oct update

Most of Sept for me was finishing up working drawings for my stonemason's house. It will be sort of an expanded version of my own barn, which is basically the same frame as the last house that I built. This timber framed building, built on Golden Rectangle dimensions with 6 equal bays, has been a very popular design lately. This house will be heated with a Finnish contraflow heater, have a high R sips envelope, and ICF foundation.

While I was busy finishing their house plans, Chip and his lovely wife Michelle were building us the most beautiful fieldstone wall in Berkshire County. The wall frames a future patio off of our kitchen and is built over a curtain drain which diverts water around our house instead of into our basement.

After completing Chip's plans, I finished off a small timber frame that has lived in our yard for a couple of years, and is nicely weathered, into a shed to store lawn and garden equipment. It is sided in novelty pine, barn red outside and white inside, with white trim. The white interior reflects light and contrasts nicely with the weathered timbers. The roof is 22 gauge standing seam steel. It is one of the three roof materials that I use - the others being cedar and eco star recycled rubber/slate with 50 year warranty. The hardware is courtesy of the good folks at Williamsburg Blacksmiths, in Williamsburg, MA.

I've ordered SIP panels for my barn and a standing seam steel roof which will match the roof on this little red building. The barn frame has weathered into a nice dark golden color and I look forward to seeing it enclosed with antique white interior walls to highlight the timber. The windows and doors will be all-wood traditional divided units from Green Mountain. The system R value will be well over 20 with windows and doors factored in and will heat easily with a small pellet furnace. The barn will cool with the stack effect produced by first floor registers and the open-able windows in the cupola. The siding will be reverse board and batten, barn red, with a 1" circulating airspace under it. The roof will have the same airspace under it.

In the next month or so, I'll be renovating a fireplace and its facade, and finishing the exterior of the small, off-grid house that I framed last winter. After that it's back home to install the sips shell on my barn and finish off at least the roof, if not the whole exterior. By the time the barn is weather-tite, I hope that we'll be carving some powder in the backcountry and the lift areas.