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Stick Framing Entries

Preparing the Workshop for a Plastering Crew, Part One

Thursday, May 26th, 2016

With Chad and Carly's mid-June arrival looming, we've been working like crazy to ready our homestead. We're going to be on vacation in California for two weeks prior to their arrival, so everything needs to be finished before we leave! First off, w...

Shlomy Builds an Outhouse, Part One: Framing & Siding

Monday, October 19th, 2015

Ever since Tyler and I met Shlomy by rooming together at a strawbale building workshop in Rhode Island, I've been impressed and inspired by his drive to become a competent builder. So far he has apprenticed with Christina Ott to learn about cob bui...

Preventing Our Cistern from Freezing in Winter: Part Four

Saturday, October 17th, 2015

The final major part of our cistern shed (besides the plastering, which we'll do next year) was the doors. I spent a few days this week making these massive things, consisting of a simple frame and a double layer of rigid foam insulation. Other tha...

Preventing Our Cistern from Freezing in Winter: Part Three

Saturday, October 10th, 2015

This weekend, Tara and I experimented with two types of insulation we'd never used before. The first was blown cellulose, which we dense packed into the cavities between the wall studs of our cistern shed. In order to do this, we had to rent a blow...

Preventing Our Cistern from Freezing in Winter: Part Two

Monday, October 5th, 2015

In the previous entry, I mentioned one of the main issues with our above-ground cistern: the short pipe between our house and the water supply freezing. I believe I have found a solution to the problem: heatline. It's like heat tape (electric wire ...

Preventing Our Cistern from Freezing in Winter: Part One

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Last fall, I wrote about the water situation for our cottage, documenting why we have an above-ground cistern next to the house rather than a water line from our well. When I wrote the entry, I was building an insulated shed for our water storage, ...

Building A Pony Wall

Thursday, May 8th, 2014

For the last few days, we have been framing a pony wall around the perimeter of our house. The main purpose of this framing is to raise our strawbales above grade so they can't get wet, but we're also going to use portions of it for storage. Every ...

General Contractor

Monday, May 5th, 2014

Last summer, Tyler was the general contractor for our road building, foundation laying, and grindbygg timber framing efforts. It seemed like he was always on the phone, planning the next stage of our projects. This year, with his new job consuming...

Finish Work on the Solar Shed

Saturday, April 19th, 2014

It's amazing what we can get done when there isn't a foot of snow on the ground! This weekend was full-on spring, with glorious warm weather and sunny skies. To celebrate and make the most of it, we spent every single hour of daylight tying up the ...

Building the Solar Shed, Part Five: Wiring & Insulation

Sunday, March 23rd, 2014

We made more progress on the solar shed today. First, we nailed the sill plate to our foundation using a ".22 nailer". It's basically a tiny rifle with bullet-like charges that you set off with a hammer. The resulting blast shoots a nail straigh...

Building the Solar Shed, Part Three: Siding

Sunday, March 9th, 2014

We haven't done much of anything outside since our shed building blitz this January. For the last two months, we've been hunkered down in our camper, keeping warm as feet of snow accumulate on our land. This morning, a crack appeared in winter's ...

Building the Solar Shed, Part Two: More Framing

Thursday, January 16th, 2014

We awoke this morning to find a half an inch of snow on the ground, and more soft, white flakes tumbling from grey skies overhead. Crap. The forecast had called for sun and unseasonable warmth! Despite the fact that our springlike weather disappea...

Building the Solar Shed, Part One: Framing

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

When Tyler came back from Becky and Charlie's place a few days ago, casually informing me that we'd be building our solar shed this week (during a brief window when the forecast called for warmth and sun), I could not have been more surprised or mo...