching such a large building is also time consuming. In fact, working on any aspect of a project this size takes a long time. When you think about it, it is the equivalent of working on four houses, all in one!
Most of our projects are a fraction of the size of this one, with an average of 400 bales in a dwelling, not 1,700! The owners and their friends and families put many of the bales in the horse stable in over the course of the traditional bale-raising weekend, but there was still a lot of prepping of these sections before they were ready for plastering.
We brought in a large crew, twice the normal size. Our tactic for attacking such a large building was to divide the horse stable into thirds. We did the bale work on one section and, while we plastered that section, our bale crew went on to the next section. Plastering as soon as each wall section was prepped greatly eased the demand for tarps, and staved off what seemed like inevitable burnout in the plastering crew. Plastering large projects is back-breaking work, and we were lucky to be able to break it up with bale work. Yes, bale stacking and prepping is a rest compared to plastering!
The most challenging components from a building perspective were what we called the ‘bump-outs’–three large door openings of the stable. These door openings are set out from the stable, and are also higher. We were faced with complex angles for bale building where the bales met up with the roof, which made bale stacking and hanging reinforcement mesh tricky. The upstairs apartment was also challenging (the more scaffold required, the longer things take). The apartment/tack room complex is a balloon-framed post-and-beam structure, so there was a double wall of posts to build around, resulting in many retied and notched bales.
Our crew spent approximately two and a half months at this job, with some of us there closer to three months. We didn’t work weekends, and we did take a few days off at Christmas and New Year’s. It is never ideal to be working in sub-zero conditions, but we were fortunate enough to get the exterior work done before the really big deep freeze set in. Construction heaters were needed only on a couple of days, but we often used a large blowtorch outside to thaw the sand pile and to melt the ice from the plaster pump twice a day.
The owners will likely finish the exterior of the building with a lime wash in the Spring. It truly is a gorgeous building. We’re happy to be back home again, though!

Tina Therrien and Peter Mack
Camel’s Back Construction
www.strawhomes.ca
<strawbus@auracom.com>