Boothe Mountain Retreat

The CO .... we are done .... kind of

2009-06-25T08:57:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago we finally had the final inspection. It felt like the day that I turned in my PhD dissertation. Lots of work for many years and even more stress waiting to see if I would pass. The inspector came by for a visit and was there for about 20 minutes. He was and has been great to work with. Other than a few minor items he said we were good to go and to call him in a few days to sign off on the permit after we did the hour of fixes.

We added an outlet on the back of the house, pulled together documentation on the safety film on the windows and put some returns on the stair rails. The inspector showed up for his final visit about 5 minutes before a had a conference call and left with about a minute to spare. Not to gloat ... but you will notice no marks in the middle or failed inspection column. I was shooting for a perfect record but did not plan on getting one.

The house is nowhere near complete but we figure that we have at least 3-4 decades left to work on it, but at a slower pace. Watch for more updates in the near future now that there is more time to blog.

$100 Quarter Sawn Oak Front Door

2009-03-03T07:12:00.008-05:00

I have been meaning to do a post about our front door for a while. The door has been a project I have been working on for several months on and off. For the house addition we decided to site-build all of the doors. This includes the 12 interior doors. These are more akin to furniture with the amount of finish work that has gone into them.

The door is quite large but the scale is perfect for our porch. It measures in at 4 feet x 8 feet, not including the casing or side lights and is made entirely out of quarter sawn oak that we cut on site. The door is so heavy that I used 5 hinges to hang it. For more about the quarter sawing you can check out a previous post.

When you go into any big box store you can order up the large "custom" entry doors. They come in a variety of woods and wood looking fiberglass. They can run upwards of $5,000 for a fully custom door. Our only expense was some custom insulated glass panels from Clear Vue Glass in Durham and the finish. Okay ... while the door itself may have only cost under $100, my overall investment (including the shop, sawmill, tractor etc) raises the cost of the door.

The following picture provides a good example of the quarter sawn oak that we were getting out of our logs. It is fairly labor intensive, but the process gives you a great grain pattern and a stable product. The rails and stiles are actually laminated, or made up of two 3/4 inch boards glued together. This results in less warpage and allows you to use regular 4/4 stock instead of starting out with 8/4 stock. We used the standard dark stain formula that I came up with several years ago after doing a lot of sampling of different stain mixtures. It is the same stain that we are using on the interior trim and some furniture.

The interior is still lacking its final trim. The ultimate plans are to add some stained glass in the top window and the side lights, but that will have to wait until we get the stained glass materials out. You can see an amber stained glass fixture above the door. As it works out, and one could even say as planned, it is perfectly framed in by the window in the door as you walk up to the house.

With much of the trim and wood work in the house I have tried to keep true to the wood that we have. While much of the quarter sawn boards are clear of knots, some are not. Instead of being overly selective with the boards, I routed out the few knots and placed some dutchmen so the door looks like it has been there for 100 years and has had some repairs. It is a what I call "perfectly imperfect". Gustav Stickley would have been proud.

Frank Lloyd Wright Weekend in Chicago (lots of pictures)

2009-03-03T06:43:00.006-05:00

Last summer Stephanie and I took a trip to Chicago for a long weekend. It was perfect weather, not too hot or humid. We stayed in our old neighborhood or Oak Park at the Carleton Hotel. During that time we had a chance to walk through the historic district that has numerous Frank Lloyd Wright houses, including his home and studio.

Within walking a few blocks you can get a glimpse of the evolution of his designs, from late Victorian styles (Gale house),

to his shingle-clad home and studio, to my favorite Oak Park design where he started hiding the front door and turned the houses 90 deg on axis to make them sit wide on their lots.

A striking house that sits across the street is the Moore House that he originally designed in 1895 and then redesigned it in 1929 after a fire. It is a Tudor style with this tall wide chimneys. It was a perfect Sunday morning for a walk.

A few days later we had a chance to tour the Robie house. The house is located on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. We took the Red line and transferred to the bus. After a quick burger at the Woodlawn Tap we walked a few blocks to the house. It is currently undergoing restoration, but it is still a sight to see. It sits on the corner and overlooks former prairie which is now university buildings.

Once again there is the hidden front door motif. This time it was to the left and around the corner.

Part of the attraction of this house was that Stephanie had just finished reading Wright 3 to our sons, Jacob and Joshua. In the book one of the main characters, Tommy, lives in the apartment next door (as seen the in the photo).

All in all it was a great weekend, and yes we did do a lot more than take pictures of FLW houses.

Rough-in Complete - July 2008

2009-02-26T06:38:00.009-05:00

June and July were busy months at Boothe Mountain Retreat. We spent most of the time working on the rough-in activities, along with siding. This included over 1200 feet of radiant tubing (1/2 inch PEX) stapled under the second floor (you can see Jeff having a good time at this!). For the addition we used floor trusses instead of standard 2x material which created plenty of openings for plumbing, duct work, electrical etc. I do not think we would ever go back to traditional floor framing. Not only were they easy to use, the members were nearly the same cost as 2x8 or 2x10 floor joists.

All of the tubing was affixed to the subfloor using site pressed aluminum flashing. You can purchase the trasfer plates but it is easier to make them and it saves a lot of money. We used standard flashing rolls and made a press using short sections of the tubing screwed to scrap subfloor (postive) and then a negative portion of of the press was 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch OSB that cooresponded with the tubing. The nice thing is that you can move the tubing around on the press to adjust the spacing and any reasonably weighted person (>100 lbs) can crank these out. Jeff's 13 year old son Christian got fairly proficient at the process.

There was a lot of work that went into connecting the addition to the original timber frame portion of the house. Here you can see the step up into the 10x10 portion of porch that we enclosed as a connector. It is at the same elevation as our current playroom for the kids and does a lot to tie the buildings together. It has a fairly low ceiling (~7-6) and it helps to highlight the expansiveness of the 10 ft ceilings in first floor of the new addition. Frank Lloyd Wright used these technique in his designs as saw it as a "birthing process." One of the first places I saw this was in the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison WI. It was an un-built design of his that was finally realized around 1992. There is this hall that takes you into the main room overlooking the lake. There is a transition from a hall with 7 ft ceilings to over 30 ft in the main room.

Here you can see the view from the front sitting area of the addition. This is the one spot where we used timber framing. It is an 8x8 post that carries the corner of the second floor. Once again, the open floor trusses allowed for fairly easy HVAC duct work, central vac and other rough-in.
The concrete floors were still unfinished but they look great now (future blog entry).

One of the great spaces is the 3rd floor attic. It started as walk up attic storage but while I was finishing the plans for the house we increased the roof pitch and added 14 ft wide dormers on each side. The ceilings go from 9+ feet in the center of the room to 7-6 at the dormer ends. We ran water lines, the stack, central vac, internet etc up there so it will be fully functional someday. I had some extra wire so we ran a switch from the first floor to one of the attic outlets. We plan on installing a whole house fan to help with cooling in the spring and fall.

We insulated with spray foam but since the attic was a walk-up the county inspectors required us to spray the foam with fire-proof paint which was going run $1/sq foot. Our dry wall was running around $0.60/sq foot for materials and installation/finishing so it was a no brainer to install dry wall. This was the impetus for us to do a complete wiring job in the attic so we could trim the windows and put some flooring down in the future to have another floor of the house. Now that is a bonus room.

The "2 week till done" Time Continuum

2009-02-25T07:06:00.008-05:00

Fear not .... the progress has not stopped on our house addition. We are finally in that "two weeks till done" time warp. We planned on calling for our final inspection before the end of the year (2008) since we had family coming for a visit and we were unable and unwilling to put them up in the pop-up camper two trips in a row. Our visitors decided that they did not want to rush us on the house, and they probably realized that we were not close to being done, so they postponed their visit till spring. Also, the world economic meltdown caused a slight change in plans for the spend on the work. During the second half of the year we were waiting for our home equity line of credit to be frozen. So in the true fashion of drunken sailors on shore leave we (smartly) spent almost all the money under the equity line and purchased most of the items needed to finish the addition, except for labor. So Jeff, our one full time helper, finished up what he could and was off to some new jobs in December. So it is back to the home improvement solo show.

The silver lining of this is that we feel that the project is more under control and since it is governed by cash on hand instead of check book tied to a line of credit. We are now to a short list of projects that are needed to get the CO (certificate of occupancy) but that leaves out the Stickley styled builtins, coffered ceilings and custom cabinets. The pace is nice. I spend an hour in the morning working on a small project and then 3-4 hours in the evening trying to knock something off the list. As you can see in the above picture that was taken this morning, the place is coming together. The front "lawn" is seeded and strawed, just waiting for some warmth and rain. Now we are only "two weeks" away from finishing.

Stay tuned for more regular updates and some "vintage" shots covering the work since the early fall.

First fire of the season....

2008-09-25T17:37:00.002-05:00

The AC has been off for a week or two and the nights have been getting cooler. Today was windy with a daytime high in the high 50's. This coincided with the near completion of our hard wood floor installation so it was time ... time for the first fire of the season in our soap stone stove. I had been saving all the small scraps of quarter sawn strip flooring just for this. It will probably be too warm in here in a few minutes, but we can open the windows. Fall is here, even if only for just a few days so far.

Spray Foam Insulation - Video

2008-09-06T06:22:00.002-05:00

Goodbye Mr. Pink and Hello to Mr. Foam

2008-09-03T19:24:00.008-05:00

It seems like everywhere you look there is a push for all things "Green". If you go to the big box store there are green items in every isle. People with 6000 sq ft houses talk about being green. I guess we are actually doing something popular without knowing it. Much of the materials, almost all the wood in the original timber frame structure came from within several hundred feet of the house footprint. Trees came down, they were milled onsite, dried in the solar kiln and then put into service in the house (flooring, trim, cabinets, timbers, decking, ceiling etc.). When it came to insulating the frame we went with the old cost effective standard which is fiberglass insulation … not very green. In addition to making you itch like crazy when installed, the manufacturing of the insulation takes a lot of energy to melt and spin the glass into fibers and then it is backed with a tar coated paper and coated with formaldehyde.

We decided to look into alternatives. Being that it was July in North Carolina and having one of our two small AC units not working, we were okay with spending a little more money to dramatically increase our heating and cooling efficiency. I called our friend Jack who turned a drafty 1920 barn into a house since he was on top of the different types of insulation from denim bats to SIPs panels, to blown in cellulose to spray foam. He used soy based spray foam and has had electricity bills this summer that were around $39/month while using central air. He did comment that he had his bill spike a few months ago in the high $50’s. Sounds like a bad problem.

I called Tu Nguyen at Healthy Home Insulation to see what it would cost to insulate our house. Jack used Healthy Home Insulation to insulate his barn and had nothing but good things to say about working with Tu and his product called Icynene. The great thing about Icynen spray foam is that it is CFC free and uses water at the propellant. We had a traditional contractor bid on fiberglass insulation and Icynene was only $1,500 more and the entire envelope of the house would be sealed. This includes the walk up attic (look for the future posting about the real “Bonus Room”) so it was a no brainer.

Tu and his crew showed up last Monday morning and they were finished a day later. This included covering all the windows, spraying the foam, trimming it down, sealing around the windows and cleaning and bagging the trimmed foam. I was able to get a video of DJ spraying the first foam. It was amazing how the temperature of the house started to drop as he worked his way through the house. On Wednesday we had the insulation inspection and our inspector thought it all looked great. The only problem he had was that he thought we might be too insulated and we might need to provide some ventilation with the outside. As Jack said Tu and his team were the most professional group he had out at his job site and that they were quick thorough in their work. Jack was right.

When I closed up the windows in the addition tonight after the drywall finishers left, the temperature was cooler in the addition than in the current timber frame, even though we have one of our AC units running non-stop. Jack might be right about the $39 electric bills during the summer in North Carolina. Viva la green revolution!

Quarter Sawn Oak Trim

2008-08-21T21:27:00.007-05:00

The interior of our large addition to our house is going to be a little different than the "forest" look that we have in the timber frame current portion of the house. What I mean is that there will be less wood and less Southern Yellow Pine. I said the "forest look" because Stephanie sometimes comments on the over abundance of wood with all the rough cut timbers, pine flooring, trim, pine ceiling etc. It could all be complete if we installed a wood toilet seat and one of those high end wood bath tubs ;)

So we are going for a 1910 Craftsman large bungalow interior look on the addition with more drywall but plenty of trim. If one is to execute this properly you need a lot of Quarter Sawn Oak. We are doing this the traditional way and using oak in the formal or public rooms (entry, living room and family room) and then clear pine in the bedrooms etc. It is all coming from trees milled on site. The pine is from the property and the oak is a mix of trees I cut and some that Mr. M our excavator dropped off for us a while back.

