HOUSE PROGRESS IN FEBRUARY

Here are a few pictures, which show the house as it was originally—an unfinished, not-fully-insulated, vapor-barrier-less 16'x24' cabin on stilts—and as it is now during construction. A basement was poured underneath it, a 2-story 9'x13' addition was put on and an 8'x8' cupola was built on top. All the new windows have been installed but the doors have not. The scaffolding around the cupola will be coming down soon (we hope).

The Gentrys are happy to see some progress!

CORTEN STEEL SIDING

We will be siding both the new garage/studio and the house with corrugated Corten steel. It's also known as weathering steel because it's designed to stylishly rust. It has been used on a lot of commercial buildings like the one pictured below. It changes constantly as it weathers but never needs maintenance. We're excited to see how it will look on our buildings and give them a modern look at the same time as a rustic one.

STUDIO IS TAKING SHAPE

This is the first post on this blog of our actual construction project. The previous ones have just been ideas. You can see here that the studio atop our garage (working title: "The Upper Room") is coming together. The east side of this room as a ceiling height of 13' while the west side has a ceiling height of 5'.  This rising roof-line is very dramatic and the metal is reflective, giving us maximum light.

They've just installed the Pella windows on the east and west sides, put the drywall up and the corrugated metal ceiling. The other widows will be fixed glass and they should be arriving in a couple of weeks. The final picture shows the outside of the building.

METAL DECKING

The deck in the back has been torn out so we're thinking about how we want to replace it and put a matching deck on the East side as well. After researching wood deck options we are more interested in aluminum planking like the one pictured below. 

OPEN STAIRCASE

We want the stairs from the basement to the first level and then from the first level to the second to be open and modern. Here are some examples and inspirations.

Though these aren't open-backed, I do like the side profile of these and they could be constructed.

I particularly like the one brace down the center of these stairs.

These may be the style we want for the stairs to the cupola 

These stairs appear to be braced in the walls and look like they are floating. I like this look, too.

These are a the ones available as a kit but are grossly overpriced

Just discovered this amazing design by Francesco Librizzi, which is as much a sculpture as it is a staircase/ladder. It's an extremely high priced item from Italy but perhaps we could find local iron workers who could create something similar.

SCANDINAVIAN WOOD STOVE

For our heat source, we will be taking out the existing stove and replacing it with a high efficiency wood burning stove. I love the Scandinavian styles so we chose a Morso 8150 pictured below. It has soapstone from Africa around it to help distribute heat.

BAMBOO PANELING

For the walls, we plan to go with bamboo paneling by Teragren (see link). Here are some pictures I've found with bamboo on the walls. It gives it a nice warm look.