Endings = Beginnings

Well, the last few days have been a little bittersweet. We close on our existing house today. We've spent the last week frantically trying to get everything out of the house. Moving is a lot more complicated now then it was when I was in college. A family of four accumulates a LOT of stuff. Over the last few days it seemed like it was multiplying.

I took the last of the items out of the house last night as Heidi cleaned things up. We've been in that house for almost six years. Our kids have lived there their whole lives. The echo of footsteps in an empty house is one of the sadder sounds.

So, as of 11:00 today, we are homeless! The weather has not been cooperating, and I don't think any of the concrete work has been done. We are staying with Heidi's sister, but will be moving out to our land and living in a pop-up camper, probably starting this weekend.

There's tonnes to do yet. We need to move the rest of our stuff into storage (the last loads have filled up half of Heidi's sister's garage).

So, why did we decide to do it (sell, move, etc.) this way? Spring is the hot real-estate time in Madison. We figured we would be able to get the best price for our home by selling now. The buyer wanted to close earlier rather than later. Although this obviously inconveniences us, the inconvenience is quite temporary, and brings about some significant pluses as well. We were going to HAVE to be on site most of the time ANYWAY starting about now... so we really weren't going to be spending much time in our house. It wasn't' really practical to use our existing house as a base of operations because it's too far away from our land. Getting the sale / move out of the way now frees us from having to do it later AND means we have that much more money to devote to building. So, in the end, I think this is a good thing. But right now it's kind of crazy.

Details, Details, Details...

I'm off in Ohio for a training class (work related). Not the best timing as all things seem to be converging on the house project.

We're scrambling to get a bunch of little things in order. The concrete guys need to pour the footing for the masonry heater, and I need to make sure I have the size right. I'm not sure if we are going to be required to use outside combustion air (a topic that has a LOT of implications), which may or may not impact the footing size.

We want to insulate on the outside of our basement walls and under the floor slab, but we are having a hard time finding the insulation we want to use. Home Depot is our main supplier of materials, but they will only order this (2" Foamular 250 extruded polystyrene) in quantities of 48 sheets. No matter how I slice it, this leaves me with several hundred dollars extra in insulation. Must find new source.

Mike, our timber framer, is gearing up to but the deck and the timber frame up in the first or second week of May, but I'm not sure if the basement walls will be ready to be backfilled (or if they need to be). We're also getting floor joists from a reclaimed school house, but we need to hook up with the salvage guy and get him to deliver them.

Whew! Bottom line is that there are a lot of little details we have to keep track of over the next few weeks.

The straw clay walls need to dry approximately 12 weeks before the first frost. Getting the walls up sometime during the first part of June would be ideal because that would give us plenty of buffer before first frost. There is, however, a lot that needs to be done before then.

Here's a rough order:

1. pour footings and basement walls
   
2. frame up exposed portions of basement
3. erect timber frame
4. put on deck (first floor)
5. erect larsen trusses (framework for straw-clay walls)
6. run electrical conduit in larsen trusses
7. get well installed (need a lot of water for straw-clay walls)
8. get straw-clay mixer built and working (Heidi's dad is working on this)

Geez. That's a lot to do.

Oh, and we sold our house (3 days after it went on the market). We got a good price, more than we had budgeted for... which is good because I think we are going to need the extra money. We've already gone over budget on a few items (well and septic... ouch).

I get back from Ohio on Friday night. We move over the weekend. Close on Thursday. After that we will be living in a pop-up camper on site. Porta-potty's been ordered!

So... our lives are a little hectic right now.

This is an adventure. This is an adventure. This is an adventure. This is an adventure.

The Beginning...

Well, it's 2005. Blogs abound. Actually, it seems like this is a fantastic medium for us to share and document what we're doing with our home.

My wife and I currently live and work in Madison, Wisconsin. We used to live in Moscow, Idaho. Ever since we lived out west, we have had the dream of one day building our own home on a little piece of land. We have nurtured this dream, researched building techniques, read books. I had always envisioned this as some wild idea that wouldn't materialize until we were near retirement.

It happened rather suddenly. My wife began looking for land. We found some land that we could afford that we really liked. The bank loaned us the money. And now we get to build a house.

So, here we are. From a construction standpoint, this really is the beginning. The concrete contractor should be pouring the footings sometime within the next 10 days... so, we will be off.

Our goal is to build a home that is healthy and nurturing for our family while minimizing the home’s impact on the environment- both during construction and while operating over its lifetime. Our design targeted small size with optimal function. Materials were chosen based on environmental impact, performance, and affordability. The process of searching out salvaged and locally produced building materials has been fun and enlightening.

What are we building, and why is it worthy of a dedicated blog? Well, in a lot of ways it's really not that odd. We are building a timber frame house with straw-clay walls. This is a form of construction that has a lot of historical precedence - many of the centuries-old buildings in northern Europe share this construction. Straw-clay walls offer a number of benefits:

1. Local, lower-impact materials;
2. Good insulation; a 12" thick, light straw clay wall has an R-Value of around 24;
3. Good thermal mass for passive solar designs;
4. Provides a house envelope that can effectively manage water vapor and condensation, resulting in a healthy, comfortable home… a good “third skin” for its occupants.
5. Walls are fire and insect resistant.

Timber framing is a beautiful form of craftsmanship. We love the way timber framed structures look. If well cared for, a frame should last for centuries.

Outside of these two things, the house is pretty normal. It has electricity and running water. We plan to heat with a masonry heater (we have about 3 acres of woods on our land, and there is an abundance of wood nearby that can be easily salvaged). We plan to install a solar hot water heater.

To as great an extent possible, we are trying to plan for future "green" additions to the project. One day we would like to invest in some type of on-site renewable energy source - solar or wind being the most likely candidates right now. The initial budget did not allow us to incorporate these things up front, but we hope to be able to tackle those in a few years.

So, check back frequently. We will be posting entries as we go along, and adding photos. We welcome your comments and discussions!