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During the building season, Straworks is a full-time team of two: Deirdre McGahern and Justin McKeiver.
From framing, to roofing, to window & doors instalation, to trim work and finishing, we do lots of general carpentry and
speacialize in building straw bale walls and plastering them. Plastering
is a big job and for it three other plasterers join us to complete the Straworks plastering crew. We enjoy what we do and
have fun doing it.
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 Deirdre McGahern is the
owner of Straworks and a straw bale designer, a carpenter and natural builder. In
2000 she graduated from Mount Allison Univeristy, in Sackville, New Brunswick, with a degree in Visual Arts. In 2004, she
moved back to Ontario and completed the Construction Carpentry Program at Algonquin College in Perth. Following, she got the
job she'd been hoping for and spent 6 months working alongside Chris Magwood (renowned bale builder, writer and author) who
was at that time building his mother a house. Towards the end of the internship, Deirdre headed-up one of Chris' projects:
building the Sustainable Washroom Block at the H.R. Frink Center in Plainfield, Ontario. That was the beginning of Straworks
- a start that lead to her getting her first solo project in 2005 to design, project manage and build a Canteen Washroom Facility
at Madoc's new state of the art skateboarding park.
Now into her 6th season
building, Deirdre's experience is piling up. She has designed, project managed and built two straw bale buildings from start-to-finish.
She has project managed and built another two from start-to-finish and has worked as a primary contractor doing bale carpentry,
bale work and plastering on another eight. You can see pictures of these buildings on the project pages.
All the while, Deirdre's beeing loving it. "Sometimes it feels like a crazy amount of work
to design, project manage and build a building from start-to-finish. But at the end of it, I somehow just want to do it again,
only better." Deirdre
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Justin McKeiver was raised on a farm in Pickering, but would not be kept down
on the farm. From studies in anthropology at McMaster University, to travels in Australia and South America, he searched
for an understanding of the world and its people. In 2005, he heard Chris Magwood speak
about straw bale building and finally found the outlet for his constructive energy and environmental principles. Between
the 2006 ISBBC, and Fleming College's 2006 Sustainable Building Program, Justin has grown as a carpenter and straw baler,
and is now living in Peterborough, traveling often and trying to create constantly.
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Contact: (705) 868-STRAW(7872) info@straworks.ca
if only the little pig had plastered his straw walls...
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