The oak is mainly Red Oak and diameters randing from 24 to 48 inch. As you can imagine this can pose a problem trying to saw up a 48 inch diameter log. This is where the quarter sawing process comes into play. First I need to quarter the log into 4 equal sections and this is done using a chain saw on the large logs. This itself can take and hour or more to rip a large logs lengthwise. Once a section is on the mill there are various ways to skin a cat or cut the quarter section. The basic idea is to have the saw blade perpendicular to the rings in the section of log, giving vertical straight grain boards. I found this great example of quarter sawn oak (to the right) at the Tree Frog Furniture blog. The ultimate goal is to end up with a bunch of boards that have been cut with the grain straight and medullary rays exposed (see the example below). These are basically the tubes that go from ring to ring in the tree. It is one of those things that when you see it you know what I am talking about. I was afflicted with an obsession about quarter sawn oak about 12 -15 years ago when I first started making Mission furniture during graduate school. It has progressed to the point where whenever Stephanie and I would move to a new town I would seek out the local small town sawyer and try and get all the quarter sawn material they had. Id even pay for the material in advance. Then it progressed to looking for the random quarter sawn oak boards in strip flooring when walking through a room or the trim in all the auditoriums that I sit in listening to endless talks.
The sawing is all done on our Lumbermate 2000 sawmill, which has paid for itself many times over. This is a completely manual mill so it requires a little work to move the logs around but for the amount I use it, it gets the job done. Instead of considering it a stand alone saw mill I see it as part of my wood shop, especially since it is permanently located at the back end of the shop. Soon it will even get some work as I cut some veneer for the interior and exterior doors I am working on for the house.The oak is stacked and stickered right off the mill and once there is a pile that is 1000 to 1200 board feet (12"X12"X1") it is placed in the solar kiln for 5-6 weeks of drying. This brings the moisture level of the wood down to 6-8% and it is ready for use.
Finally, I have the finished product which is a whack (a technical term for a lot) of quarter sawn dry boards that I can plane, edge, stain, seal and use to finish all the trim work and other furniture projects that have been started but not completed.

Some updates since May

2008-08-20T05:44:00.006-05:00

The framing is done ... yes the framing is done. Friends and family have been asking about updates to the project since we have not posted to the blog since May. While we completed the framing a few months ago, we were busy with a lot of construction activities.

Exterior- Much of the exterior is complete. We had 12 roof brackets to build and install. Three went on each gable end, two on the sleeping porch and two on each dormer. This allowed the two to four foot overhangs that we pulled from the original plans for the Gustav Stickley designed house we were going to build. Similar to the timberframe initial house that we moved into almost two years ago, we used a combination of board and batten siding and and shingles, milled from southern yellow pine and poplar trees , respectively. By mid May we had all the house wrap up and the windows installed.

Installing the siding has gone fairly fast until we ran out of shingles. We need to cut a few more poplar trees down to finish up the back side of the house and the dormers. At the same time we will cut some porch floor boards. We used a 1/4 inch crown stapler for the shingles which was a lot better than 8 penny ring

shanked nails as done before. They did not split at all and held strong. Also the stapler is a lot easier to use on the walk boards versus the nail gun. Also, a dedicated dipping station worked well for the shingles. It was comprised of a used section of metal roofing and a 10 foot section of gutter. This allows you to dip a stack of shingles and and then stand them on end in the gutter. All the excess stain/ preservative runs down the gutter into a bucket to be recycled.

The final picture is of the back corner of the house showing the sleeping porch off our master bedroom. This is my favorite view of the house addition.

Next up ... some interior activity updates and pictures

Completion of the framing

2008-05-13T19:19:00.006-05:00

The framing of the addition continued into late April. The first wall went up March 13th and the roof sheathing was on with tar paper and Tyvek by the 3rd week in April. This isn't as fast as the typical house that is a box with no overhangs. Around here a framing crew can frame one of these in a little over a week. I am okay with the 5 weeks we took since our crew is Jeff and Scott with me getting in the way on Saturdays.

The last three weeks were spent getting the roof overhangs up and the tin roof on. To tie the new addition with the timberframe portion we used 4 ft overhangs on the gable ends and 2 ft on the eaves. The gable ends are supported by 4x6 roof brackets that we cut on the sawmill. These details were taken from the Stickley 1909 plans that we were originally going to use for the house addition.

As you work your way up the house you get pretty high in the air. I am good with this, Jeff is okay with this, Scott is not so good with it. He keeps away from the edge of the roof and keeps off the extension ladder.

Jeff did a great job building these walk boards along the tall side of the house. Here you are 20+ feet off the ground. These are staying on the wall until the gable end is sided with shingles.

The Second Story or a Party Deck

2008-03-25T05:57:00.003-05:00

We are early in the 7th week of building and the second floor deck went up yesterday. All 27 sheets of 3/4 OSB T&G decking was slid up a ladder. It was a great day to be in the office. I climbed up there after work and man it is up there. We decided to go with 10ft ceilings on the first floor and then used 16in floor trusses between the 1st and 2nd floors so the height is huge.

In the picture on the right you will notice the timber element that we used to carry the 2nd floor corner of the house. The roof will come off of that corner to create a bumped out area that is in the same plane as the front porch.

One of the workers thought we should maybe just use the floor as a party deck, given the size of it and the views. We placed the master suite on the second floor mainly for the views. Our house sits on the edge of a steep hillside so when you are perched up there you can see a lot. We will be able to look over the pond and into surrounding woods. Now I can't wait to see the views from the 3rd floor attic dormers.

As mentioned we are barely 7 weeks into this project. It is amazing how fast things are going. I spent last night getting the finances up to date with some credit cards due. I guess it proves that if you throw money at something it will get done faster. With the timberframe house I did a majority of the work myself and saved a lot of money, but it also took almost 2 years of 40+ hrs a week on top of my full time job. We just couldn't do that again.

The 2nd floor wall framing will start Wed and I'll start framing the porch roofs on Saturday. Getting the attic floor in place along with the rafters will be fun given the height. We are doing 9 ft ceilings on the 2nd floor. It might be time to rig up another gin pole. I guess there are some timberframe techniques that can be applied to modern stick framing.

Egg Hunt at the Building Site

2008-03-23T20:05:00.003-05:00

Easter Sunday was pretty much a day of rest at Boothe Mountain Retreat. We got home from church and decided that the building site would be a great place to hide 100+ plastic eggs filled with candy. We are a little over a week into framing and the first floor is done so that provided lots of hiding spots. The only thing, Ill bet Josh and Jacob did not find all the eggs. Jeff and Scott, our two workers, will enjoy finding some eggs on Monday.

We worked a little over a half day on Saturday. The guys were pretty beat. They put in close to 50 hours of framing this week. All the floor trusses are up except for a 10 ft section that will be supported by 8x10 timbers and an 8x8 column. We got the timbers up just after lunch on Saturday and the guys split. It was nice getting the timber framing tools out again. We chose to place a timber element in the addition to tie the new part with the timber frame current house. You can see the timbers in place as Jacob looks for some eggs in the braces.

After the egg hunt we set up some OSB cut off on some saw horses for a makeshift table and covered it with a table cloth. It was our first dinner in the new addition.

While the rest of the family rested I back filled the back portion of the foundation and cleaned up the place a bit for tomorrow. All in all it was a good day.

Back Into Some Timber Framing

2008-03-16T20:19:00.006-05:00

With the first floor stick framing of our house addition moving forward, it became evident that I needed to get going on some timber frame elements that are in the plans. We decided for time purposes that we were going to stick frame the addition, unlike the original section of the house that we currently live in. It is all traditional timber frame jointery cut by hand with minimal use of power tools by yours truly. It took the better part of 4-5 months to cut the joints working nearly 7 days and ~ 40 hrs a week in addition to family obligations and my day job. Given the addition is 2-3 times the size of the current place, we decided to rule out the jointery but instead place a few elements to tie things together.

The original idea for the pole barn (recently nearly completed) was to provide open covered space for timber frame projects and woodworking, and this was the first weekend for timberframing.

It was great to have everything under one roof, including the sawmill and logs since we had showers on and off. I cut the 3 timbers Friday night and Saturday morning and got them into place in the shop. They are going to provide support for a corner of the addition that is open to an enclosed, bumped living space. It is a an 8x8 column with two 8x10 beams coming off the column to make the corner. The main joint is a housed mortise that will be pegged. It will also have braces.

When I put the timberframe tools away a couple of years ago I sharpened and oiled them so things were ready to go. It did not take long to get back in the groove and the timbers fresh off the mill cut like butter. It is all Southern Yellow Pine that has been down for a year but surprisingly there is no spalting or real bug damage. This is the pile of logs that I cut when clearing for the barn. The remainder will be used for the house project and to finish the barn.

My youngest son Jacob joined me in the barn. What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I am going to sleep well tonight.

Busy days at Boothe Mountain Retreat

2008-03-13T18:19:00.008-05:00

Today was a big day at BMR ... but first I need to catch you up.

As noted in the previous post, we got our plans approved on Feb 10th for our much awaited house addition. That was just over a month ago. Instead of doing the addition solo we decided to bring on a rag tag crew of two, or one, or one and one half ... depending upon who shows up each day.

Well, even so things are moving at a much faster clip than they did a few years ago when we started on the building phase of the timber frame portion of the house. We got the excavation done the weekend of Feb 10th, poured the footings on the following Tuesday (while I was in NYC) , the blocks arrived on Wed and we started the block work on Saturday. My crew (jeff and scott) laid about 3.5 cubes of block the following week while I was at Disney with the family. They even got the parging done and much of the block filled with grout. You may see how my difficulty trips are just happening to fall during crucial times of the construction process ;)

So we are three weeks into the process and the foundation is near complete. This is a lightning speed compared to the timber frame several years ago where we got our plans approved in early Jan, excavated a week or so later, spent a few months in the mud, poured footings in April and finished the block work around Aug/Sept. That was 8-9 months not 3 weeks!!! wooo hooo. (Note to self: Laying 1200 block all summer does not prove anything other than it is cheaper to get some help than to pay 3 extra months on the lot loan.)

The last two weeks were spent damp-proofing the walls, laying pex for radiant heat (I did that for the most part), preparing the under slab plumbing etc. This was all the fun stuff.

So a month after getting the plans and 4+ passed inspections the pex was pumped and the place was ready for one big concrete pour. We decided to call in Tony and his crew of co-workers to help with the pour. We did the slab in the barn and while it is nice for a barn, it would not make a nice house slab. Tony et al did the slab for the lower level of the timber frame a few years ago and he outdid himself this time.

People all mustered between 8 and 9 am and the first of 3 trucks arrived at 10 am. I was down for the count with the flu and only half of my crew (Jeff and Scott) showed up since Jeff called with a kitchen pass that morning. By 6:30 pm all were gone and we had a slab that you could see your reflection off of the next morning. We rented a power trowel and it sure did the job. After bull floating the surface we just let it set up for a while and then hit it with the steel ... the steel of the gas powered trowel that is.

Fast forward two days and out framing package from Stock showed up. They used a boom crane and placed everything around the site in perfect piles. It sure beats using Lowes or Home Depot and the pick-up truck. Jeff and Scott got the sill plates in place today and the back first story wall is up.

A little faster than timber framing .... but I still love to sharpen the slick and cut into a fresh Southern Yellow Pine timber straight off the mill.

Photo credit: Joshua age 8

The house addition begins.....

2008-02-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

Friday was a busy day. We finally got our plans approved by Chatham County. They, at the last minute, needed a HVAC contractor to be listed on the permit eventhough I am taking full responsibility as an "Owner-Builder" and signed the statement that I have sufficient knowledge (with the help of Google) to perform each of the trades to code. Hey, we have been living the the "garage apartment" timber frame for 16 months and no timbers have fallen on our heads yet.

We are tripling the size of the place by adding about 2200 sq ft. Just a small addition. We are adding 3 bedrooms, taking away one to enlarge the current kitchen which will stay in the timber frame portion as a great room, adding a formal utility room or laundry (the w&d now reside in the garage which has never seen a car), two full baths, a study, a living room/galery space, a 2nd family room, a study and his and hers closets ..... oh and also a monster walk up attic with ceilings around 8-10 ft due to 2 massive shed dormers. I guess we are going big time.

We made a few different decisions this time:

1. stick frame it and not timber frame it since we want to be done a little quicker

2. we picked up Jeff for 6-12 months to help us full time and will bring in a few extra people from time to time

3. we decided to not do the full blown Gustav Stickley designed house that we had the full set of plans for and scale it back since we did not need all the space and we wanted to integrate the current structure into the grand scheme

4. do a little more finished look on the interior by using t&g souther yellow pine flooring on the second floor and quarter sawn oak trim in the main living area

We are sawing, drying and milling all the exposed wood (siding, trim, flooring, cabinetry, timber headers) on site using our fancy new shop (36x46 ft) that houses the saw mill, production planer, shaper etc.

