It's been a while now since Lisa first suggested we enter our Bungaloft project in the Build It Green! Home Tour. Once we were accepted (and committed, or more likely, ready to be committed ), we accelerated the pace a bit, worked hard on the house and finally waved a glorious goodbye to our temporary, fifth-wheel-trailer-home and moved into the house. A week later we welcomed about 150 green building aficionados to our 550 sq ft experiment in compact living for a day's worth of interesting conversation about our work in progress. Although a bit of imagination was a useful tool for the typical visitor, the temporary staging job we did to make a serviceable presentation came off pretty well. In spite of an unfortunate, last minute, job-site accident that left Lisa feeling a little less presentable than she might have liked, we all three (Zane entertained guests) thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Now that we have been in the house a while and are beginning to tackle the many remaining tasks in earnest, it feels like time to review what got us this far. We would never claim to be the ultimate green warriors on the home remodeling front, but we have made a significant commitment to incorporating green building techniques wherever we felt we could. The other major consideration has always been to find a comfortable melding of the Bungalow heritage of our little house with our shared fondness for Modern design principles.

As the modest remodel began to look more like a complete rebuild, I keep noticing how much beautiful old fir was coming out of the original construction. 1928 was undoubtedly a good year for framing lumber. So our thoughts turned to ways we could make use of the growing bounty. The first significant step in that direction was recycling some of the material into thick veneers to build our bathroom vanity pictured above. In keeping with the Modernism meets Bungalism theme I had in mind, we had decided to build a European style wall-hung cabinet. Two particular pieces of fir seemed destined for this project. The one visible in the photo above had beautiful straight, close grain with a smattering of nail holes to remind us of it's provenance. The other board, originally a painted baseboard, had a wilder wavy grain pattern with a bit of lighter colored sapwood. I made use of some leftover bamboo stair tread material to make a set of towel hooks like the one at left below the motion-detector shower fan switch.

We stumbled upon the one-piece counter top at Ikea. It is a very well made part complimented nicely by a Cifial faucet purchased inexpensively at a local fixture shop sale. The very modern top surface of the cabinet inspired me to look for a handle that would nicely blend that polished look with the more rustic feel of the Fir. I finally decided to make the handles from some recycled steel angle lying around the shop. The combination of a modern design with the rough mill finish seems like just the right touch. The photo below shows the other Fir material and a detail of the smaller pulls used on the narrower right set of drawers along with a glimpse of Lisa's idea to use open shelves for rolled-up bath towels.

The material reclamation process we used involves a number of steps starting with planing and resawing the original material. The photo below shows one of the boards making its way past the blade of my vintage Dro bandsaw equipped with a custom fence I built for it. I chose to aim for 1/16" inch veneer just because it felt right.

The material reclamation process we used involves a number of steps starting with planing and re-sawing the original material. The photo above shows one of the boards making its way past the blade of my vintage Duro bandsaw equipped with a custom fence I built for it. I chose to aim for 1/16" inch veneer just because it felt right.

We pressed Lisa into service for the sanding phase. I salvaged this little wide belt sander years ago and rebuilt it. I have found it very useful for just this kind of project. We were able to make up some really sweet Fir veneer.

The drawer fronts made of cabinet plywood were laminated with the Fir veneer using a shop-made vacuum pump and bags. (Yes, the reservoir is a propane tank but it never had propane in it and the capacity is just right for the pump capacity.) I didn't have any veneer tape in the shop so we made do with blue tape. Some will recognize the "bench" as a structural insulated panel - one of many stored as walls or other surfaces around the shop until they see use in a building project.

Back to work . . .

I imagine that one of the reasons people travel is the chance - however small - it affords to see that you have ways about you that weren't all that apparent traveling only amongst your own tribe. Lisa and I made a medical tourism pilgrimage to Costa Rica recently and I was frequently aware that it was not my tribal elders that ran the place.

