Wow! Building a hybrid home, combining natural building materials and practices with green, high-tech materials and practices can make for some very full days on the building site. The pace seems to be picking up, which is a challenge when the temperature tops out above 100 degrees, as it has […]
When we begin building our straw bale walls next week, they will go on a strong and beautiful foundation – the second round of slip-form stone wall in Underhill House. This wall has something that the first one didn’t. As Doug and I have worked on the slip-form stone walls […]
It was a fascinating process to watch the branching timbers that form the structure of Underhill House sprout a few new branches last week. If you would like to learn more about why we believe building with branching timbers is one of the most ultimately environmentally friendly ways to form […]
It was July 4. The crew was taking a well-earned holiday, but Doug and I were out at the land pouring carefully measured out yogurt containers of water onto the parched garden plants from the six 5-gallon buckets we filled from our garden hose in town. Our little pond is […]
We hosted two open houses this past weekend. On Friday, we invited friends and many others interested in alternative building paths to come out and see how Underhill House is progressing. On Sunday our realtor, Tom Tarrolly, held an open house to put our Madison home on the market. The […]
We had a crane back for hoisting Underhill House’s rafters up into place. Unlike two weeks before when Dan had used his crane to fly the bents into position, we did not finish the work day earlier than anticipated. Fitting the rafters in place made for a long, physically taxing […]
Here is a story I had a great time researching and writing that just appeared in Isthmus, Madison’s edgy weekly. Summer is a classic time to get away from the asphalt jungle, but that doesn’t mean you have to make reservations and pack your bags. Anyone in Madison is just […]
Last spring as we were peeling, sanding and painting the timbers for Underhill House, the question of how we would get the roof rafters up on top of the bents was often on our minds. In previous houses built by Whole Trees Architecture and Structures, rafters have been hoisted up […]
Stone is such a durable and desirable building material. We wanted to incorporate some into Underhill House. Helen and Scott Nearing, pioneering back-to-the-landers, who built their house and farm buildings from stone on their Vermont land, were rich in a flinty sort of igneous rock formed from cooling lava. Unfortunately, […]
Fitting together the timbers for a whole tree, forked timber frame house is a very creative process that involves a good grasp of geometry and physics in the bargain. This week the three exterior porch pillars were set in place, and it was fascinating to watch. For each of the […]
Digging in the Driftless 