Here is the hole we dug after one day of work. We have a lot of dirt but will use it to level out the lot since we have a decent slope.

Completing the barn (Part 1)

2007-11-23T17:52:00.000-05:00

With the long holiday weekend we wanted to try and finish up the last items on the barn punch list so we can get the building inspector out of here. The board and batten siding needs to go up, a few more 2x4 braces between the trusses and a a few more screws in the tin roof. I can only imagine what the building department thought when I pulled a permit for the barn. This is probably the only pole barn ever in Chatham County that a building permit has been pulled for. It was not a big deal since there are only 2 inspections.

To recap it is a 36x46 ft pole barn with a 4/12 roof. We set it up with the last 10 feet of the barn as a covered sawmill site. This is where we are going to keep our Norwood Lumbermate 2000 which has provided much of the timber and lumber, including trim and floors, for our timber frame house. It seems luxurious to be sawing under roof with all my tools at hand. We have about 100 southern yellow pine logs ready to cut on the mill. They came from the barn clearing. First at hand is the board and batten siding.

For the last few days I have been using the services of my two favorite helpers (Jacob,6 (L) and Joshua, 7 (R)). They do a great job emptying the saw dust bucket and tailing on the mill. They are liking the barn as much as me and have spent hours climbing ladders and swinging on the swing that we hung from the trusses.

The barn is going to be a work and staging area for our house addition which we hope to kick off in January. We enjoy our timber frame home but are starting to feel a bit cramped in 1100 sq ft of living space given we are a family of 4. If we only lived in the 1950's we would be set size wise.

Jeff and his son Christian was back on the job again. He has not been out here working since the middle of summer. Jeff is a skilled jack of all trades and he does all things construction from framing to granite counter tops. We got one of the 3 exterior walls done and have two more to do and plan on completing them tomorrow.

To be continued....

A recent comment....

2007-11-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

When you start a blog you are not sure who will be reading it. The blog started shortly after we did the raising of our timber frame house almost two years ago as a way of tracking our progress and sharing our experiences with friends and family. The unexpected reward of the blog has been the comments and interactions we have had with people who we have met through this endevour. We have developed some new friends that heard about our projects on the Internet and since then have spent countless hours answering questions, giving advice and providing a helping hand when we needed it.

Also, there have been several people who have left great comments and words of encouragement especially as our homesteading took a detour the last 18 months as my beautiful and strong wife,Stephanie, successfully took on cancer and beat it.

Here was such a comment from a few days ago....

Anonymous said...
It's funny that I came to this place to read an entry about the Grove Park Inn and Ephraim Faience Pottery but left more interested in Stephanie's recovery, and this family's seemingly therapeutic building of a home. I no longer believe it when people say - The blogosphere, welcome to the unhappiest place on Earth - there is love and joy here. It's just that oftentimes, like in the "real" world, there may be a little effort involved in finding it. Thank you for this blog! And for sharing your wonderful world with others!

AE

Back to the Front Porch

2007-09-12T20:48:00.000-05:00

The porch is now back in business. It is now finally getting cool enough at night that we are able to spend time out here reading and catching up on some email. We even get a game of cards in or some Scrabble frome time to time.

Up until now, it has been too hot at night lately to do anything out here for the past few months. Tonight it is great. It is down into the upper 60's and the bugs are making their noises in the trees. The previous posting about the porch last November showed a porch full of clutter but not any more. We have it mostly clean.

A porch is important when you have a small house. It is 400 square feet, which is about 1/3 the size of the interior space. So when it is usable it is like having an instant addition, with a few flying insects. The best part is the view. It is positioned so we look out over the pond and up the hill side. No houses to see and no lights. Just trees and pitch black darkness at night.

The best part is Stephanie sleeping on the couch under a blanket. Fall must be approaching.

Jacob's birthday cake video

2007-09-11T20:29:00.001-05:00

Our youngest son had his 6th birthday last weekend and enjoyed his cake.

The cake was a two layer white cake with strawberry icing in the middle and chocolate on the outside. It was made with love by his mom.

The Barn Project Continued

2007-09-11T20:00:00.000-05:00

Last time on BMR we were placing the roof trusses. With that complete we were able to tie everything together with the hurricane straps, apply skip sheathing and place the tin roof.

The roof came from Construction Metal Products in Statesville, NC. It is the same place we got the roof for the house. It is of the galvalume type and unpainted. We suspect that it will also sound great in the rain but there has been none (or very little) for close to a month.

Ed M. came back with the mini excavator and we ran 180 ft of conduit (2" and 1") as well as water up to the barn for modern conveniences such as 100 AMP power, water, cable phone etc. It was a long weekend where we put about 20 hrs on the rented track hoe, but it was well worth it. We also moved tons of dirt to level the place out and create a better log lot (In the picture on the right you can see some of the logs from the clearing and the log lot area). The saw mill will be housed under this end of the mill with a 36 ft wide opening for bringing logs and cut wood in and out.

With the roof on, power connected and water running it was time for lights and outlets. We ran a few 20 AMP outlets and some overhead lighting, but left plenty of room for other circuits. As we work on placing the horizontal 2x4's for the siding it is nice to have plenty of power and electricity for a box fan.

Remaining items to complete before the final inspection on the barn are the following:

1. final row of screws on the roof

2. a few lag bolts on the posts

3. 27 sheets of sheathing to go up on the walls

4. general clean up

A piece of cake.....???

Blog Alert: Thomas is back in action.

2007-08-29T20:43:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite blogs is the Massie House. It is about Thomas and his family in Kentucky who are building a large timber frame from scratch. The blog postings were MIA for the last few months but it ended up that he we too busy splitting stone that he quarried on his property or laying quarter sawn oak flooring in a herring bone pattern.

Some people have their priorities all messed up. ;)

Welcome back Thomas!

A Visit to Bob's

2007-08-29T20:01:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Stephanie and I were able to get away without the boys and we headed north about 3 hours to Roanoke VA. She had a baby shower to go to. It was a great drive because it was fairly fast and mainly back roads. Our mapquest route took us along Rte 40 along Smith Mountain Lake. Steph's parents once had a house on the lake so we were used to traveling those roads.

Once on the road and into Virginia we remembered our good friend Bob has a house (homestead) that he is building on along Leesville Lake (just below the Smith Mountain Lake dam). So we call him while on the road and planned to meet up with him on the way back on Sunday.

We first me Bob almost 2 years ago. He heard about our project on the Forestry Forum timber framing section. He offered to come one weekend and help cut some timber jointery. So we spent a cold Saturday in the basement of our soon to be house cutting away. (Bob is on the Left, I am on the Right)

He also came with his family for the weekend when we raised the frame (another cold day) and again to help out when we were making the final push before moving in last November. It was such a blessing since we were under the gun with Stephanie in the middle of chemotherapy (NB: all is well now!)

Enough back story.....

Bob and Angela's place is on 10 ac and is situated on the hill side towards the back of the property. They decided, like us, to start with a smaller guest house and later build the main house. His plans are to use insulated concrete forms for the walls with timbered King Trusses on top. Here is the guest house with the main walls ready for the pour. The peaks will be done on a second pour.

It is great to finally get to see his place and it sure brings back memories of all the hard work. We are grateful for our friends we have meet through this project, especially those via the Internet.

Placing the last roof truss (video)

2007-08-03T07:05:00.000-05:00

We placed the last roof truss on the pole barn a short while ago. Here is a video of it:

New Action Item List Get Shorter ... or Longer?

2007-08-03T06:46:00.000-05:00

The roof is on the barn ... so we are closing in on that project. Given its size (36x46 ft) it went up pretty quickly. This is the first project that I used "hired" help to work on a lot of it with me. For example, when the kids and I spent the better part of a Saturday a few weeks ago going to the Raleigh flea market and Agri Supply the guys (Jeff, Coleman and Anatole the Russian) put up the metal roof panels. Coleman and Jeff stayed up on the roof screwing the panels down as Anatole fed them to them. They did the whole thing in about a day. Jeff came back later to put the ridge cap on a clean things up.

The next step is to grade the inside since there is about a 1-2 ft drop from corner to corner. We are going to pull the upper corner down and also pull some of the dirt around from the up hill side of the barn.

Now it is time to start on a whole host of projects before the fall. We are finally going to get around to finishing up the doors in the house. At first we were going to use recycled doors from Habitat for Humanity, but it was too much of a pain to strip them. We even had friends and family work on these over one of our work weekends. Instead we are using Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) fresh from the solar kiln and SYP doors fresh from Lowes. My father-in-law may look excited to be stripping the doors but the excitement was very short lived.

Once the barn is level inside and we have some power and water run up to it, we are going to move a lot of the shop up there as well as the scooters, bikes, tractors, green wood, dry wood, planed wood, extra trim, bins of tools, mason jars of misc screws etc...

"Onward and Upward" as our good friend Ed always says......

Trusses, trusses and more trusses....

2007-07-20T20:23:00.000-05:00

When we were deciding upon building a barn there was two real options:

1) build another timber frame structure that would look really cool but take another year or two of our collective lives or;

2) build the barn as a pole barn and throw some pressure treated 6x6 timbers in the ground and attach pre-made trusses.

We went for door number 2. Since bigger barns seem better on paper we went with a 36x46 ft structure making the trusses 40 ft long (36 ft + 2 ft over hang on each end). Several months ago the trusses were delivered and the driver forgot to read the instructions which was no semi trucks. We live down a 1/4 mile winding drive that snakes around a pond etc. Over Christmas we had 3 UPS trucks needing to be pulled out by the tractor. So you may see what is coming. I get a call from Stephanie in the early afternoon. The driver tried to make it around the pond and almost became a permanent water feature. It was about 10 PM by the time the second wrecker (Big John) was able to pull the truck out and down the drive backwards. Needless to say, he dropped the trusses far from the building site.

To get them to the site, all 24 of them, we took the axle from the sawmill and ganged up 5 trusses to make one long trailer. After multiple trips we had all of them there. I understand what house movers go through.

Next to get the trusses up I built a boom extension on the front of the front end loader. It was basically a 16ft 2x10 attached to a pallet along with some cables, 2x4's and a 2x6 for stability. This contraption was mounted on the loader forks and we were good to go.

As you can see in the pictures we were able to get the trusses up pretty high without flipping the tractor. The first truss nearly came loose but after we learned the importance of tying the straps we were okay, although the pallet was falling apart by the end.

The best part was getting the trusses about 20 ft in the air and driving them into place. You gotta love home built rigging.

A picture of health ...

2007-07-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

Farmyard Update...

2007-06-29T13:58:00.000-05:00

The ducks are growing like weeds and look like they are almost full size. Unfortunately we lost one and are down to three left. About a month ago I got a call at work and Stephanie came outside and saw a 5-6 ft snake in the Chicken Tractor and it was in the process of trying to eat on of the ducks. She proceed to jump into the pen and rescued three of the ducks.

The three that are left are a blast. We moved the Chicken Tractor into the garden and fortified it. They get to take daily strolls around the garden and love to jump into a kiddie pool for a swim.

After we had the ducks for a few weeks we picked up some 2 week old guinea hens. They were given their own deluxe accommodations in the garden and have also been growing like crazy. They are supposed to dine on ticks and other bugs and given their love to peck at the ground it is no wonder they like to eat bugs. Now the big question is when to let them out since they may stay out. Guineas love to roost in trees but we are hoping they might come back to lay eggs.

First photos of the next building...

2007-06-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

We are tired of the junk laying all over our property, including the garage and storage space. So it was time to build a barn. After looking at multiple styles we decided on a pole barn with an exterior that matches our current house (wide overhangs, board and batten siding, galvalume roof).

The spot was cleared earlier this year and it yielded close to 100 logs, mostly Southern Yellow Pine.

These will be used for siding and skip sheathing as well as any other of the many upcoming projects like the timber frame addition to our house.

The barn is relatively large (36x46 ft) given our house is only 22x40. It will have an interior height of about 11 ft. One of the great features is the last 10 feet will be covered with a roof but open on 3 sides for the sawmill. We will be spoiled!!

It is amazing how quick pole buildings are to construct. My father and I spent a day digging the 17 post holes with the neighbors PTO-run post-hole digger. After a quick inspection Coleman and I placed the corner posts last Friday after work and then with the help of one other person (Jeff), the three of us got the rest of the posts up and concreted after church on Sunday.

When ever I tell Stephanie that something is going to take a few hours, that is usually "code" for it will take a day or two, and a day is a week and a week is a month. Well ... not with pole buildings. An evening after work is an evening after work!!!

