Making Home

I have been fully enjoying my time building a home for my family. Danielle and I worked out the design for quite a while. "Version 1" came while we were visiting Stony Creek Farm in Walton, NY last November, and was clearly inspired by Dan and Kate's 900-square-foot cabin (thanks for the inspiration!). Over 6 months, our original idea was constantly tweaked and improved to fit our needs. I love designing spaces, and to spend time designing my own space was a treat that I have looked forward to since first learning how to build.

We bought our land in March, and began dreaming all over it. We had a driveway cut into it - and a house site cleared while the big excavator was around. Having trees cleared for out home felt selfish and I remember feeling physically disgusting when I first pulled up and the contractor had already started swinging his huge boom around, knocking trees down and ripping them up out of the earth. One of the considerations for our house was a desire to damage ecology as little as possible. Thankfully, all of the trees that ended up coming out were less than 10 years old (most of the land had been logged 8 years back). 

Once the site was clear, the builder in me wanted to take over the reigns from the designer. After a couple more big design changes, I submitted the plans for a permit, and started groundbreaking within a week of receiving it.

Mostly, I've been working alone. I've had Mike's help on Saturdays, which has been great. I had a fun painting session with my father, danielle, and Leo one day. And our friends Gray and Ben have both been out to help a couple times. Thanks to all! Here is what has happened:

There are big concrete "footings" below ground level that I dug the holes for, and then had a concrete truck come to pour. What you see in the photo are the piers that I then poured on top of the footing, in these home-made forms.

The piers will hold the house up off the ground, and the footings below them will spread the weight of the house out across the subsoil. I kept spraying the concrete for a first day to prevent it from curing too quickly in the heat.

I find great beauty in a well-stacked pile of lumber. This is some rough-cut pine that I had sawn at the local sawmill down the road. It will be our house's siding some day.

I started to construct the floor system one piece at a time, leveling each part as I went.

The piers are all the same size, and the ground slopes, so I used wooden "stilts" of varying lengths to level everything out.

You can see here how each stilt is notched to allow the beam to sit on it.

Getting somewhere....

All the floor joists are in! Time for the subfloor.

Half of wall #1! Some of the walls are very tall, because they extend into the second story. I built them all lying flat on the subfloor, and then lifted them up as whole units, so in some places I had to do half the wall at a time in order to be able to lift them up alone.

It was very exciting to start putting up the second floor joists. I'm looking forward to having a two-story house. I like the idea of looking onto the pond and garden from high windows.

I really delighted in designing and building the stairs! It was just the right amount of challenge, without getting too frustrating. These are just the basic skeleton for the steps, and nearer to the end of the project I will put the finished treads on and trim them out.

The house starting feeling really tall once we got these posts up and braced and it was time to lift the big triple-2x12 ridge beam up!

The bathtub will be where the little ladder is. The view from the tub will be down to the pond. I imagine taking a hot bath in the winter and watching Leo ice skating on the frozen pond.

I was out there today starting to get some roof decking up. After decking is tar paper, then purlins, then the metal roofing!

Here's the view of the house from down in the garden/pond area.

Getting the roof on is the big push right now (hopefully by the end of next week). Then I can rest easier once I know the rain is not sitting on the floor every time it rains. After roof, the rest of the walls need to be framed out, and then it's time for running the wiring and beginning to install the straw-bales. I need to begin contacting local farmers to find a source of good, tight, dry strawbales.

progress at the land

End of the driveway lean-to is complete:

A cedar post and chain gateway. It's nice to have some security, since we don't yet live there. I've been really enjoying searching through the forest for fallen cedar trees, and harvesting them for things like these posts. There are so many, and they're all beautiful. The most exciting project in the near project is a cedar dock on the pond, utilizing a lot of the funkier/livelier posts.

Got the roof on the pottery studio - the rest of it probably won't happen for a little while, but it feels protected enough now to sit:

The septic system is complete. That was terribly expensive, and we have found it depressing and frustrating that you HAVE to have a septic to be allowed to have a permitted home. I'd much rather design and install a greywater system, in partnership with a composting toilet (both of which we intend to do), and just eliminate the need for the septic system.

The most exciting news of the past week.... GROUND-BREAKING for our home! It doesn't look very exciting - just holes for the pier footings. But to see it starting to be realized is an emotional high like no other.

rebar in the footings...

I need to pour the footings, and then set these pier forms onto the footings and pour the piers...

And another little shed that will be a temporary kitchen, and long-term wood storage. Two of the walls are just stacked pallets (which will eventually get board-and-batten siding). Pallets are a good resource with which to build quickly and inexpensively.

blue blue blue!

The cottage "makeover" is almost complete, aside from deciding on what to do with the floor (tile, I'm guessing). The client chose a Sky Blue pigment for the interior lime milk paint, and it ended up changing the look and feel of the place quite a bit! I must say I miss the earth tones, and would prefer a yellow or reddish pigment if it were my own building, but it has been neat to see this building that I know so well transformed and vaulted into its next stage of life (I hope that in 10 years I can re-visit the site, and do another week of maintenance).

I'm am quite pleased with how the exterior maintenance turned out. I think the cottage looks great in white:

A creature!

The interior stonework around the woodstove had looked shabby ever since we finished the building - the stones never got properly cleaned off, and they ended up getting grouted with a clay mixture to seal up cracks during the winter... they just weren't looking very grand, as they had when they were originally stacked. So they got cleaned up, the grout lines were painted with the milk paint to cut down the dustiness, and then the whole area was sealed with a stone sealer. Now they look fresher and have a more deep, saturated look. A satisfying update!

I finally installed a desk, after 4 years of needing to - I didn't get any good shots because of how harsh the light was at the time of day that I had my camera out. 

photos...

I went out to the land yesterday to meet with the septic system contractor, and figured I'd throw up another little building that I've been dreaming about. It's just a simple lean-to at the end of the driveway. It will function as a dry spot to use tools in if it's raining, during the framing process of the house. And once the house is complete, it will be a spot to store a wheelbarrow (for getting groceries from the car to the house), stroller, bikes, extra firewood, and other such things.

There seems to be quite a bit of fallen cedar in the woods, ready for harvesting! Cutting through a cedar log is one of the prettiest, and best-smelling parts of country carpentry.

Tulip poplar from the forest.

didn't quite finish with the metal roof before the day ended...

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Today I built another little roof, this one here at the Carlton Project. The back entrance will be a lot dryer during a rainfall.

posts in place

fancy rafter tails

oops, I forgot to trim my rafters properly and they ended up the same length as the metal (and the metal needs to overhang on each end). So I had to trim off 4 inches after they were already up, and then re-prime and paint.

Here's what the front of the addition looks like:

I framed a built-in gutter with wood, and then wrapped the hanging EPDM over this frame to create the gutter:

Here is the detail where my home-made gutter meets the store-bought downspout (it looks ugly from this view, from you don't ever see this view unless you're on a ladder or the roof):

finished all the soffit and vent details: