If this isn’t the ugliest new home that I have ever seen, it’s certainly a contender.

All of you dear friends who have been following my ramblings for a while know that I place great importance on the concept that a home needs to be attractive from all four sides… and that the most important of those four sides is the one seen from where you park your car.

Originally posted 2015-03-09 21:47:15.

While we were there… restoring the Strasburg stone home… we thought we ought to go ahead and build a sweet little stone cottage. It now serves as a guest house and studio for the homeowners… pretty cute, huh?

Found in this new structure is  five key ingredients to excellent design and construction. When combined a home can be created that is striking in appearance to all who gaze upon it.

First it’s small. Now houses don’t need to be small to be attractive, and it is possible to have an ugly small home… but the odds are in your favor that if you build small, that the structure will be attractive. Large homes can be attractive too, but one must avoid the flaws so prevalent in the dreaded McMansion.

The second feature found in this home is the simple, elegant, and historical lines… nothing here for show, no doo-dads, fake gables, or plastic columns. Simplicity at it’s best.

Third, is the quality stone work… lot’s of stone… and not some kind of stick-on random pattern stone work. Here we have the best stone available for this location, laid by skilled masons. Brick can be nice too… if well done.

Fourth… install a quality roof.  This one is copper. The eye and the mind, can’t help but notice the added richness, if the house is worthy of possessing a precious metal for it’s roof, then it must be precious. Like fine jewelry on a woman.

And finally use antique wood on the interior. An antique is always worth more than something newly manufactured. It’s warmer, worn from use, and of a higher quality than can be found anywhere else.

Originally posted 2015-03-08 17:27:23.

And then, we started putting the mountainside cabin back together, with the goal of making her better than she ever was.

First up, was our desire to re-use those precious pole rafters that had held up the old roof system for many decades (see my prior posting for a photo of them).

How those skinny poles had ever supported a roof is beyond me. I could easily have seen how the next heavy snow load on top of that roof would have brought the roof crashing in. What a tragedy it would have been for old St Nick the next time he had visited there.

Originally posted 2015-03-03 17:15:05.

The first step in restoring an old log cabin is to remove everything that you don’t want.

I know that sounds far too simple. But the truth is that most people are baffled as to just where to begin on a project like this. It all just seems so overwhelming. I’ve seen men just stand there with their mouths hanging open.

Actually, there is another step that one needs to take first.. before the work begins… and that is a story to be shared…

You see, it was requested of me to not get a permit for this cabin. We were after all “just fixing it up”. We weren’t adding any square footage. There was no plumbing, no wiring, no septic work. “Just a tune up”. There was a concern expressed about drawing attention to the cabin, no one wanted to make vandals or thieves aware of this little cabin.

The cabin was located three miles from anything a sane person would consider a road.

The access “road” to this cabin was extremely narrow, with sheer cliff drop-offs at the edge, and riddled with pot holes that would swallow the average car. (I once stopped on the way to work to pick up a section of the leaf spring from my pickup truck that fell off.)

I had one young man quit because of that road. He was riding down the mountain as a passenger in a very small car with another member of the crew who was… “very large”. The road was covered with snow and they slid within an inch of going over the edge. He told me that he had a vision of dieing that day with Charlie laying on top of him inside of a cheap Ford Fiesta… “I’ll never fully recover from that image” he said.

Anyway, somehow the County Building Inspector found out about the cabin being restored and came looking for it. He parked uphill from the cabin, about a quarter of a mile. You see, the last leg of the road was downhill and I guess he was concerned that he might not be able to get back out.

And so he walked down to the cabin where my crew was working.

But, as he was walking it became apparent that he had failed to engage the parking brake on his new county truck… which came down the hill after him until it found a tree capable of stopping it.

I wasn’t on site. Thank goodness.

My crew was most helpful and managed to winch the inspectors truck back up on the road and luckily it was not so damaged that he couldn’t make it back to his office. He left message with my crew that I was to come see him at my “earliest possible convenience”.

I still remember that day, arriving in the county parking lot, walking past a truck which had it’s front in caved in, wondering if my career was over, or if I would be removed from the project, or if I was going to be hit with all kinds of fines, or lectured to by an angry soul, or perhaps be held financially responsible for the damage to his truck.

After sitting in the waiting area for a few minutes as other members of the staff would point at me and whisper things I was invited back to “the office”. I swear I felt like I was going back to the Principal’s Office. I hoped there wasn’t a paddle hanging on the wall.

I could tell the inspector, who sat quietly on the other side of the desk, was enjoying this moment as I tried to explain and apologize.

But the man surprised me.

