As the house became enclosed and protected from the weather we began to turn our eyes to the wood we were leaving exposed in the house. Christine and I have spent hours sanding beams and columns and we have hours yet ahead of us. The elements are not particularly kind to wood, and once you see how beautiful it is after sanding you just can't stop.
Concrete Floors
I am skipping over the installation of the sub slab insulation and hot water tubing since I don't have great pictures of those, but I wanted to give a brief look at when the concrete slabs were poured in the house. A flat, hard surface is a beautiful thing when you have been tramping around on gravel for months.
Courtyard/Workshop/Garage
While we waited for some of the larger custom windows to arrive, the framing continued on with the utility room, garage and workshop. The three spaces form the other walls of the three sided entry courtyard.
This utility room is where the wood boiler will be installed and on the outer wall under the overhang all our wood for that boiler will get stacked on shelving.
An exterior stair for accessing the north field from within the courtyard will go in this space between the utility room and garage.
As the garage and workshop walls went up the repetition of forms started to present itself.
And our luck with no snow ran out. Beautiful, but we were not quite as far as we had hoped to be.
The tent shack and shed
The courtyard space starting to shape up.
The entry sequence from the driveway also starting to be seen, with garage to the right.
The workshop garage door instead of opening toward the driveway opens toward the courtyard space, where it can connect these spaces in the warmer months.
The angled form of the roof repeating that of the house.
The courtyard is surrounded by outdoor spaces, this covered ground level deck in the foreground, the workshop beyond, and the covered entry to the left of that.
With the fourth wall of the courtyard non-existent to the south, the field, where the gardens will be, is framed by the house and workshop. The edges of the trees take over in engaging the field and enlarging the courtyard into a single large room.
The white house wrap and snow cover blend the the house and landscape into one. A different image will emerge later as siding is added.
This sloping roof in addition to providing cover around the edge of the courtyard, collects and directs the water off the garage and workshop roof.
The four columns, not quite complete, of the courtyard help establish that space as a room.
The windows of the workshop provide view of the field and collect extra light for the space from above.
The entry walk-through is now seen as one of three openings along with the garage doors, and can also be seen as mirroring the large window of the house beyond. This structure provides a separation from the driveway as a transition and buffer to the house.
