A BAT PENTHOUSE – BUT WILL THE BATS GO FOR IT?
At first, I was excited to find bats nestling into the gorgeous geometry of our timber frame barn. Doug and I are well aware of the key role bats play […]
A GREEN REMODEL STARTING FROM THE BOTTOM UP
Doug and I are remodeling a house in Madison with our daughter, Della, who is a green architect. She spent three years in Chicago remodeling existing structures. In Madison, […]
ASH TREES CONDEMNED BY EAB FIND NEW USE
Here is an article I wrote recently for Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper. Many in Madison are sad to see the city cutting down thousands of ash trees as an invasive […]
STAYING WARM IN THE BITTER COLD
January 6 was the coldest day in the past 10 years here in rural Ridgeway. A newly-named weather phenom, known as a polar vortex, had descended on the Driftless Area. In downtown Dodgeville, -22F was flashing out front of the Wells Fargo Bank – and a brutal wind produced a […]
THE TALE OF A TIMBER FRAME TREE
There are many trees holding up our house that I remember with the same detail. Where they stood, why we selected them, working on finishing them, watching them come together into the timber frame of Underhill House. It’s easy to forget how much we rely on these amazing plants. The […]
TIMBER FRAMING WITH FRIENDS – SWEAT, LOVE AND A LITTLE DRAMA
One of the unexpected outcomes of building Underhill House was the bond that formed between our building crew members, and Doug and me. For some of the crew our project was the first time they’d worked together. This amazing team generated lasting friendships. Getting together this weekend to help Prairie […]
SOD ROOF SUCCESS AT UNDERHILL HOUSE
One of the biggies on our list of things to finish Underhill House this spring was seeding the roof. We got about 20 tons of screened, topsoil up there and planted see my post Planting Our Roof – A Prairie in the Sky https://digginginthedriftless.com/2013/05/21/planting-our-roof-a-prairie-in-the-sky/ about a month ago in mid-May. […]
RAISING THE UNMILLED TIMBERFRAME OF UNDERHILL HOUSE
It’s been a year since we framed up Underhill House. We spent the year before that selecting and preparing those timbers. Watching them come together and sketch the shape of our home against the sky was beyond thrillling. So here’s a photo replay of some of the most amazing days […]
EXCAVATING A ROOT CELLAR AT UNDERHILL HOUSE
Tuesday morning we woke up earlier than usual. And that was a good thing. I was very glad we were already awake (if not actually up and dressed) at 6:30 a.m. when our excavator, Bruce Lease, rolled past our bedroom window in his back hoe. Top of the morning to […]
HOW WE CHOSE THE WOOD STOVE FOR UNDERHILL HOUSE
Our first-choice heat source at Underhill House is a combination of passive solar and the solar hot water panels that warm our floors and thermal mass interior wall. This dual-solar supply is comfortably providing all the heat we could want during even the coldest days that this not-particularly-cold winter has […]
Digging in the Driftless 