Unlike most government officials that I have encountered over the years he had a kind spirit. He was a retired builder himself and he really appreciated my work. He also admired my men who helped him out that day. And, he was truly grateful that an old cabin in the county was being saved and not destroyed.

He handed me a form to fill out for a renovation permit and said the fee would be forty five dollars. Whew.

In the years after, that man I became friends. I always made sure and got a permit, and he was always so complimentary of my work. I was greatly saddened the day that he retired.

Originally posted 2015-03-02 18:13:14.

Four final parting shots of Western View…

Thanks to each and every one of you for allowing me to walk you through not only this house, but the construction of her.

You are the best.

I had a great time sharing, but I can’t help but feel like some old grandfather going slowly through the family photo album with all the grandchiildren rolling their collective eyes and wondering if the old man would ever finish. lol

Originally posted 2015-03-01 15:41:35.

Here’s the kitchen of Western View…

The cabinets were made by my crew using left-over pieces of vintage heart-pine and antique glass panes that we gathered from salvaged window sashes.

We even made a “wood refrigerator”… can you spot it?

Originally posted 2015-03-01 15:08:46.

Now, this is how a bathroom should be.

The soapstone floors are heated with radiant heat so that they are always warm to the touch. Happy feet always make a person smile.

There is of course a shower (not seen) but no motorized, over-sized jacuzzi.

And, there is one fine, oh-so-comfortable, clawfoot bathtub. A clawfoot tub is more than a cleaning instrument… It is a destination… a meditation./relaxation device… an escape from reality.

Never buy a tub by looking at them… get in them! Try them on! Buy for comfort.

I sized the water heater in this house so that there would never be a shortage of hot water when a little more would be needed. One can spend the day in this room. Or not. But you should have the option, if that is your choice.

The wainscoting on the walls gives the bath a nice country feel… and the box under the window?… that is a laundry shoot that drops old clothes directly into a basket in the laundry room below.

This bath is a great example of understated luxury. I like that. I’m not impressed with baths that are the size of bedrooms, I’m not impressed with gold faucets, triple sinks, or showers designed for six people at a time. A bath, just like every other room should be a place that a homeowner wants to spend time in… it should be comfortable, not something to impress the neighbors.

Originally posted 2015-02-28 15:58:47.

It is important that women let men have their way at least once during the construction of a home.

I’d say that in half of the homes that I have built over the years that the woman of the house was in fully in charge. The man stood in the background to create the illusion of strength, but was quick to say “whatever you want honey”.

The other half of my projects the husband and wife presented themselves as a team and mutually decided on everything… but if there was a difference of opinion… guess who generally got their way?

Now, there was one rustic cabin that I built for a man, and no wife ever appeared to give her opinion. Of course there is to this day a bear head hanging in the hallway. And dog hairs are thick on the sofa.

Anyway, back to the point… this was a team project, the clients were the sweetest couple you could imagine, just terrific people, and the husband really wanted an atrium/sunroom/greenhouse. And, we all supported him.

I believe the main reason for this glass room was to provide some solar heat during the winter and to create a space filled with light… and it worked. The sun heats the stone chimney and floor and the windows are then opened and the heat flows into the rooms.

Originally posted 2015-02-26 16:32:51.

And so with an abundance of massive beams, siding, and old windows from the salvaging of the house in Franklin, we built a garage.

We designed the garage as a blend between the refinement of the house and the roughness one would expect in a farm building, and having a feel of a 1940’s roadside garage. We did place it a distance from the home, but connected it visually through the addition of a long stone retaining wall.

The clients have told me that one of their greatest challenges with this homestead is that when visitors arrive they want to see the garage and that after it is shown that they have a hard time pulling their guests away from the garage and into the home.

I consider that a compliment.

Originally posted 2015-02-26 14:29:18.

“Ninety percent of home buyers have made their decision on whether or not to buy a home by the time they reach the front door”… at least that is what my realtor told me.

I have no idea if that is a proven fact or not.
But, there is a lot of reason to think that that statement might be true.

The entrance to a home says a lot about the character and quality of a home. Also, by the time someone reaches the door, they have seen the neighborhood, the curb appeal of the home, and the landscaping.

A new homeowner can do a lot to adapt the interior to their tastes… new paint, fixtures, appliances and furnishings and the interior is reborn, but what is outside is pretty well set in place, without major disruption and expense.

The door and surrounding glass on Western View came from an old brick home that was falling down in Culpeper County. That home served as a hospital during the Civil War, one in which Walt Whitman spent several months recovering, and in which he did some of his writing.

Every time you enter this home you can’t help but think of who has walked across that threshold before you.

A door can be so much more than something you pick up at the lumber yard.

Originally posted 2015-02-25 14:57:51.