Wood and Stone

I traveled over the gap to Bristol today to purchase lumber to begin work on the interior window trim. To purchase anything other then either pine or lumber-yard spruce around here you've got to travel a bit to get it.

On the way I remembered there is a purveyor of stone products very near the lumber yard, so I made a stop there and checked out the various stone types that we might use for the hearth under our woodstove. While there I noticed some great granite pavers so I bought a few to complete the frostproof hydrant in the garden. I'm pleased with the result.

Home and Garden

Grading around the house

This is the water line coming through the basement wall running out the water supply in the garden

Nancy working with Scott to move the shed. We used 3" pvc pipe as rollers

Our new water supply in the garden, right near the compost pile

We've turned our attention to completing the site work and grading around the house--finally. For months I've been anticipating filling in all the hollowed out areas and leveling out the rough stuff and having real topsoil rather then hard clay for a lawn.

This work started off two evenings ago by moving our shed for the second time. We moved it back in the spring sometime and felt like that was a good decision, but have since decided to move it again to allow for easier parking. Our pal Scott from down the road came to our rescue with his Kubota tractor and pulled the shed to its new home between ourselves and our uphill neighbor. We need to tweak it, but its a good move.

This morning Mac -- excavator extraordinaire -- showed up to do complete the site work. The first project was digging a trench from the house to the garden so we could lay in a water line for a standpipe water supply in our garden. This went pretty smoothly and he spent the rest of the day clearing up the general area around the parking, the west wall and also took out the massive stump that was right near the yurt. Things are looking pretty slick.

Changes and fixes

This photo shows the original framing removed from over the large living
room windows. The open space was soon filled with a header and new framing

The "real" post that replaces the temporary
one we'd had in place for a few months

This photo shows the framing for a larger window which
will replace the small one currently installed

Over the last week or so, Joe and I have continued building in the secondary walls throughout the house. The work has gone smoothly and as fast or faster then I might have imagined. Usually it is the other way around.

Along the way we've made some fixes and changes as needed. In looking at a reference book I've been using, I noticed a qualifier to something which I hadn't questioned. If you recall, there are no headers over the windows located on the gable-end walls because they are not carrying any load other then the weight of the walls themselves. Well, it turns out that this works just fine, but IF the window or door in question is over 4 feet wide, there should be a header.

D'oh!

I don't think this would have been a big deal, but I was glad to have seen this note when I did because it was easy for us to add headers to the two windows to which this criteria applied.

We installed the permanent post that replaces the temporary one which has been in place since the fall. It's a nice looking post. We might do more decorative work to it at some point, but for now it's just going to do it's job of holding up the second floor at the turn of the stairwell.

Another change was to the window on the second floor. Nancy and I decided on the size and configuration of one particular set of window in haste and once they arrived and we installed them we decided that we'd arrived at something a little too small. So, Joe and I framed out an opening for a larger window which we'll install once I chase down the window company and get our new one on order. It'll be a much more pleasant view and light for the second floor once the new window is in place. It looks out over the garden and we look forward to coffee and tea looking out on fruits of our gardening work.

The south end wall

Today we kicked in with the south end gable wall and made excellent progress. With only a whisper of rain the weather was chilly, but good. Word is there was snow at Stowe and thought maybe I saw some coming down up around Mount Ellen, thought its hard to say. Flurries are in the forecast for tonight and we just lit our first woodstove fire of the season.

To cut the notches on the end rafters Joe pulled out his 16" (415mm) Makita timber saw. Impressive machine, huh?

Tomorrow we put on the clapboard and stand 'er up.

Home: Present Tense

For the last six years we've lived in a yurt. It's been an excellent home, and we've learned a lot about the land we are on, what we like in a "house", and what we'd like to have that we currently do not.

The yurt started out as an experiment. We'd been living in Boston and were both eager to move to the country. Having both just read the Nearing's "The Good Life" we were inspired to shape lives that included growing food and living more closely to the rhythms of the seasons. My parents were game to let us put up a yurt on a piece of their land and so we went ahead and built a the yurt. (See the process here.) Instead of buying a kit, we researched, designed and built it as a team with the help of lots of friends. It was a great learning experience and we got a feel for our individual strengths and weaknesses, which we will be employing again going into the house building process.

Folks often credit us with living "sustainably", but that's never really been the goal per se. It's more that we've just done whats felt interesting. The fact is we live in one of the most poorly insulated homes I'm aware of -- not really sustainable. We aim to make amends in that area with the new house.

The yurt is roughly 480 sq. ft. Its been a pretty cool experience to figure out how to live in this little space. With very few exceptions, its been easy, comfortable and fun. We like to joke that we have the biggest living room of anyone we know. And the biggest bedroom. And the biggest kitchen, etc... since its all one room. We've honed the space into something that feels good. That said, we don't have enough room for guests, we have to schlep a lot of stuff in and out to the garage, and there is no running water-hence no real bathroom. We head down to my parent's place to do dishes, takes showers, fill up water containers and such.

Having lived here for a while we've established a bountiful garden and have really settled into this place. Its a privilege to have the opportunity to build a house here and know that we'll be here for the long run.