And there's nothing like getting behind the wheel of a car to give you a quick appreciation for that. Never mind the odd layout of streets and utter lack of street name signage in San Jose or the complete disregard for what signage there was come nightfall, one of the things that most tickled my cultural funny-bone was the presence of bus stops in the right hand lane along the main highway. Costa Rica is just similar enough to my own home turf to find it amusing that I had to be constantly on the lookout for pedestrians on the highway trying to catch a bus stopped in the outside lane of traffic. But then - I don't get out much . . .

So after quickly tiring from the thought of driving by yet another standard issue Costa Rican church (Italy spoils one for that sort of thing) I was completely delighted to stumble across the Romanesque edifice know to locals in Cartago simply as "The Ruin". This was clearly another kind of project and indeed it turns out to have been designed in the 1870's by the German architect Francisco Kurtz on a site typified by the frequent destruction of churches due to earthquakes. In keeping with tradition, this example was never completed because it was built on a site typified by the frequent destruction of churches by earthquakes. More recently the church grounds have been made into a very pleasant contemporary sculpture garden featuring one my favorite materials - rusty steel.

I consumed an entire roll of film with my P.90 while wandering among the Costa Rican couples and families who inhabit the grounds apparently oblivious to their original intended role as a place of worship and perhaps even the current focus on the display of rusted personal expression. Naturally I couldn't help reflecting on the Bungaloft remodel and its attendant seismic concerns as I worked to be inconspicuous with my very conspicuous wooden camera while photographing the roofless remains. My favorite image from that afternoon so far is the one above. I like the tree asserting its presence next to the timeless old structure and my own awareness that just below the frame is the veritable throng of visitors keeping their vigil beneath the beautiful stone walls.

Every year that we can manage it, we will go to the Hood River Fruit Loop tour. (But then we'll accept just about any excuse to drive out to the Columbia River Gorge.) The hills leading up to Mount Hood are a beautiful backdrop to the agricultural endeavors that bring us so much culinary delight. We always enjoy stopping at different places each year to see if we can remember where we went the year before. It's just one of the little joys of getting older . . .

This year we decided to reverse our usual route so that we might arrive at one of our favorite destinations in time for lunch. This great house sits just across the street from the Apple Valley Country Store and Bakery. Since I'm right in the middle of rebuilding our porch, I have a heightened awareness of porches - and this is a particularly substantial example.

So the first order of business is standing in line next to the smoker for some barbecue. A little solo guitar music playing in the background made up for the annoying over-parenting going on behind us. Once lunch was finished, it was time to go into the store and sample the wide variety of fruit jams and preserves that they produce and sell. If there is still room after lunch and sampling, there also good pies being made and served on site as well.

Towards the end of our tour we once again sought out this amazing, iconoclastic apple and pear orchard - The Mount Hood Organic Farms and Cottages. The proprietor has not only a wealth of fruit knowledge but also a proclivity for eccentric architecture as well. The photo above is his vintage apple sorter in a long room apparently designed to house it.

The odd thing to me is the apparent disconnect between my experience of the place and the one presented on their web site. Perhaps the eccentric architecture crowd just isn't well-heeled enough to go after.

This is a detail of some of the work underway to decorate the building compound that looks to be a long term owner/builder project.

A view across several of the buildings gives a sense of the overall effect. Of course, much more of it is under construction than completed at this point.

Before we depart, Lisa takes in a view of Mount Hood from the large inviting green in front of the buildings. Her view from that vantage point is directly towards the magnificent Mt. Hood.

Getting the addition project underway has been quite a journey so far. I've learned more about shear walls, wind loads and rain screens that maybe I really want to know. Getting a SIP project (walls, roof and floor in this case) through the permitting process means that everything has to be engineered. If I wanted to build a SIP doghouse - you guessed it: engineering . . .
But someday it may all be done. But since I've been told that there is a proverb that goes something to the effect "House done, Life over" maybe I shouldn't get in too big a rush.
In the meantime, here is a rendering of 6'5" Sketchup man walking from the addition through the breezeway with clerestory windows onto the floor of the extant structure. With the rainy season fast approaching I suppose I will need to turn the wall and roof layers back on soon!Technorati Tags: SIPs, Bungaloft, building, remodelling