We are getting prepared for the weekend when we are going to place the trusses. They will span 36 ft so there will be no interior posts. Can you say barn dance. Or even better yet roller skating rink. When the parents of my best friend growing up had a barn raising back in the early 80's I remember the skate party that they had and I also remember the tennis shoe skates that I had.

Stay tuned.......

Fell off the wagon.....

2007-06-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

Well after we got our CO on the timber frame house in November and moved in we have held off on any major projects. Most of the time was spent doing some trim work, putting in a small garden, lots of clean up, and organizing.

Stephanie continues to feel better day by day despite being done with 11 of 30 trips to the taning bed (aka radiation treatment) as a precautionary measure, we have dedcided to get started on the pole barn. We are putting up a 36x46 building that will have the same look as the house. It will house a lot of our junk, including the tractors, sawmill, wood, storage bins etc.

My father and I dug 17 post holes with the neighbors tractor (thanks Ed!) and we passed the first of two inspections.

Stay tuned and watch out for some pictures this weekend as the first poles go in the ground.

A chicken tractor for ducks.

2007-06-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

It was time to move the ducks out of the garage. They are a few weeks old and we wanted to give them a little more room to move around and build a chicken tractor.

We have read a lot about chicken tractors over the past few years. This is a mobile chicken coop and you can move around the yard or garden and it gives the chickens a clean area to run around in every time you move it.

Last weekend we spent a day or so building it. We figured we would do a dry run with the ducks and see what we need to change on it before we get chickens.

The ducks are 3-4 weeks old and really growing. They get plenty of time to swim in the kiddy pool and are developing their own personalities.

It only took them a little while to start using the ramp to go up into their nest box area. A night we lock them in the box to keep them safe from predators.

Next up we are going to get some guinea hen chicks that will free range and eat all the ticks....

No new news except ducks..... (not completely true)

2007-05-22T19:57:00.000-05:00

Since the last post in early April not much has happened on the building front. We decided to slow down and take a bit of a rest. It was also a good time to get a few things cleaned up around the house. Ever since Stephanie was diagnosed with breast cancer late last August we have been going non stop.

Her chemo is done .... the initial surgery is done .... things are looking up ... an answer to our prayers!!

Steph is getting better day by day and the place is starting to look like a home. We took some time to clean up the garage, workshop, closets, junk in the yard, the cars ... We must sound like some crazy pack rats but when everything is going crazy (e.g., major health concerns, house for sale, another house not finished, full time job, home schooling etc) it is easy to get overwhelmed with stuff ... especially when downsizing to a house that is about a third the size.

Okay ... all is getting better. During all the craziness we took the new dog back to the breeder. That was almost two months ago. So now to get to the story.

On Saturday, Josh, Jacob and I did our normal loop dive to Pittsboro to run errands. We stopped at the farm store. I can't remember the reason now but they had chicks and ducklings there and they were a week old. We called Steph on the way out to let her know the great amount of self control that we demonstrated by not buying any ducklings.

Much to our surprise she wanted to check them out, so yesterday we made a mad dash out there before they closed and 20 minutes later and about $36 poorer we were driving home with 4 ducklings between us a the supplies in the back of the truck.

They have settled in well and seem to be liking their new home except for the single duck escape today. Steph went to check on them. They are hanging out in my work area in a kiddie pool. One we trying to jump out and seemed to finally made it out. She checked around the shop and while singing Amazing Grace he came out from behind the beer cooler. What can you say.

Lots of new plans so expect lots of new posts real soon as we get back to life.....

A Visit to Cole Pottery, Sanford NC

2007-03-22T08:17:00.000-05:00

We finally had a Saturday where we did nothing ... well nothing around the house. The four of us got in the truck and drove to Sanford then Siler City and then home. It was a good half-day adventure.

Whenever I head into Sanford I need to stop at Cole Pottery. It is just before you get to Sanford and it is a great place. It is run by Neolia and Celia Cole and Neolia's grandson Kenneth George. Today Neolia and Kenneth were there. It is an old building with dirt floors covered with tar paper. The exterior is cover in vinyl siding and it is not showy. They have a back room that they are usually throwing pots. Neolia will usually have a cigarette going and Kenneth is quietly working.

It is as unpretentious as you can get. Celia and Neolia are the daughters of A.R. Cole, and the Coles are North Carolina pottery legends. (Side Note: Later that day we stopped by a small historical society/ museum in Sanford and they had pieces of Celia's and Neolia's work in display cases that were donated back in the 70's). They are very gracious and don't mind if you poke around their entire shop. They were taking a break from the potters wheels when we arrived but Neolia we happy to do a throwing demonstration for our boys.

What is amazing are the prices. We purchased about 20+ pieces and the total bill was $88. The juice cups are only $1.75 and glasses are $3. Larger vases etc can get pricy at $15 to 20 ;)

What is really great is that they will write random things on the bottom of their pieces ... everything from "Have a Nice Day" to "Buy Me" to "Drink Some Wine".

They are not the crazy George Ohr types
If you are ever near Sanford, NC I would suggest you stop and visit them.........

Houseblogging Small Group Discussion

2007-02-18T12:07:00.000-05:00

We are here in the Magnolia Lounge for the blogging small group discussion. The view is nice.

Visiting the Ephraim Faience Pottery Booth

2007-02-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

We made our annual visit to the Ephraim Faience Pottery booth yesterday. This is our favorite contemporary pottery studio. They have about 6 crafts people hand throwing, decorating and glazing all the pottery. It is stylized designs that are made in limited editions. They seem to have put a considerable amount of work into recreating the look of the old glazes and derivatives of old forms by Grueby et al.

In the second picture Kevin Hicks (pottery founder and head potter) is answering questions as people make their purchases. What is great is that a majority of the people at the pottery come to the conference and they have lots of variety to choose from along with some limited edition pieces.

This year Stephanie and I went crazy and each purchased a piece of pottery. Mine is the Star Fern with a great molted green glaze. Stephanie's was green with a yellow glaze around the top.

During the morning talk by Martin Eidelberg, a Emeritus Professor of Art History at Rutgers, he talked about the factory type production of pottery in the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1890's to 1920's and how the companies would make it look like they had craftsmen who would pursue their artistic freedom, but instead many firms would set up assembly lines where one person would throw (or even cast) the piece and another would apply details and another would glaze it. The idea was to have items that looked like they were individual pieces of art but with exacting consistency as far as the form and color go.

I think Ephraim Faience Pottery is a production shop but they allow its artists to pursue forms and designs that they like while still keeping a decent consistent quality product. As an example, a few years ago the company stopped producing art tiles when their potter who did the tiles did not want to make tiles anymore. So the company stopped offering tiles even though they were popular and I guess added to the bottom line. They could have easily had one of the other artists do the tiles.

Stoking the fire at the Grove Park Inn

2007-02-17T15:16:00.000-05:00

As the weather stays cold in the mountains they are continuing to keep the fire stoked in the main hall. With the last round of wood put on there was a round of applause.

GPI 07 - Bloggin' next to the fire in the main room

2007-02-16T12:09:00.000-05:00

We made it to the Grove Park Inn and the 20th Annual Arts and Crafts Conference last night after a long trip. It was supposed to be a 3.5 hr drive from Chapel Hill and we decided at the last minute to come one night early. Stephanie called and secured the room and all was set. The only problem was that I was in NYC for a conference Monday through Wednesday and my flight Wednesday night was cancelled. They offered to rebook the flight for Saturday evening. Normally it would not be a problem to spend a few extra nights enjoying NYC but we needed to head for the hills, or the mountains the the case may be.

After a night in a hotel next to Penn Station my coworker and I took a slow train back to North Carolina and after about 10 hrs on an overbooked train we got in around 7PM last night.

When Stephanie and I got to the GPI around 10:30 we were very surprised to find out that we got a room in the elusive main inn. It is the original section that has original figures and furniture by Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters. To be fully transparent, some of the case work was made by the White furniture company in North Carolina and then the Roycrofters applied their hardware.

There are only 150 rooms in the old section and they tend to be difficult to get. We figured out that it had to do something with us leading a small group discussion on Houseblogging on Sunday. Thanks Bruce!!!

As I type this entry they just stoked the fire and put some more logs on it. It is an enourmous fireplace with an opening that is 6 ft tall and about 12 ft wide. There is no better way to spend a "cold" afternoon or evening in the mountains.

Well it is time to plan the remainder of the day and figure out which sessions to go to. Feel free to leave me a comment if there is something that you would like us to cover over the next few days as we roam the place with computer and camera in hand.

Joel and Stephanie

A clean MRI and a whack of logs.....

2007-02-07T19:01:00.000-05:00

Stephanie finished 24 weeks of chemo last Tuesday and had a final MRI on Wednesday and a few days ago we got the results back. The report came back clean. Yes that is correct .... clean. We are so blessed and it is an answer to prayers. In one sense it has been one bad fall and winter but we also have learned how we are blessed with friends and family .... and incredible network of support.

If you can see from this picture and the one from the previous one that Steph has a full head of hair, while it is short it is full.

Okay, since this is a house blog we need some building content.

We fired up the sawmill and Coleman has been cutting wood the past few days while I am at work. He cut 2000 linear feet of 1x4's for a friends roofing project. It was a great way for him to get him back into the swing of things after about 4 months away from the mill.

The night of our good news about the MRI we decided to get the ball rolling regarding our proposed pole barn to store all of our junk under including the pair of pickup trucks and tractors. It is amazing the "tools" you accumulate when building a house. I started drawing the 4 pages of plans using Powerpoint around 8 PM and submitted them to the county building department the next morning. It was a lot easier process the second time around. We should break ground in a week or two. It is going to be 36x46 feet. Nothing fancy, just pressure treated 6x6's and pre-fab trusses.

The big news today is that the log ferry left us a present today. I got home from work and we had 24 logs in three nice piles. The large tree is a red oak in four or five 8.5 ft sections. It was about 36 to 40 inches on the the butt end. The logs are knott free. There are also smaller white oak and elms.

Well the log ferry actually was Ed M., our good friend who has been helping us along the way as we built our house. He is 80+ years old, still runs equipment, and knows a thing or two about everything.

This should provide us with a few days of milling and some nice quarter sawn oak.

Thanks Ed.

P.S. He has another lot to clear shortly and we should be getting another whack of logs. Bring em' on!!!

With a new saw in hand it is back to the lumberyard...

2007-01-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

We headed back to the "lumber yard" on Saturday. With a new chainsaw in hand (more on that later) we decided to start working our way around the house taking out the dead and dying pine trees. They ranged in size from about 12 inches in diameter to 20+ inches. It has been about a year since I took a tree down and now there are a lot more tagets to hit when a tree goes the wrong, way with the house complete and two tractors and a solar kiln.

The final tree of the day was about 90 ft tall and after counting the rings we found out it was about 90 years old. Stephanie and the boys spent the time on covered porch and just before the tree went down the boys ran to the basement.

Taking down this tree was pretty technical (for me that is). The solar kiln and 1941 Farmall were directly behind the tree and the house was about 40 ft to the right. We had a 15 ft wide path for the tree to fall down to keep it from getting hung up into any trees. If the initial notch in the tree is too large (about 1/2 into the tree instead of 1/3 of the way) the tree can fall backwards. Don't how I know this. Having the tree turn on its stump and go to the right or left is a lot harder to do so the house was pretty safe, but this has also hapened to me before. Finally, the entire base of the tree was surounded by slabs from the saw mill so we needed to cut a lot of that up to create a good escape route.

Well to make a long story short ... the tree fell exactly as planned. Woo hoo. I guess practice makes perfect.

Stephanie was pretty happy that all the trees came down safely and that she would have me around for another day. Before I cut these big trees down I always think about how this is the one thing that I do around here that has the best chance of killing me.

After limbing the big tree we called it a day. Joshua and Jacob proceeded to make play forts and a castle in the tops of the trees and spent a good portion that afternoon and today climbing on the logs.

About half of the logs made it down to the sawmill thanks to the new Jinma tractor with bucket mounted forks. I used to be so proud of the log draging abilities of the 20 hp Farmall but now with the forks on the 45 hp tractor a lot more can be done. I am still getting used to being able to move log after log by picking them up (1-4 at a time) and carying them to the mill and stacking them. Sorry Farmall.

Jacob also spent part of the day making water bombs with ziplock bags. He had a blast tossing them off the porch as we tried to convince him to not trow them after our new dog Gustav.

