Reply #90: Hey, no worries!

[here_is_to_hope]

Our first was post and beam, strawbale infill. We did it this way because we needed a roof up fast and I wasn't too sure about strawbale walls withstanding the pressures of an octagon 45 feet across.
We used old telephone poles for the posts (22 inches across!) and TJI's for the roof beams.
The floor was mass rammed earth over strawbale with a concrete layer of 2 inches on top of that, tinted dark ochre and rust, the bales sat on a vapor barrier over gravel. We put in rebar stakes and placed our bales right on to the floor, about two feet above exterior grade. We did not excavate and have never had frost heaving or any ice problems.
We left the top of the walls open by boxing 2 by 6's 4 inches apart as beams between joists, this allowed any moisture to wick up and back into the house.
This is in Columbus, Montana so moisture just wasn't an issue really.
We used lime stucco on the outside straight onto the bale, tied onto the posts with metal lathe.
We have special muscles now just for stuccoing...ugh, it's work!
The inside walls we trimmed carefully and used a clay/lime/Portland/sand stucco with lots of sand. The ratio of Portland was very low so it would breathe.

We have been very happy with it, standing 17 years now and not one issue with the house itself though we should have gone with a lower ceiling (22 feet at the center) and better windows than the ones we scrounged from a torned down school.
The place is toasty warm even with poor windows, stays cool in the Summer. It's a passive solar set up with the east and south side having large windows to heat the floor mass up but the eaves are large enough to block that same Sun in the Summer. We used a compass and Solar sightings over the course of a year to line everything up.

The next two we built were more traditional (square) but using the same materials.

We also built a Hippy House for friends, 220 square feet, straw walls on three sides, all window front looking down into a steep canyon. We hinged the simple shed type roof so we can open the entire thing up, the roof attached to poles in front, using 2 by 10's bolted to the poles, I boxed the roof beams and they just sit right on the rear wall. I use a rope and pully set up and I can raise the entire roof up in back about three feet! Really opens the place up to Nature! I did pin the walls top to bottom just in case. We have never stuccoed that little cabin and it's still in great shape after 12 years, it doesnt get any rain or snow on it because of the 4' eaves.
It is powered by an Air 404 into 4 12V batteries to run an on demand 12V water pump from a cistern, all of the lights in it are like our main house, 12V so as to lesson our inverter needs. Even the stereo is out of a car!

The main house has an 8 panel array into a Trace C40, 8 6V batteries, 2000w inverter but the house is wired twice, one circuit is 12V, the other is 120.
I did this because there are many 12V appliances available and inverters are expensive when you get over 2000 watts. We use 12V bulbs for rv's throughout, they fit regular lamps. It also has a car stereo set up to run the sound throughout the house, as well as an on demand pump, compost toilet
We did go with propane for the fridge and water heater as having enough solar to run a regular fridge or water heater was too expensive.

Our big advantage was the bales, right out of the field at .75 each and less than 10 miles away, cut and tied to order.
We collected lumber and materials for two years before starting, hitting farm auctions and buying any lumber or materials that even looked useable.
Our total on the first house was $9000.00, all inclusive, everything but the land. Took two people working almost everyday 9 months.
It is a little more than 1800 square feet!
We did not have any permit issues and State Farm insured the house after a long run around.

Good Luck!