Everyone I’ve talked to who has in-floor heat says they love it. Heat radiating from the floor feels like sun warming your back on a summer day. And it sure beats convection current coolly wafting past you, blown from a distant forced-air register. I’ve been told that people will comfortably […]
As we get closer to completion of Underhill House (expected move in – mid December – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!), I wanted to take a step back to appreciate the process that has brought us this far with a time lapse series of photos that follow our winding […]
Drywalling is the moment when a house is being built that the space becomes defined. Framing out the stud walls is like a pencil sketch of the rooms. Dry wall turns it into three-dimensional, enclosed, compartments. At that moment you find out what your rooms are going to feel like. […]
Remember the Beach Boys song In My Room? Underhill House is as small as we could make it, and that means our bedroom shares one wall with the main living area and bathroom and will share its other inside wall with the television in the den. The guest bedroom shares […]
Underhill House will be hosting an open house Friday October 26 from 4 to 6 p.m. 3487 County Road H, Ridgeway WI 53582 Underhill House in July. We’ve made a lot of progress since our last open house when the timbers had just been put in place last July. Unfortunately […]
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, properly insulated homes use half the energy of those without insulation. Underhill House is a blend of old and new ways to insulate. Over half the house’s walls is insulated with straw bales with an R-value of 30-45. The other half – that […]
Saturday morning the air was brisk morning with cloudy skies and a bit of wind. I was keeping my hands in my pockets as much as possible at the farmers’ market underneath the water tower at the highest spot in Mineral Point (about 3 blocks from our temporary digs). I’ll […]
The stucco finish on Underhill House has turned into quite a testing ground. The prep work and first coats began in July (See my post Underhill House Gets Plastered part one ). Finally in October is the end in sight. It usually doesn’t take so long to stucco a house. […]
We are going to get between our two floors on a winder staircase that Della designed. I was going to blog about the wonderful winder stairway at Underhill House today because the basic framing in was completed yesterday. Winders are nice because they minimize how much space the stairs take […]
Using clay, sand, straw and sawdust from our land, plus a few fire bricks and some discarded wine bottles, we are building a cob oven a few steps from Underhill House — and we will soon be baking wood-fired crusty breads, sizzling pizza and soft-centered, crunchy veggies for ourselves and […]
Digging in the Driftless 