Okay, now to the new chainsaw. I have purchased my previous saws off of ebay and have had to do a lot of work to keep them going. The first was a Stihl 046 which I used for our old chainsaw mill. It is a beast and is overkill for the size trees around here. I also picked up an older 029 for small work. Both saws are currently on the fritz. Over the holidays I ordered a Husqvarna 353 from Baileys. The power to weight ratio on the saw is great. With a sharp chain it is all I need for most of the trees aound here. It feels like it is about half the weight of the 046 and will make a great saw for around the saw mill and to take into the woods. One of the future projects I would like to do is to make a tool rack for the back of the tractor for holding a cant hook, shovel and chainsaw, but that will have to wait for another day.

Well, now with all these logs and some milling to do I need to decide what to do with the lumber before I get going on the sawmill.

Our new security system.......

2007-01-04T21:06:00.000-05:00

Anyone going to the 20th Annual Arts and Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn in Feb?

2007-01-03T14:11:00.000-05:00

I just got word that there will be a small group discussion regarding house blogs at the 20th Annual Arts and Crafts Conference at the GPI in Asheville NC Feb 15-18. A while back I emailed Bruce Johnson, the head of the conference, and asked him about house blogs at the conference and he asked if I wanted to lead a small group discussion on the topic. It should be fun.

The items to be covered will be 1) selected house blogs at houseblogs.net, 2) background on the houseblog movement, 3) how to start your own houseblog.

If you are planning on going to the conference and would like to join in the discussion, blog at the conference, help lead the discussion or meet up leave me a comment with some contact info.

See you at the Grove Park Inn.

Copper Rain Chain

2007-01-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

When we were first planning and building our house the two guys that we got our land from were anti gutters. Dave, the more eco friendly of the two, felt that the way gutters direct water from the roof to a single point would lead to water accumulation and erosion.

After a few rain showers we realized that we would need a gutter on the porch side of the house. With a good rain and a breeze the first few feet of the porch gets a good mist. This is a problem when you want to sit out and enjoy the rain on the tin roof.

To keep with the design of the house using galvanized metal surfaces on the exterior (galvalum roof, galvanied RLM light fixtures and conduit) we used a custom fabricated 6" galvalum half-round gutter with aluminum rafter end gutter hangers.

Instead of the traditional down spout we went wwith a copper rain chain. It is not actually a chain but a series of 4 inch cups that filter the water down to a catchment basin that is piped into the woods. The basin was filled with fist and larger sized rocks that we collected from the "lawn" (aka muddy grass area around the house). Now that the copper has a good patina started it is great to watch. The pictures herewithin do not do it justice. Even after a rain the water continues to cascade down the chain as the roof and gutter drains of its last rain shower.

While the rain chain cost was 50% of the overall gutter system cost I would highly recommend it to others. We got ours gutters and chain from a local firm that fabricates architectural metal work.

P.S. Joshua and Jacob love to climb around the outside of the porch as we spend lazy "winter" mornings eating breakfast outside. We still have to move the last of the tools and wood off the porch and get the extra wood-burning stove hooked up out here along with our vintage Chicago porch swing and we will be in good shape.

Changing of the guard

2006-12-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

When we were planning the house in the woods we expected that we would finish the house in time for our dog Jefferson to live out his last few years in the woods with us. Stephanie and I got him shortly after we were married 12 years ago as a puppy.

He has been the silent participant in all of our moves (Madison WI to Richmond VA to Boston to Chicago to Durham NC and to Chatham County NC). Well he almost made the move to Chatham. We boarded him at the vet while we moved about 12 miles to our newly completed (aka we have the CO and can move in even though all is not complete) timberframe home. This was back in October. We closed on our old house in the morning and that evening as I was unloading the pickup truck of a few odd and ends when I got a call from Stephanie that the vet just called the Jefferson had a kink in his stomach and had bloat. It seemed to happen by chance. We really had no option but to put him down. It was a very sad ending to a happy day. He was at our side during the construction but did not make it there for the first night in the house. We buried him next to the pond that night under the lights of the pickup. It was like a scene from a David Lynch movie.

Fast forward to two weeks ago last Tuesday. We have a new addition to our family. His name is Gustav ("Gus") and came from a family in a nearby town. Steph saw a picture of him and his litter-mates while getting a chemo treatment and got him as a Christmas surprise for our family. Gus has been a lot of work but so has everything else related to our timberframe project. He is still small enough (8 weeks old) to got about anywhere (Lowes, under the clawfoot tub, under our bed etc). He has lots of energy but also likes to sleep. It has been nice during this week off watching Gus run around the property and trail along with Joshua and Jacob our two boys who are also continuing to explore around the land.

An interesting post to share.....

2006-11-24T21:02:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time on different websites deditcated to timber framing and sawmills. I ran across this post tonight on the Forestry Forum and felt that others might want to read it. It is especially meaningful since we just completed our own new "old cabin" and wonder what the kids will think of it want to do with it during our final days...

Landrand in Norther Mighigan said:

"I have a 20'x24' stick built cabin on 25 acres in Northern Michigan that was built by my dad back in 1941. He built the camp when he was 15 years old. Although it isn't much, I consider it quite an accomplishment for a 15 year old. On this property I have a portable sawmill and have been cutting timbers to build a Timber Framed house. While cutting the timbers for the last 4 years, I've practically been living in the old cabin. Since the cabin is in very rough condition, I always thought it wouldn’t be worth the time, effort, and money to fix it up. I've been planning to build a house on this property and tear down the old shack. Since my elderly dad knew someday I'd tear down the cabin and make room for the house, he'd often tell me to wait till he died before tearing it down. One day last year, I was sitting in the old building having a few beers, when I thought it would be a shame to demolish this old relic. The memories of spending summers at the cabin, my parents and friends gathering to play cards, and all the locally caught fish grilled on a wood cook stove persuaded me to forgo my initial plans and save the shack. Six months before my dad passed away, I told him I was going to fix it up rather than take it down. The smile this old, sick man gave me was heartwarming. Since I've been planning to build a Timber Frame, I thought putting some sort of TF roof system on the cabin would be a good learning experiment. Since the roof leaks profusely and is quite rotted, I'll need to totally rip off the old roof. The existing rafters were spruce poles with a top diameter of 1.5". The 2x4's complementing rafters were added about 30 years ago to help hold it up. It's amazing how this roof held the Northern Michigan snow load for the last 65 years. The walls are uninsulated stick built with small spruce poles spaced 20" on center. Again, 2x4's studs were added to the walls 30 years ago so cheap paneling could be applied to the walls. Therefore, the walls should be very strong with a studs spaced somewhere around 10"-12" apart. The top and bottom plates consist of a single rough cut 2x4's and the outside is sheathed with 1" thick rough cut boards and tar paper.Although I've been studying Timber Framing for the last several years, I'm a newbie with no TF or building experience. What are your thoughts, recommendations for timber framing a new roof for this old cabin? Since I have all the pine timbers and plenty of 1" and 2" boards already cut, it shouldn't be too expensive. My initial thoughts were to beef up the top plates with some kind of timber. I wouldn't mind increasing the height a foot or so. Then perhaps principle rafters (king post) spaced every 6 feet. Or should I just stick with rafters and a ridge pole spaced 2' oc. In addition to the timber rafters, I plan to nail 1" T&G pine to the roof and insulate it as well. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated."

Bedroom window is open and it is 33 degrees outside....

2006-11-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

Just headed to bed and we are sleeping again with the window open in the bedroom. It is going to hit a low of 33 degrees tonight. We consider ourselves pretty eco conscious so how come we do this.....

Okay it all started with purchasing acres of wood land. Then we got a sawmill. The bane of a sawmill owners existence is the off cut wood. We got piles and piles of wood. Some of it is poplar, some southern yellow pine, some fruit wood, some beech and some oak .... but we got tons of it.

So we went and got one of them soap stone stoves (Woodstock Soapstone Stove Co.). It is a small stove but does it throw out the heat. Not the heat like my parents buck stove did in the 70's and 80's but still some BTUs. It is an even heat that lasts and lasts ... about 8-10 hrs per load of 2-3 pieces of hardwood. I tell you the wood does not go quietly into the night.

So the house gets up to 75+ degrees and that is why we sleep with the windows open. It is like early spring all winter ... nights with a cool breeze as you sleep.

Warm rooms with open windows and nice breezes .... and no guilt of adding to the energy crisis. BTW, it has a catalytic combuster that allows it to burn real clean.

Since I am in bed I am not taking the time to shoot pictures of the stove tonight but here is what we got ... less the dog and the fancy fireplace opening.

Extreme Home Makeover - Slow Edition

2006-11-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

BEFORE (Feb 12 2006)

AFTER (Nov 14 2006)

When is a porch too big??

2006-11-14T21:25:00.000-05:00

I am sitting on the porch of our new house as I write this entry. It is the first time I have actually been able to sit on the porch in one of our comfortable chairs eventhough it is about 50 degrees outside right now.

It only took my about two weeks to get around to cleaning half the porch off. The other half is full of trim boards, paint cans, tools, an old microwave, sawmill blades, a few nail guns, more fire wood, muddy boots and a few bags of trash.

Now back to the question at hand.....

When is a porch too large? I am no architect, but we did design this house. It is 22x40 with a 10x20 covered porch. The porch is equal to almost half the size the main floor living space. Is there some ratio for how to size a porch compared to the remainder of the house?

When Stephanie and I were designing the house we wanted the extra living space a porch would provide. It looks out over our small yard (mostly mud right now) and into the woods. Our house in Chicago had a decent size porch off the back but we rarely had time to enjoy it. I guess the view off our current porch is much nicer than in Oak Park where we got to look at our postage stamp lot and the back alley.

So here are some specifics on the porch. The floor is made of rough sawn poplar with an exposed tin roof above. Three nice ceiling fans provide decent light and a good breeze. To go along with the look of the glavanized roof we had Glen our electrician place some nice bends in the conduit supplying power to the fans. The railing is a fairly simple repeating pattern of a 1x3 board - 3" space - 1x6 board- 3" space - 1x3 board and so on and so on.

The only gutter for the house is on the porch. It is a 6" galvalume half round with some cool brackets. The water flows down a copper rain chain into a stone filled dry well that goes into the woods. Troy at CSC Sheet Metal in Durham worked with us on these items and was very helpful.

We have an extra wood burning stove that my Uncle Bill had in is art studio back in the 80's before he passed away and it has been in storage ever since. We are going to clean it up and install it on one end of the porch. That will be the family room area with the comfortable wicker furniture. We are going to place the grill on the other end with a large farm table for the family meals when the weather is nice. We hope to even use the porch for sleeping in the fall and spring.

Well I guess with all the plans for the porch it may not be too big but could be bigger. What do you think???

It's a longer walk to get the paper now.....

2006-11-10T08:10:00.000-05:00

It is a longer walk to get the newspaper now. The house we moved from a few weeks ago had a 50 ft driveway and the houses were about 30 feet apart. Now we are on a 1/4 mile drive and the only houses near to us are just becoming visible with the leaves falling off the trees.

Our two kids used to love to run to the end of the driveway to get the paper in the morning but now they are not so keen to do this given the distance. Here are some of the views as I walked back to the house after getting the paper.

Out at the road you start out with a long flat stretch that goes by a nice German shepherd. Note to self :I'll need to start bringing dog treats for him in the future.

Following that it opens to some nice views of the adjacent property. This morning there was a decent amount of fog lingering above the trees as you can see in this picture.

We have a small "traffic circle" about half way down the drive and then past the pond the drive goes up to the house.

I guess the walk was not too long since I still had half a mug of coffee left.

Okay its been a while .. but we moved in

2006-11-09T07:36:00.000-05:00

Okay its been a while since the last post. I guess a little over 2 months. There may be many excuses but the best one is that we were very busy getting the house in a good enough shape to get our certificate of occupancy and move in. I am sitting at the table in the picture and watching the leaves fall from the trees as I type. Not to fear, many pictures have been taken during the blog radio silence at Boothe Mountain Retreat. We are all doing fine after taking a few weeks to rest after the move. The place is definitely a "retreat". Each morning when we wake up we feel like we are on vacation in the mountains in our own cabin. It is still hard to sleep some nights as I look at the timbers and remember when different ones were cut and where they came from on the property.

There is still much work to do but that is okay. I guess we will never be done with this place.

Joel

Campus Crossroads Work Day

2006-08-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

Saturday was another work day at BMR. Ever since Stephanie was diagnosed with breast cancer we have had an outpouring of help with our project. A few weeks ago we had about 45 people out at the site over the weekend. This last Saturday we had the leaders and students from Campus Crossroads Church at UNC. Justin Wright is the lead pastor at the university based church and an experienced home improvement guy. They were looking at their next habitat project and decided "habitize" us. There were 3 leaders and about 30 students. Their energy and spirit was great.

They hung a bunch of drywall and built another massive stone wall using stones from the property. Also, some windows got painted and lots of wood from the sawmill was cleaned up.

