THE EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE

The exterior of the house is now complete except for decks to be built on the East and West of the house. It is sided in corten steel, also called weathering steel. It rusts on purpose. This rusting process is just getting started. It's going to blend into the wilderness setting even better in a few more months. This blog post shows how corten looks when fully weathered.

We like to call this a new house but it is actually an add-on to the cabin we originally bought. To see that cabin, view the Progress in February post of this blog. Even with the additions, there are only about 1000 square feet of living space, but with the open lay-out, it feels spacious.

The front of the house (facing North)

The West side of the house

POWERED BY THE SUN

Most people think that an off-grid house with solar power is a hovel in the woods where you have to go without the luxuries of modern living. Not true. We are delighted that with the ten solar panels we have installed on the hill in the woods almost 300 feet from our house, we can live quite comfortably. With carefully selected low-power use appliances, we usually have enough power for our needs. 

The solar panels installed on the hill where there is full sun

The solar power comes into the utility room here. The box on the left houses the deep cell batteries, which store the sun's power.

LIVING ROOM

There is a formal living room on the lower level but this is the small, one-couch living room on the main level. The couch is by CB2 and it's so comfortable. I plan to paint something on the green wall.

The couch faces this Morso stove (an amazing Danish company). The stove is our primary heating source.

A PEACEFUL OASIS BEDROOM LOFT

The view of the bedroom loft from the stairwell.

These stairs lead up to the cupola (there is now a handrail).

The bedroom with snow on the trees outside

BATHROOM IN BLACK & WHITE

We decided to limit the color palette for the bathroom to black and white only. See the blog of original ideas here.

It's a bit of an optical illusion because next to the toilet is a piece of glass separating the shower area.

This is the view from the door, looking at the vanity in the mirrored cabinets.

THE DREAM KITCHEN

My long-awaited red kitchen is now complete—and we love it. We had Omega cabinets custom painted red and white quartz countertops installed. The gas stove is small because that size is sufficient for two, saves gas and it is quite adorable. The refrigerator is just 10 cubic feet and runs on very little electricity, which is important for an off-grid solar-powered house. We've found it is quite enough space for us as long as we stay organized. See the blog with plans for the kitchen here. We think it turned out even better than we'd expected!

On the left side is the dishwasher (by Fisher & Paykel)

The snow covered trees outside look great with  the red kitchen

Just around the corner from the kitchen is the dining room, which is this simple corner booth we had custom made by cqbooths.com.

FINISHED STUDIO

 The garage has a studio on top. See the original drawing and concepts here. 

House on the left, studio/garage on the right

Here the barn doors of the garage are open

This was at the end of the construction phase

This wood stove is the heating source of the studio

The stairs have tread brite covering

A panorama of the inside of the studio

ARTISTIC STAIRCASES

We started out with a two level cabin, but the project has evolved a great deal. First, a basement was dug and poured underneath, then a cupola was added on top, thus bringing the levels of our small house to four! With that many floors, stairs are important.

In June, I put together this blog post of ideas for staircases. After mulling over these concepts for a while, we decided to go with metal framed staircases with wood treads on top—a floating staircase look. Well, I'm happy to say we are now underway with the construction of all three staircases.

We've hired area artist Kelly Ludeking to design and construct the metal portion of these stairs. Check out his cool website here: http://www.krlmetals.com/.

This is a still picture from the 3D design Kelly has made. This U-shaped staircase will be from the basement to the main level. The main level to the loft will have a very similar design.

Kelly is using a studio space that's large enough to construct a "set version" of our stairwell! The carpenters have set up the walls in 2x4s showing the exact dimensions of the space. Here he's holding a metal platform onto the beam to demonstrate how they'll work. The wood will be attached to each platform.  Kelly plans to complete each staircase as a 3 piece bolt-together kit that will be constructed in this studio, then taken out to our building site and installed without need for welding there.

This shows the back side of the constructed stairwell and Kelly with the stockpile of beams for the project.

Here's Kelly getting ready to weld the support for the one of the landings.

The stairs going up to the cupola will be one straight shot similar to this picture.

THE STORY OF THE CUPOLA

I've always loved cupolas (pronounced kyoo'-puh-luh). They are so adorable. Once, William and I stayed in a guest house that was a converted barn. The cupola was reworked to become a quaint sitting room. After spending an evening up there, we casually mentioned that if we ever had an opportunity, we'd get a cupola of our own. 

What exactly is a cupola? Well, the word cupola comes from the Latin meaning "little cupo" or little dome, and originally referred to the small domes atop cathedrals which allowed light to enter the sanctuary. Here in America, traditional wooden cupolas are most commonly seen on barns and elegant cupolas adorn some public buildings. 

Since we are in the midst of building our house, we decided it was time to make our dream of having a cupola come true. It's not finished yet, but here is the story of the cupola and its progress.

This barn is on the way out to our property and I love it. I told our carpenter to make the roofline like this one with a point on all four sides. Cupolas function on barns to help with climate control. We are curious about how this will allow us to cool our house by pulling warm air up and out the cupola windows.

As they were framing the house, they opened up a hole for the cupola.

This was the first "sketch" of the cupola. They put up some boards so we could get a sense of how it would integrate into the rest of the house. We decide to go a bit taller than this.

Here's the view to the South from the cupola platform.

Another view of the original sketch.

It's pretty high up! Those guys are tiny down there.

This is a view of the framing of the cupola from the scaffolding.

The framing.

The guys finishing up the frame work.

They used the SkyTrek to bring the supplies up.

A view of the whole house after the cupola was enclosed.

This is the bedroom loft. You can see the hole in the ceiling going to the cupola. It is now a 3 foot square, which will be opened up further when the staircase is added.

The view out at the trees from the cupola before it was enclosed.

The window design for the north and south facing windows.

The cardboard panels, which we moved around to decide the exact placement of the windows before they began framing them in.

The framed in windows before the windows arrived.

The installed windows (facing south).

A panorama of the west, north and east facing windows inside the cupola (click for larger image).

The whole house with the cupola. The scaffolding will be coming off soon.

The completed trim and roofing on the cupola (with Jesse).

Once the scaffolding comes down, it will be a bit tricky to put siding on it but the carpenters think they have a plan. The inside of the cupola is 8'x8'. We'll put a U-shaped booth inside so it will be a comfortable place from which to view the whole property. Imagine star-gazing up there! We can't wait.

This is the woodwork (soft maple) on the ceiling of the cupola.

A finished wall inside the cupola.