The Carport

Whenever I get to build, I have a need to really engage in the act of building. There needs to be something "built" about the project, something that seems "made," something that teaches me a new technique, something that offers a new medium to work with. In the Charlottesville house, it was the structural system: the house is essentially 5 pairs of brick piers spanned by huge paired wooden beams. In this house, it went beyond the setting of the modular boxes: it became the carport and the bookend.

We had a price from Bob Segalla to add a carport to the roadside end of the house. While we had drawn it into our pricing package, it was not part of the modular construction. I think he looked at it quickly and assumed it would be a straightforward garage structure, and he put a number on it. After the the house boxes were set, we re-imagined the carport relative to the new building. We lowered it's ridgeline to bring the height of the house down closer to grade. We still left it pretty tall, monumental in fact, so I could hit tennis balls and shoot basketballs within its cavernous space.

As for materials, we thought about everything, but nothing seemed to work. When Pilar made the decision to drop the ridgeline, something clicked, and it seemed obvious that we should make the supporting posts become steel columns, and the spanning beam should also be a deep steel beam. Painted black.

So here's another thing I love about Bob Segalla: when we shifted from wood construction to steel, he found it was cheaper, so he did the unthinkable: he gave us money back. That's right. Maybe I've been hanging with a lower class of guy, but that just doesn't seem to ever happen, in building or life. There's still one guy out there......

To end the house, I had fallen in love with the idea of a stone end. I remember on a boat trip to Shelter Island seeing the ruins of a magnificent barn: all that was left were the stone gable ends, perfect stone blades amid the overgrown vines. I remembered Kahn's dictum to "build good ruins." We looked into stone, got it priced, but inevitably, I seemed drawn to making a white white surface that shot down into the green grass of the field. I wanted it smooth, white, maintenance free. Stucco.

I considered putting a gigantic opening in this end, a giant glassless opening. Lots of people thought this should happen, but I didn't want a carport that totally failed: I didn't want to have to scrape snow off the truck every single time. And I really really liked the idea of a monolithic blade of white in the grass. So, it became just that. Now, every time I see it, especially up close, it makes me think I'm somewhere warm and sunny.

Roofs and Neighbors

We have a neighbor down the hill whom we like very much, and one day he called to say that the new roof we put on our old barn (at left above) reflects the sun pretty severely into his eyes at certain times of the day. Ugh..... We love the standing seam roof: not only does it match the silos, not only does it remind me of the farmhouses of my youth, not only is it durable, relatively permanent and green (for its heat reflectivity), and not only is it beautiful, it has an authenticity that defies the transient nature of the everyday. It is real.

And to our neighbor's disappointment, we had already ordered the roofing material: it was sitting in the roofer's garage awaiting the trimming of the building, and some decent weather. Finally, the clouds drifted away and the roofers got to it, making quick work of the main roof, holding off of the carport roof until the bookending of that structure is complete.

I do think the neighbor will be ok with this roof, as it is parallel to his view of it, so the sun won't glance off of it at the proper angle. I don't know about the other neighbors though....

Lawn Ornaments

Protecting the House

In that the modules were delivered in January, and the inside is fully drywalled and primed, there was a bit of stress every time it rained this winter. The house is wrapped in building wrap, and the roof has ice and water shield over it's entire surface, but we have enormous winds over our hilltop, and some of the wraps blew off. Segalla has gamely re-covered it, not once not twice, but three times and finally resorted to attaching battens over the whole house to pin it down.

The first order of business was to get some windows in the holes. We ordered a month in advance 16 out-swing French casement windows. We found some that don't have a vertical bar in the middle, so when they open, they truly open with no dividers. Ours are big, and they sit 27" from the floor, so the view is unobstructed when one is sitting or standing. They showed up a week after the house, and Segalla's men quickly and expertly dropped them in place.Thank goodness, for then it rained and blew and rained and blew....... and finally, the clouds broke, the fog lifted, and the sun came up.

Time to side the building!!!!

I've said I like things like a thoroughbred - high and tight - and the siding is an important part of that. I want it smooth, almost seamless, but with a little relief. And, given the high winds we have, it must be dead-eye tight. After some tossing and turning, and getting as many varying viewpoints as there are people in the world, I decided to go with shiplap siding, hung atypically in horizontal fashion, with the smooth side out. This way, painting would be a snap, and looking down the house, you even pick up some reflectivity.

I also decided to furr out the siding 1/4" from the sheathing, so that if water did penetrate the gaps, it would just run down the back of the siding and out, as opposed to just sitting there soaking the house and forming mold. I ordered the siding and had the supplier pre-prime it on both sides so the wood would remain stable and avoid cupping.

I needed some help with this - the work is substantial, and a bit dangerous, given the heights. I interviewed about 8 crews for this, and it made me a bit crazy. Guys out there still think $45/hour is their due, even if they aren't working and nothing is in sight. One guy about pushed me to the edge and I wanted to start throwing blows. He walked slow, talked slow, and gave me attitude about all the work I needed to do before he came. He stood there stupidly, and said he'd like $50/hr. I asked if he had a crew. "No, I work alone." Well, I'm thinking, he really thinks I'm going to pay him to cut a board, drag it up one end of a ladder and tack it up, then climb down same ladder and go up another ladder and tack in the other end, then go down and relocate the ladder at least 3 more times for this board. And for 1000 more boards. At $50/hr.! I really wanted to clock him, but I just turned away as he started whining about working cheaper for cash....

Finally, I found a can-do guy with a "no prob" attitude, who was willing to work cheaper because he recognized the economy and needed the work. I hired him, he rounded up his buddies, and he started promptly. Sometimes the work seems to go a little slowly, but he has proven to be exacting and careful and the result has been superb in every way.

And looky there.... a little bit of roof has shown up!

January 15th, 2010 - 7:30 a.m. - Four big packages arrive...

and are hoisted into place.

The kids stayed home from school....

The stairs were dropped into place.....

and the last box headed for home.....

The roof was folded up into place....

The gable ends were fit right in...

and bang zoom we're done: 5:30 p.m.

Concrete Matters

One of the favorite sounds from my youth is the beep beep beep of a concrete truck as it backs up to the site to drop its load. The unbridled stress, the scrambling excitement, the harrowing permanence of it - it is pure joy to me.

My concrete guy is the coolest hand in the land. Nothing was a big deal. Everything was no problem. And when we set the house on it a month later, it was dead-eye dickie accurate.

The process is simple enough:

You dig out the hole...




pour in, spread and compact the gravel...



set up the formwork...


call in the truck...

and pour....

A few days later, you set up the wall forms....

and pour them too.

This was my Ando moment. I'm reminded that buildings are so beautiful in their rawest stage, that the more they look like buildings, and actually function, some of their poetry vanishes.