We have been blessed by all of the support we have received recently and look forward to having the project finished and everyone back for a fall bonfire and party. The 10x40 ft porch will make a great stage for the music.

We need to be out of our current house October 15th so we are under a time crunch. If you are interested hanging some drywall stop by or give us a call!!!

Weekend Update: All Call Weekend for Stephanie

2006-08-18T07:10:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was a big weekend at BMR. We had an all call work day. We took Thursday and Friday off work to get the place cleaned up and to get the lists together. The big items were the siding, stairs, rock wall etc.

With Stephanie's recent breast cancer diagnosis and then we got an offer on our house we really needed to kick things in gear. About 30 people showed up on Saturday and about 10 to 15 on Sunday. It was very moving.

Scott S. showed up with the JLG Man Lift again. It is one great piece of equipment for the owner builder. The carriage holds all your tools and allows you to work in a set spot way up in the air without falling from a ladder.

Ken, Debbie and their brother made quick work of the stairs. They replaced the temporary 2x4 treads with nailed and screwed underlayment. Great job guys!!!

There was the always fun job of stripping the paint off of the recycled doors. Although after many hours we may opt to purchase new solid wood doors.

One of the coolest projects was the stone wall. It goes between the first 3 columns of the porch. That is the portion of the porch that is excavated and will be used for tractor storage. It was a complete testosterone fest with the younger guys showing that they could pick up the largest rocks. All the stones came from the property and some were easily 250 to 300 pounds.

Good food was served and every one had plenty to eat.

Thank you to all.

Joel and Stephanie.

P.S. The dry wall arrived and is waiting to be hung. We will be working on it this weekend if there are any takers. We have about 6-8 weeks before our current house closes and we need to move in

Breast Cancer

2006-08-07T06:43:00.000-05:00

We have been making decent progress on the "Retreat" recently, but the middle of last week our lives took a serious turn.

Stephanie was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. The good news is that it is early and very treatable. She will start chemotherapy likely next week so now there is extra pressure to get our house done. It makes the other pressures like the potential sale of our current house, work schedules etc pale in comparison. Now we feel that we finally see the real story behind why we chose to build a retreat in the woods. It will provide a safe and comfortable place for her to rest and recuperate during the next 8-12 months.

We have been getting things ready for a all call work party for Stephanie. It is next weekend (Aug 12 and 13th) and we hope to finish most of the siding, paint some windows, general clean up etc. One side of the house has siding and it has gone up nicely. It is poplar board and batten. We are staining the boards and then stickering and stacking them before they go up.

Coleman has a new co-worker on the job site. His name is Andrew and is great to have around. We will have some pictures of him in action posted soon.

Stephanie and I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and care from all of our friends and family during this time.

If you have a spare moment next weekend stop by!

We are not as crazy as you may think....

2006-07-31T06:38:00.000-05:00

One comment that often comes up regarding our "little" project is that it is off the charts or that we are crazy. This has been feeling more the case lately. This morning as I was drinking my first cup of coffee and trying to wake up to another work week at the office as my feet hurt and my back aches I ran across another project that puts us back on the charts.

Thomas has been working on his place in Kentucky for two years and it is incredible. Almost all the wood is from his property and it looks to be a huge undertaking. His blog is http://massiehouse.blogspot.com/ and well worth checking out.

Weekend to-do list

2006-07-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

Now that our current house is on the market we are full speed ahead on Boothe Mountain Retreat. Here is what is on tap.

1. Take lots of pictures of the exterior with the siding going up.
2. Finish placing the board and batten siding on the porch side.
3. Cut about 16 poplar logs into 3/4 inch random width boards for the siding
4. Cut the mill off cuts into 2" battens for the siding
5. Stain all sides of the siding boards before putting them up on the house
6. Do the final pressure test on the house drain lines
7. Set the outside service panel and breaker box on the inside (Glenn's job)
8 Drive two 8 ft ground rods into the ground (Coleman's job)
9. Take some interior photos of the new floors for Aaron

Tool Review: Sony Cyber-shot digital camera

2006-07-28T06:57:00.000-05:00

One of the most important tools of the home improvement warrior and house blogger is the digital camera. We had been using a 4 mega pixel Canon PowerShot G2 that we purchased used from a neighbor for the past 2 years. It has been a great camera until a few days ago. While out at the home site placing putting up the siding on the house the camera got ruined. I set it down with my water bottle on a canvas chair. The water proceeded to run out of the bottle and it created a nice pool for the camera to swim in. The only problem is that the camera is not waterproof and does not know how to swim.

The new camera (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S600) is a lot smaller, better image quality, larger memory. This camera is a 6 mega pixel vs a 4. While it has a Zeiss lens, I am not sure that the lens is better than the old camera. My main worry about the camera is that it is so small that it will be very easy to get your fingers in front of the lens or flash. The old one had an internal rechargeable battery and RCA jacks+ USB. The new one uses AA's and only has the USB out. So that is a down side of not being able to review the photos on the spot at any TV. The old camera was $300 used and the new one was $199 new at Targets and even less expensive using the 10% off certificate that we had.

Watch out for lots of new pictures from this weekend!

The Real DIY Flooring : Part 2 (with pictures)

2006-07-25T06:34:00.000-05:00

In part one of "The Real DIY Flooring" we left off with the rough sawn 1x4 and 1x6 boards dry and in the house to acclimate while I was out of town.

While gone Coleman was set up to plane all the boards to 7/8ths of an inch. The set up was pretty basic with a Delta 12 1/2 inch planer attached to a dust collector. The dust collector is essential since it pulls all the chips from the planer but it fills up after about 12 boards are passed through it. An in-feed and out-feed roller was set up so while one board was going through the next could be picked out and started. It can easily turn into a scene from Laverne and Shirley on the bottling line when things get out of control ...

......get the first board going ... watch it ... select the next ... start it going towards the end of the previous one ... watch the one coming off ... stack the boards ... select the next board ... check thickness using the caliper.....

When I got back it was great to see all the boards planed and sorted by size. Coleman did a great job! There was a small reject pile of twisted and thin boards but all in all they were great. So from tree to floor you are talking about 50 to 100 ft of travel!

Next step in the process was to nail the boards down. We are face nailing the boards with old time looking cut nails. 2 1/2" nails over floor joists and 1 1/2 " nails when board ends meet not over a joist. Each board gets 2 nails every 16 ". That is a lot of nailing and a lot of sore thumbs. One trick we used was needle nose pliers to hold the 1 1/2" nails to protect against injured thumbs. We ended up driving lots of nails.

To help eliminate squeaky floors we placed 15 lb tar paper on the subfloor (3/4 " T&G OSB glued and nailed to the joists) and snapped chalk lines where the joists were. We also used pipe clamps to put the boards tight. They still have a bit of moisture in them so they will shrink instead of expand. I found that the best way to put the boards down was to cut 3 to 4 rows and set them in place then clamp and nail. If Coleman was working with me I would get the boards placed and 1/2 the nails in and then he could fill in nail later.

The final step for now was to cover the floors with rosen paper to protect them while we finish the remainder of the interior. We are going to oil them once we are just about done with the house. You may wonder why we are doing the floors before the drywall etc. Given that the radiant tubing is under the floors we wanted to be able to check the tubing if there were any nails that missed the floor joists and hit the tubes. We are happy to report that tubes are unharmed and still under pressure.

To be continued .... Also look for future postings titled "The Real DIY Siding"

Oh well ... can you say artesian?

2006-07-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day at Boothe Mountain Retreat. We finally got the well guys on site to dig the well. At around $10 a foot with the average well going 250+ feet around us it was going to be an expensive day. We all arrived on site around 9 am and they set up the rig I watched the first 40-50 feet before heading off to work with anticipation of deep dry holes. The guy running the show said that they just finished a job with a 900 ft dry hole (can you say $9,000). They were going to call when they hit water to discuss the flow rate and whether they should keep going. It will usually range from 2-6 gallons per minute.

After a seemingly long day at work and no calls I headed out there around 4:30 to check on the progress. When I got there water was gushing out of the well casing and they were just finishing drilling!!! At around 285 ft they hit water ... and I mean water. It was really coming out. They stopped around 300 ft and pulled the drill. It was the most amazing thing. The well was flowing at 40 - 50 gpm and water was coming out the 300 ft hole without a pump. It is a true artesian well. A while back our neighbor said that when he had his well dug about 20 years ago it did the same thing ... for 10 years. We have enough pressure that we could probably run a 1 inch line to the house with no pump and only use a pressure pump in the house.
I guess if we get the solar water panels set up and have water just coming out of the ground we will be able to take lots of guilt free baths and showers.

Hats off to ACME Well Company!

The Real DIY Flooring : Part 1

2006-07-06T06:43:00.000-05:00

One of the common comments we get about our timber frame project is that it is off the charts regarding the way we are doing it. Some times we take the DIY thing a bit too far. We are about 1/3 the way through installing our Southern Yellow Pine plank flooring using cut nails and I think this is the case with this project. Here is Part 1 of the DIY process for wood flooring.

The flooring process started last September when we had Mr Gentry spend a day clearing a small section of land next to our house. It is the envelope of the next house. In a few hours he was able to do weeks and weeks worth of work that we could do with our chain saw and 1941 Farmall. All the logs were cut into 12-6 lengths and stacked. The trees are about 80 years old with minimal branches until you get to about 50 ft up. At the but end they were between 18 and 24" in diameter.

With the logs in one place we rough cut the flooring in two sizes (1 by 4's and 1 by 6's) to keep the installation a bit more sane. The cutting took several weeks working evenings and weekends. All the flooring was cut with our Lumbermate 2000.

We loaded the green rough boards into the solar kiln and stickered it (1x1 wood strips to help maintain air flow between the boards). This is the second charge for the kiln. The first was the roof decking which was dried down over the winter. It is amazing how fast and well it works. In January it was able to dry air dried (~16% moisture content) to 6-8% in one month. The temperatures were getting up to 120 deg F. This charge took a few weeks to get up to temperature since there was a lot more water to drive off but the temps were getting up to ~140 deg F during the month of June. We were able to take the wood from >30 % moisture content to 6-8% in a month. The kiln has no heat source other than the sun and it uses two attic fans to circulate the air. We are able to load about 1200 to 1400 board feet of wood into the kiln.

At the end of June we off loaded the kiln into the house to acclimate for a week and started to nail down the floor.

To be continued.....

Musing about siding and remudling....

2006-06-27T13:53:00.000-05:00

I am about half way through the 10 day obsessing from our building project. The flight to the beach leaves in a few hours. 5 nights in Boston was nice. I took a quick train ride to Quincy (Wollaston to be exact) to see if our old house was still the single story 1900's bungalow as it was when we sold it about 5 years ago. Not much to my surprise it had sprouted a story and a half. It is still the same yellow and now looks like a 2.5 story late Victorian without a lot of embellishments. They did an okay job with the redo with the added materials matching pretty well but if I were doing the addition I would have made it more Craftsman in feel. At least they did not drop the ole double wide on top of it like we often saw in Chicago. These often look like the double wide factory was using helicopters to move houses and a cable broke while the house was over a nice turn of the century bungalow.

Well..... we are getting ready for a siding party. We are going to be cutting and installing our board and batten poplar siding. It is going to go from the mill to the dunk tank to the side of the house in a few quick steps. The mill is about 10 feet from the house right now. We are going to use Jassco stain for the siding. It has lots of bug killers in it and is a good color brown. We used it on most of the other exterior wood on the porch etc.

If anyone is interested in joining in on the party let me know via the blog.

For the frame raising we had over 35 people show up and there is a nice DVD of it.

Look out for a lot of new posts next week when the work starts back up.

Time away ..... and interior photos

2006-06-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

We are pushing to finish enough on our house to the the certificate of Occupancy "CO" in late July or early August. This has meant many late nights working on the house.

Now I am forced to spend about a week and a half off of the project. Right now I am sitting in the lobby at the Marriott Copley Place in Boston waiting for a room mix up to be taken care of. I am here for 5 nights for the Endocrine Society Meeting. The meeting has nothing to do with home improvement except to give time for the ole' body to mend itself from the various bumps and bruises over the last few months. After that it is off to the beach for a few nights with Stephanie, the boys and her parents. This will be the first break we have had from the project in over a year.

It will be interesting to check out our old house in Quincy (south of Boston) to see if it still exists in the shape and form that we left it in about 5-6 years ago. At the time it was one of the last small Bungalows (c.a. 1900) that had not been changed into a 2 story Dutch Colonial.

Okay ... here are the obligatory house pictures. These are some of the interior shots of the second story timber portion of the house. Once the frame was up it started to look more like an abstract representation of the trees that the timbers were cut from. Once we have the dry wall up un the walls there will be a great back drop for the frame.

