We’ve lost a treasured feature in the homes being built today… the attic.

Roof trusses have made our homes cheaper and faster to build.  I question their durability and longevity but one thing can’t be debated we have lost a tremendous amount of usable space within our homes…. a treasured space.

Originally posted 2015-08-16 22:43:12.

I’d be hard pressed to come up with a more attractive design for an outbuilding where one can practice their craft out back… complete with a fireplace!

This sketch of a Forge Barn above is within Sloane’s book “American Barns and Bridges”.

When I look at these drawings above and below by Eric Sloane that he made of existing historic outbuildings I am overwhelmed at the variety and the beauty of these structures.

How is it that we lost this ability put up something attractive in your back yards?

I don’t know about you but I’d like to have one of each! I used to tell people that I was going to have a bumper sticker made that read… “He who dies with the greatest number of outbuildings wins” lol

Here’s an outbuilding that I once built that was inspired by one of these drawings.

These sketches of are within Sloane’s book “Our Vanishing Landscape” which is one the books on my recommended reading list that I offered a few weeks ago. I’d like to share a few more of Sloane’s sketches with you in the coming day or two… I think you’ll enjoy them.

BTW… I have four duplicate copies of four different books of Sloane’s (one that is out of print) that I’m giving away to four different people that sign up by Monday. I’m going to do a random drawing of those on the list… I’ll shoot the winners an email and ask for an address. (The sign up button is at the top of my FB page or on my blog handmadehouses.com OR… if you get my free list of the books I recommend reading you will be automatically signed up. Oh… one last thing… those that signed up to get the free guide prior to this last weekend, there was a technical issue… you did receive your guide, but you weren’t signed up… sorry about that… please, try again, thanks… I’m afraid that I am a much better builder than I am a techie. Noah

Originally posted 2015-08-06 13:47:19.

Isn’t this a precious Sugar House”?
Whenever I view an attractive building I ask myself… “What makes it so?”

There are some lessons to be learned upon careful examination of this wonderful pen and ink drawing by Eric Sloane. The author/artist lays the answer out there for us, so plain, simple, and easy to understand.

Originally posted 2015-08-06 13:17:28.

There is no better feeling than that felt at the end of the week in seeing what has been accomplished.

Originally posted 2015-07-18 18:40:04.

The architect for this home struggled with the challenge of adding a barn to an existing home… in not overwhelming the house, yet meeting the client’s vision. She was concerned in what size barn I may be able to find.

I fully understood her concern.

I freed her of the limitations of the dimensions of an existing barn by assuring her that I could adapt antique barn timbers to whatever barn dimensions she felt was most appropriate for this home.

Here is a photo of that barn addition, per the architects design, assembled by my crew. I’d like to share with you over the next couple of days the construction of this barn addition… I think you’ll enjoy the process. 🙂

Originally posted 2015-07-18 12:43:26.

The owners of this stone home wanted to have an addition added that would serve as a large great room. They envisioned an antique barn frame, with massive timbers, and interior views clear to the peak of the roof.

Originally posted 2015-07-18 12:30:56.

Let me close out the tale of this project with six last construction photos.

So much of the wonder of having a home is in the building process itself. These moments in one’s life of building a home should be a treasured time. I encourage you to join in on the process of designing and building your own home as much as you can.

Maybe… build the home yourself… why give all the fun to someone else? 🙂

Originally posted 2015-07-16 14:15:19.

I thought perhaps this photo of the cabin’s fireplace was most appropriate to post… this was the fireplace as we, the builders of this cabin, saw the most (as you can see by our “decorations”).

We enjoyed this fireplace throughout the construction of the house often eating our lunches while gathered around it’s warming flames.

A career in construction has it’s downsides, it’s hard work, it’s dirty, and it is certainly not the path to wealth, but give me an open fire, some good conversation with dear friends, and the feeling that comes from accomplishing something with my own hands… any day.

Originally posted 2015-07-15 14:48:45.

There are a lot of details that make this cabin special… the logs, the copper roof, the stone chimney, the heart pine siding, and of course, the overall design… but for me, the one element that makes this cabin “snap” is the hip roof on the front porch.

I didn’t draw that hip feature in when I created the original plans… it was one of those “job site changes” that are so common on our projects. Something wasn’t right with a simple shed roof on this cabin as I had drawn it to be… it was just too… plain.

We had to fuss for a while in creating the right angle on this hip roof, moving boards around and then standing back and taking a look at it, but eventually we reached this look… and we liked what we saw.

I hope you do to.

Originally posted 2015-07-13 20:05:33.

The house then reached it’s “ugly period”… you know, that time of a home’s construction when all the exterior wrap has torn loose a few times, when the yard is scattered with debris, when someone had tacked up a sheet of plywood over a window opening to keep the rain out.

But then, the roofers showed up with their shiny copper and all those ladders.

Originally posted 2015-07-12 12:28:31.