More press

After having been featured in two of my favorite house blogs (Materialicious - click here , and Future House Now - click here ) we got picked up recently by HouseBlogs.net. Click here for the story including excerpts of my interview with one of the editors.

Waiting for the plasterers

This photo-collage gives a pretty good sense of one of the central design concepts of this project: the juxtaposition of old and new materials. (Be sure to click on the image and see it in enlarged form.) As you can see, the parts of this house that are new construction are located within the antique "shell" of the barn. It looks almost as if the barn has been lifted whole from its home in Maine, dropped down on our site, and then had this modular "core" inserted inside. The core consists of a floor that divides the formerly open space into "upstairs" and "downstairs" and the associated walls, stairs, ceilings, etc.

A dark shot of the dark back hallway. Once you enter through the front door, if you turn right you will be in here. The first opening on the right is the mud room (more like a closet...) and the second opening is the tiny guest bathroom. Here, too, you can see the way the newly constructed walls (now sheathed in blueboard, soon to be plastered over) intersect the wall sheathed in antique barn board. Love these details.

Main stairway down to the first floor...

...our office...

...downstairs hallway...

...master bedroom...

...master bedroom showing the doors to the walk-through closet and bathroom...

...and back upstairs. I love this view now that that huge pile of barn boards has been moved. When I arrived on site yesteday and saw this view, I was thrilled. Finally, a sense of getting closer. The space is getting cleaned up, more open, more ready for the finish details. My brother and sister-in-law came up again this weekend (great news guys!!!) and he and I finished moving all of the assorted wood down to the basement and cleaned up the last of the mess in the 3rd floor loft. This week the plasterers will come in (so I am told!) and finish up their job, the plumber will be in (so I am told) to install the water heater and finish off the heating. If I the stars are really aligned he will also be able to hook up the bathrooms. My plan is to get to IKEA this week and get all the cabinets. Once I get the cabinets assembled (thanks for the promise of help, Stewart!) the plumber can do the kitchen hook ups, too. Lots to do. Weds. the final grading and driveway construction will be happening, and I am promised that the electrician will be on site to do the service connection. Once that is inspected then NSTAR can come in an turn on the power. Finish electrical follows and if we've had all the railings and stairs finished by that point (sometime late next week?) we SHOULD be able to have our final inspections by the town and the bank. Occupancy permit will hopefully follow (that is, if we can AFFORD the fees associated with the process - approx. $6000!!! What a crime.) Looks like those who voted "By Thanksgiving" in the poll will be the big winners...

This I love. Our completed deck, our view. Worth every (borrowed) penny. To have a place to go outside the house that is "done" and can be enjoyed...we will get lots of use out of this. We weren't able to build it the way we dreamed, but we did it nevertheless. As with most things, it can always be updated in the future.

Beautiful fall day

Progress: slow and painful, but progress

The past few weeks I have been taking advantage of the only time during the day when I can get work done at the site: between the kids' bedtime (8:00 pm) and whenever the operation of power tools becomes dangerous (around midnight). Now that the electrical outlets are all roughed in and we have passed the electrical inspection I am free to continue cutting and fitting the old barn boards over the interior of the SIPs. This is proving to be a very time consuming and slow process - even with the gradual improvement of my technique. One of the fun aspects has been using all of the great new tools (toys?) that I have had to buy to do the work the right way. In the image above I am using my new finish nail gun to tack up the barn boards I have just cut.

A lot of the time I am over I have been in a kind of frenzy to get as much done as is humanly possible so that I can get that feeling of having accomplished something - SOMETHING - significant. There is so much to do that it never seems like I really accomplish anything. Well, the last time I was over there I decided to try a different mental approach. I forced the looming specter of timelines and workloads out of my mind and tried to practice what I think I'll call my Zen carpentry technique. Focusing only on the immediate moment, I tried to think only about each individual cut, each individual board, and make each one methodically, slowly, carefully meditatively and most importantly, to make them well. I cleaned up my workspace, arranged my tools, and began. Three hours later I had successfully mounted five or six boards in a particularly difficult place and managed to do it well. I was proud of my work and surprisingly relaxed. Of course, at this rate it will be October of NEXT year that I get all this barn board installed...

Once the electrical and plumbing were in, it was time to insulate around the kids' bedrooms. This is not "necessary" but it seemed to make sense acoustically. Kids' sleep is sacred. It needs to be protected at ALL COSTS. Peacefully sleeping kids = happy kids = happy parents. So, I took the time - and it turned out to be about 12 hours' worth - to do the insulation.

Here again my new air compressor and guns came in handy. In the kit I purchased I also got a stapler. I loaded up the 1/2" staples and off I went. I think I probably ended up putting in two or three times more staples than I needed, but it was so freekin' fun! Anyone need anything stapled? I'm contemplating bringing it to school and offering to staple all my students' papers as well as all those posters that are falling off my classroom's walls...

Once the insulation and framing inspections were passed the blueboard showed up and it looked as if we were poised to begin one of the last big projects of the job: walls and ceilings. However, I have learned that NOTHING happens as I am told it will, so predictably, there have been hang-ups that have cost us time. Precious time. All along I have been promised that the blueboard would go up fast - a couple of days max - and same with the plaster. Everyone spoke of how FAST these guys work: in and out, a whole SWAT team of hangers and plasterers. BANG, it's done. Yeah, right. So the plumber disappeared from the job for a week or two (turns out he had bronchitis for some of the time I guess) and the hangers, who had been poised to strike, had to quit because the plumbers were in the way. One thing I have learned is that contractors NEVER take time off during the work week. They don't say, "Oh, you're not ready for me today? Well, I'll go play a few rounds of golf and check bac in with you in a couple of days. No. They are IMMEDIATELY off to another job and you've lost your "slot" and have to wait until they are free again. Needless to say, I was ASSURED the walls and ceilings would be hung and plastered in the space of four to five days and, well, it's been a week and we have as many hung sheets of blueboard as you can see in this image and the following. C'est la vie.

Notice the baseboard heat? ALL of these were supposed to be in weeks ago...


I think the contrast between the plastered walls and the rough barn board walls is going to be stunning. Can't wait to see it.


This image above shows one of our toekick heating units that will someday be covered by our cabinets.

Deck going up. It won't be supported by these vertical supports. Instead the architect has designed diagonal supports that tie into the foundation. The entire deck will have the feel of a great tree house platform. I think it's going to be fantastic. I just wish (WISH!) we had the $$ to be able to do it out of the materials we want and not PT lumber.

Midnight Oil