Well ... the hotel room has been worked out. More updates soon.

BMR Weekend Update

2006-06-19T06:35:00.000-05:00

No pictures on this post ... we were too busy this weekend to shoot any. Hopefully I can get a few pictures over the next few days.

The solar kiln was opened and we started to unload the floor boards. They are 4" 4/4 Southern Yellow Pine boards from trees on the building site. Coleman and I planed about 20 of them down and placed about a 4 ft section of flooring in the kitchen using cut masonry nails since the floor is face nailed. It looks cool but will take some time.

We also got real itchy putting up the insulation in all of the walls. That took about 6-7 hours to complete over several days. It is nice to have that out of the way. It sure makes a difference in keeping the place cool. Next it placing the insulation in the floor joists .... then on to the insulation inspection.

The well is going in early this week so a few trees had to go to get the truck in. We also spent a few hours grading the 1/4 mile driveway using the tractor and a box blade. That may of been my favorite project on Father's Day.

Finally, we installed a full size insulated glass door on the porch side door opening. It was a return at Stock Building Supply so it had no door frame. I made an old time door frame by cutting down some rough pine to size, planed it, rabbited the tops of the frame and hung the door in the frame. It was the end of the day and as I worked on it I thought that it was going to be a bad idea to start this project with a lack of coffee ... but it went much better than expected.

Now only a million other things to do to be able to move in. We are getting ready to put our house on the market so we may need to rush to finish the place if it sells quickly.

Tubing, tubing and more tubing....

2006-06-13T15:17:00.000-05:00

Towards the end of last week we rushed to finish our rough-in in preparation for the inspection (more on that later). We decided to use radiant heating as the major heat source. For the 1200 sq ft of living space we placed nearly 2000 sq ft of pex tubing (including potable water). Every thing was done in the DIY fashion. All of our radiant specific items came from www.radiantec.com. They have been great.

When tubing is placed under the floor joists it is held up using pre-formed aluminum plates. We made our own press and made about 600 14x14 in plates using about eight 40 ft rolls of 20 inch aluminum flashing. Our friends Scott and Kelly sold us their extra 1200 ft of ½ in pex tubing from their house project and the remainder came from Lowes.

We decided to skip buying fancy manifolds and sweat up our own. The second floor (880 sq ft) has 5 zones and the lower level (approx 300 sq ft) has 2 zones. Other than tightening the valves all tested out okay. It was interesting when our building inspector wanted us to let some air our of the gauges since you can buy preset 100 psi gauges to fake the pressure test.

While we were at it we placed hot and cold water sillcocks on the back of the house for a future outdoor shower that we will put into service once we move in.

Now we need to order our hot water heating source (likely a Takagi tankless heater) and have the propane tank delivered and buried.

The stone porch columns go up....

2006-06-07T06:52:00.000-05:00

We finally got around to doing the stone work on columns supporting our 40x10 ft covered porch. There are 5 columns ranging in height from about 7 feet to 1.5 feet tall. They started out life as 8x8 CMU blocks on a 20x20 footing. We filled the blocks with concrete and rebar.

All of the stones have come off of our 20 ac development. We jokingly talk about going to the stone store, which is the new drive that was cut into the hill side on the property. It is lined with tons and tons of mainly pink granite. When we were doing the timber frame we also often had to go to the lumber yard to get "one more" timber. We would go up the driveway and find one of the 80 ft standing dead southern yellow pine, drop it, drag it to the saw mill in 13 ft lengths, cut it up and within a few hours it was in the frame.

There is a learning curve with the stone work. The mortar was too wet at first and the stones were slumping off the side of the column. This is a pain when it happens 3 times in a row after about 1 hour of stone work each time. That is when we stiffened up the mix and worked on two columns at once, alternating between them so they have a chance to dry. As you can see we are going for the "old timey" look so it takes less skill.

This was a great opportunity for Stephanie, Joshua, Jacob (in the picture), and me to work together gathering stones and tossing them into the back of the truck. All in all this is a fun project.

The windows go in .....Updated Pictures

2006-05-31T23:04:00.000-05:00

We had a hectic time leading into and through the Memorial Day weekend. All the windows are in but the exterior entrance doors need to be installed. The house looks a lot more like a house even though the house seems much more closed in since part of the window rough openings are now blocked by the frames and sashes.

(south side of the house)

(west side of the house)

(north side of the house)

(east side of the house)

A lot of time and money can go into windows ..... sliders, casement, double-hung, single-hung, wood, vinyl, clad ..... We tried to keep in simple and used Jeld Wen all wood double-hung windows and will apply Decraled caning at a later date. We wanted the clear wood to match the timber frame.

OOOOOOO BEEEEEEE ... the call of the Owner Builder

2006-05-12T06:49:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post on the eve of another weekend of work......

After three long nights this week the framing is virtually done on the house, one side has house wrap and windows, the drain lines are in and the main stack is ready to go through the roof. We are planning on having much of the wire run this weekend since Glenn M. placed all the boxes a week ago. It is a lot of fun seeing the place come together.

What really helped give a feel for how the space is going to look inside is the hanging of the doors. As mentioned before, most are older (1920's) doors salvaged in their original door frame. All we have to do for these is pull a few nails and cut the frame down to 4 1/2 inches to fit modern 2/4's. We will also need to strip the doors but all look to have been stained and sealed in the past so the paint is pretty much just falling off.

On tap for the weekend is to get the remainder of the house wrap on and windows installed. After that we are going to run the pex tubing for the radiant heating and hot and cold water.

Ahhh the joys of the OOOOOO BEEEEEEEE (my neighbor Ed's late night Owner Builder call he does through the woods when I am working)

Interior framing, plumbing and electricity.....

2006-05-04T20:23:00.000-05:00

We are nearing completion of the interior framing. It is basic non-load bearing 2/4 construction. Coleman and I have worked on the walls on and off over the last week or two in between other projects. While timber framing is much more rewarding, framing with 2x4's is fast and easy. We are able to cover a lot of ground with two people, a pile of nice Home Depot 2x4's, a saw station and a nail gun. At least the timbers will still be visible inside the house and all of the rooms will have no ceilings so the roof beams and rough cut roof decking will also be visible.

To give the house an old timey look we are trying to use period doors, hardware and lighting. All of our interior doors are 1920's wood panel doors from the Wake County Habitat Reuse Store. They were kept in their original door frames with hardware and cost $140 for 5 doors! They are in great shape other than a little paint stripping.

Stephanie and I are really excited to see what the rooms are going to look like. We are back on the kick that the place does not seem that small, even though it is about a third the size of our current semi-nondescript Hardiplank house.

The biggest problem has been fitting everything into the bathroom. We have a claw foot tub, a wall sink, toilet, closet and two 24" pocket doors ..... all in a 5.5x9.5 ft space. It is going to be the only bathroom for the family in the current version of the house.

We are now starting to work on the plumbing and electricity. Coleman and I ran the 4" line to the septic tank on Sunday. We started digging and kept digging and digging. We placed about 40 ft of line and covered it a few days later. The line is now in the basement ready for the main stack.

Regarding the electricity, Glenn M., Ed M's son is starting the electrical rough in tomorrow (Friday). The next big goal is to have our rough in inspection completed by the end of May and get the Hardiplank house on the market.

On tap for the weekend:
1. Finish blocking on the exterior
2. Finish framing on the interior
3. Wrap the house with house wrap
4. Pick up windows at Home Depot
5. Buy more 2x4's

Checking out other blog houses and the learning curve.

2006-04-28T07:17:00.000-05:00

Since the last post I have been traveling for work so not a lot has gotten done during the evenings this week. We were able to spend a few hours one night hooking up the flail mower to our Farmall A and cut the grass for the first time. We have a 1/4 mile long drive with several portions with 8-10 ft wide grass strips along the edge. We got most of the grass cut but something broke in the transmission giving us another project to work on. Now on to the story........

Friday nights are usually a night of rest from the building project so we can have some family time. This also includes no Home Depot! Last Friday we grabbed some beer and dropped in on some fellow house bloggers, King Post. This is a house being built by Bradley and Martha, a young couple in love over in Chapel Hill. It has been fun watching the blog of someone else in the area as they build their own house. We emailed Martha and got their contact info a few weeks ago and finally made it out last week. Bradley and friends were working on the house but Martha was working elsewhere. They are placing the fire blocking and doing the final framing. We really liked the design of the house and the overall look. It has the feel of a Chicago 4-square with an attached garage and mud room area. The property gives a feel of being further out in the country instead of within Chapel Hill proper. We hope to be able to work with them on some projects in the future.

As mentioned, it was nice to see others doing the same thing as us. In fact, given the ~250 house bloggers I was starting to wonder how many other people stop in to see other house bloggers.

Martha and Bradley are stick framing their place so we wanted to see an owner built (OB) stick frame. We are planning on stick framing the main house. They started back in December and are about similar to where we are in the process (framed in with sheathing and a roof). We started a year ago and our house is less than half the size. I guess the big differences are that we are timber framing and only now have we realized that we can actually pay people to help us some times.

I guess there is a learning curve to this whole thing!

Tool Review : Lumbermate 2000

2006-04-20T20:12:00.000-05:00

In the second of a series of tool reviews we are covering the Norwood Industries Lumbermate 2000. My good friend Jack and I decided to go in on a saw mill. We spent several weeks discussing makes and models over buck-fifty Monday night pints for several weeks and decided on the Lumbermate. It is a basic saw mill that does not have all the hydraulic log lifts or bells and whistles as the Wood Mizer has, but it is considerably less expensive. Norwood maintains an okay website and great discussion forum for the mill.

About a week after ordering it, the whole thing arrived on a pallet in about 40 boxes. We spent several nights assembling it. Most saw mills come fully assembled and are mostly welded together. This does not which gives you a better understanding how it is put together and allows you to fix just about anything.

The only extras we purchased for it was a box of 10 blades. It takes 1.25 inch wide band saw blades. They are very sharp and can inflict injury when you are trying to fold or unfold them. Beware! It is powered by a 13 HP Honda and you manually push it through the log. Even my 6 year old can push it.

We built our own trailer package and welded leveling feet for it. Both work well.

After assembly we pulled it out to the land and proceeded to cut tons and tons of wood. It is surprising how much wood has been cut with it given it only has about 40 hours on it. So we cut the entire timber frame, all the roof decking, flooring, skip sheathing and multiple piles of other wood. It also supplies and endless amount of wood scraps and saw dust.

We have about $5-6K in it and have easily cut $30K worth of materials in the last 1.5 years.

The tin roof is finally complete!

2006-04-20T19:51:00.000-05:00

The installation of the metal roof is finally done! If it lasts like it should I will be dead by the time it needs replacing. At least no one died or was seriously injured installing it! Gustavo and Jose did much of the work but I did not have the roof brackets completed and installed on the far end of the building so Coleman (he is the one in the pictures and I am taking the pictures) and I finished it on Saturday.

It is amazing how slick it is. Even though the steepest portion was only a 6-12 pitch, once there was a little pollen on it you could not stand on it. The last row of tin was definitely the hardest part.

It started to get real warm on the roof as we finished. It was like a big mirror reflecting the sun back at us. April was hot enough for installing a roof in North Carolina. I am happy we are not doing this in July or August.

Next on tap for the project:
- blocking around the rafter tails for siding and trim
- framing the interior walls (started on Tuesday)
- wrapping the house
- installing windows and doors
- installing siding
- finishing loading the kiln with wood for the flooring

Tool Review: 1941 Farmall A

2006-04-17T20:14:00.000-05:00

Since the previous post last week we finished up several odds and ends but nothing major to report so we decided to do a tool review. One of the first tools that we purchased when we started working on Boothe Mountain Retreat was a 1941 Farmall A. It is a ~20 hp tractor primarily used in tobacco farms around the area. We picked it up in Creedmoor, about 40 miles from our building site. We purchased it for $1050 from a gentleman farmer who acquired from a teenager to cover a bad debt.

It is about as basic as you get for a tractor. It came stock with a 4 speed transmission, wide front end and a 540 RPM PTO. At some point a hydraulic set up was added which runs the front and rear lifts for bolt on attachments. It does not have 4WD or hydrostatic transmission like the new popular sub-compact tractors.

We have spent about $500 on the tractor in the last 2 years repairing and tuning it up. The first thing done was to get a 3 point hitch. It allows the attachment of modern implements. We found a relatively new box blade on our property along with a two stage winch. We also have a flail mower and a fork attachment for the back to lift pallets and skid logs.

There are a couple of areas where the Farmall is not ideal. It is easy to flip if you are up on the hillside and take a wrong turn. We have not flipped it yet but have come close. We have also gotten it stuck in the mud a few times. Now I know why a farm jack is so important.

When you are stuck in a deep rut it is important to just give up and jack up the dug in tire. Once it is out of the rut it is time to fill the hole with whatever it around (i.e., cord wood, slabs from the saw mill etc).

All in all it is a great tractor that is fun to work on and even more fun to drive.

Another Week Down .... Many More to Go

2006-04-11T20:48:00.000-05:00

Last week we got the tin roof on and since then we worked on finishing framing the windows in, widening the stair opening, meeting with an electrical contractor and cutting flooring on the saw mill. We are pushing to have the rough-in inspection done by the end of May so we can get our current abode on the market.

The walls were put up right after the frame raising in February but we did not frame the windows in at that time. Being first time home builders and first time timber framers we needed to see the frame up before placing all of the windows and door openings even though we thought we had them figured out on the plans and the foam core model. A great book that we have used in the past for laying out windows, doors and their relationship to the interior trim and builtins is a book by Robert Lang titled "Shop Drawings for Craftsman Interiors: Cabinets, Moldings & Built-Ins for Every Room in the Home " .

It has been great to look out the window openings and see the views. We have not been able to decide which view is best. This is a big difference to when we were living in Oak Park when our views included the neighbors dining room five feet from our house or the back alley.

Here is a view out of Joshua and Jacob's new bedroom.

Here is one of the views out of our bedroom with the pond in the distance.

Ed M. 's (Clearing the Building Site With Ed ) son who is an electrician stopped by this weekend. He is interested in helping us rough in the house. We had planned on doing most everything ourselves but have decided to get a little help. A few things he pointed out is that 1) we need to side the house before running the wiring so we don't shoot and nails throughh the wires and 2) that we will need to place horizontal blocking between the wall studs to nail the board and batten siding to. We though the 1/2 inch sheathing would be sufficient to hold the nails. I guess Coleman needed an extra few days of work to do.

When one is an owner/builder it is easy to focus on the easy and fun things without pushing on the harder less fun rate-limiting activities. Getting the solar kiln loaded with the next charge of wood is one such activity. We had about 1000 board feet of 4/4 southern yellow pine dried down but used it for the exposed roof decking.

The rough sawn ceiling looks great but it brought us back to square one on for the flooring front. Stephanie and I cut about 20% of the flooring for the house on Sunday from 2-3 logs.

We hope to have the flooring cut and loaded by next weekend. It should take a few months to dry down, especially with the warmer days ahead. Even in January we were hitting 120 degrees during the day.

On tap for this weekend:
1) closing in the rafters
2) cutting the remainder of the flooring
3) finishing up the overhang on the other side of the house
4) conduct an Easter Egg hunt around the building site

Pushing Tin with Gustavo y Jose

2006-04-03T20:40:00.000-05:00

The roof is finally on! A friend of ours hooked us up with Gustavo and Jose ... his roofers during the week. The guys were fun to work with and we had a great time conversing in Spanish. The guys were experts in this type of roofing. The fun started on Saturday and Sunday (two beautiful days) and we wrapped up the last sheets this afternoon between major thunderstorms (Note to self: metal roofing installation and lightning do not mix).

There is a lot to learn about tin roof installation. The biggest thing to watch is how square the roof is since the panels are not easy to curve along an irregular roof like shingles. The other is to have the roof completely ready for the tin. Coleman and I were hustling the whole time to keep ahead of Gustavo and Jose.

The use of deep overhangs on the gable ends (42 in) and rafter tails (36 in) were a bit unnerving to sit on at first but once the skip sheathing was in place and I did the test bounce up and down about 25 ft in the air and nothing broke we felt a little better.

All that remains to do on the roof is to place the roof brackets on the other side of the house and screw down the panels on the gable end on that side.

It will be nice to finally sit on the porch in the rain and listen to the noise on the tin even if the porch decking is extra sheathing and the railings are 2x4's.

The Mind is a Great Editor

2006-03-30T20:58:00.000-05:00

The entire frame of the coach house we are building is made up of about 150 southern yellow pine timbers cut, milled and joined on-site. As mentioned in a prior post, Stephanie and I did not have much background or experience with this type of building.

It all started last summer when we were at an outdoor concert with Andrew and Denise, a couple that is very near and dear to us. Andrew is an architect and got me going on the whole idea of using timbers. I had the great idea of using them in selected places or as more as a trim detail to give the look of a timbered structure. Following the old adage of "form follows function" that was popularized by Louis Sullivan, Andrew thought the whole structure needed to be timbers.

Along comes Daryl, he is our camp director, engineer friend who has all of the timber framing experience in the group. He was really into the idea since him and his dad attended a week-long timber framing course in the northeast. Daryl figured it would take about 4 to 6 weeks to do all the jointery. I was on board given that we have made multiple pieces of Craftsman furniture with lots of complex mortise and tennons. As you can see by the picture of Stephanie laying out some joints during our first weekend of timber work, it was warm outside. It was late summer.

It never seemed to end! Late summer turned into early fall, early fall turned into late fall, late fall turned into early winter and early winter turned into late winter ..... and we were done.

The final timbers were complete in early February, the weekend before the frame raising.

The final jointery was done as we assembled the bents on the second story deck.

Stephanie and I previously decided that we were going to stick frame the main house when it goes up but it is interesting ... 6 weeks after the frame raising we are in love with the timber frame and are actually talking about timber framing the main house. I guess time and the mind are the best editors.

OSHA Approved Building Site

2006-03-28T07:48:00.000-05:00

The roof is going on .... slowly. About a decade ago Stephanie and I put a roof on our Cape Cod in Madison WI. It was a much steeper roof pitch but we were using shingles. That seemed difficult at the time, but they provided better traction.

The whole safety profile changes when you are using tin and obscene depths on the gable ends, especially when it starts to rain. Half the porch is completed and the remainder of the tin is stacked on the roof.

We took the roof bracket and gable end depths from our 1909 Stickley house plans. The gables are 42 in deep and the rafters will extend about 32 in. This creates some difficulty in hanging out over the side of the house about 20 feet off the ground getting the rafters in place. While placing one rafter on the gable another would fall. Two rafters fell and both broke in half.

With the help of Jacob and Joshua we should be done by spring.

Catching up: Frame Raising

2006-03-27T06:55:00.000-05:00

Feb 11th, 2006 40 degrees and rainy ... what a perfect day for a traditional frame raising. It was sunny for the week before and late the night before it started raining and raining. Not the heavy stuff but more of the continuous mist. Bone chilling.

We sent out and evite to all of our family and friends. Over 100 people RSVPd. I guess this was an odd enough of an event that people wanted to see it. Two musical groups were there (Celtic violin and bluegrass). It was like planning for a wedding without the bride and groom.

About 35 people ended up showing up for Saturday. It was most of the people who were there to work and not to watch. Our minimum we thought we needed was 25 or so.

After some confusion as far as what to do first (Side note: the morning of the raising I realized that I had never even been inside a real timber frame structure). We had read all of the main books on the topic (about 4 or 5) multiple times and our good friend Daryl, who attended a week long seminar on timber framing was there.

The first bent went up around 9:30 or 10 am and the other 4 after that. We were able to get the main structure up by the end of the day and about 8 of us placed the purlins.

Scott S. a new friend that I met on the Forestry Forum came by with his tool (JLG Man Lift) which helped with placing the purlins and getting the great camera shots that Jack took. He is preparing a DVD of the event.

Fast forward now 6 weeks and the roof is going on and we are dried in.

Roof Brackets Instead of NCAA Tournament Brackets

2006-03-25T06:53:00.000-05:00

Even though it is March and I guess March Madness it is time for another madness ... Roofing Madness. A friend of mine who owns a roofing company offered to help us for a few hours this morning but there was one catch. We needed to have everything ready to go. As of Wednesday of this week we did not have the gable end complete (i.e. roof brackets in place or rafters). That lead to a few late nights with a halogen light stuck on top of the temporary power pole. Nothing like climbing a roof in the dark!

We started placing the roof brackets a few days ago in the dark after work. They are made out of southern yellow pine 4x6's from the building site. They definitely give the place the bungalow look. We need to finish cutting in the window openings.

The roof is going on today. Stephanie and I have a few friends that are going to come over to help. It is the first metal roof that we have ever installed. It should be fun.

Ahhh the life of the owner-builder. Time to finish the coffee so I can make it out to the land early this morning.

Joel

P.S. Here are some other recent pictures.

Building my own house using timbers from the land seemed like a good idea at the time!

2006-03-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

Here is a note I received on www.forestryforum.com regarding my signature "Building my own house using timbers from the land seemed like a good idea at the time!" It was part of what planted the seed to start this blog.

Howdy, Joel!

I just read a post you made to a thread about timber framing traditions, namely the traditions practiced once a frame is completed. Although I suspect that there's a bit of humor involved, I was wondering if you'd explain your profile caption: "Building my own house using timbers from the land seemed like a good idea at the time!" Having grown up "on the land," I've always had a yearning to get back to the land someday. When I was a child, the folks from all over our area would congregate and pitch in to build structures of all kinds. The materials for these projects would typically come from the owner's land. Having labored for some of those old craftsman, it was burned into my mind that nearly anything can be accomplished given enough time and the proper resources. Obviously, you acquired at least a similar way of thinking somewhere along the line. It would also seem that you put this theory to the test at some point as well. How did it go? Did you complete your frame? Did you use your own resources or, as I suspect, did you run into the widespread [modern] problem commonly known as "the bureaucracy?" I'd love to read about your venture if you ever get the time to write about it.

Have a great day,

Bill "

The comment of "Building my own house using timbers from the land seemed like a good idea at the time" came during the 3 months of a "4 week" project of cutting the joints for the 150 timbers for our frame this winter. It was all worth it the day after the frame raising. Regarding the use of our own materials ... we have cut all the timbers, flooring, roof decking etc from trees from the property using our Lumbermate sawmill. Thanks for the note Bill!

Joel

Catching up: Footings and Blocks

2006-03-23T06:55:00.000-05:00

We started to lay out the building in late February last year and mucked around in the mud for several months (it was a rainy time). The footings finally went in with family and friends in late April. The dimensions are 22 x 40 ft.

The first floor is all block wall and will serve as the garage/ workshop. I laid about 1200 blocks during the summer, learning to use both hands for trowel work since I would sprain one wrist and then switch to the other. The joys of being an owner builder.

We are temporarily making one garage bay a family room. The exterior will be traditional cement stucco. On a side note: Our 1920's Oak Park/ Chicago 4 Square was stucco and if never painted it will be virtually maintenance free for decades other than minor repairs.

As it worked out the temporary power also went in on the same day as the footings. It took about 6 months to get the power in. We are 1/4 mile from the street and wanted the power underground. There are about 6 or 7 water crossings to get to the site (streams, springs etc). A deal was worked out with the power company where we were able to dig the trench (3 ft by 18 in) and they would inspect it and place the line in it. Ed M. spent about a week doing the digging.

The Metal Roof Arrived Toady

2006-03-20T21:16:00.000-05:00

We decided to place a metal roof on the coach house. The frame has been up for over a month now and dried in. The galvalum roof will go on this weekend and was delivered today, which was kind of ironic since it was the first day that is has rainded in a while.

It is the unpainted multi-rib. We got it from Construction Metal Products a few hours west in Statesville. Stu and Mike were helping us and worked through the whole process of picking out what we wanted. Stephanie and I even toured the factory where they form the products when we were on our way to The Grove Park Inn last February on our way to the annual Arts and Crafts Conference.

Catching up: Clearing the Building Site With Ed

2006-03-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

We started clearing the building site January of 2005 with the help of Ed M. We spent a few days running a mini excavator (Ed) and our 1941 Farmall (Joel). Ed is 80+ years old and has lived in the area for years (and has all of the local connections). Over the past year or so Ed has become a good family friend and an invaluable source of information. No matter what the tool is, he has it.

The property is covered in ~80 year old southern yellow pines and oaks. With this in mind we settled on building the first building (the coach house) as a timber frame. We are trying to obtain as much of the materials from the land as possible. This of course required the purchase of more tools (more on that later).

The First Posting

2006-03-17T20:08:00.000-05:00

We have been working on our property (Boothe Mountain Retreat) for nearly two years since we purchased the property April 2004. The first 10 months or so were spent clearing the building site, getting a sense of what we wanted to build, collecting supplies etc. Permits were pulled January 2005 and we broke ground shortly after that. The footings went in in April 2005 and we started working on the timber jointery in later summer. The timbers were finished January of this year and the frame went up Feb 11th. Since we are now only getting around to documenting the progress we have some catching up to do.

Joel and Stephanie (and Joshua and Jacob)