HOW TO FIND WARMTH IN THE POLAR VORTEX
Underhill House is a great place to spend a Polar Vortex. We were snug and cozy with NO FUEL BURNED DURING THE SUNNY PART OF THE DAY.
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, […]
OPEN HOUSE SHOWCASES OLD AND NEW AT UNDERHILL
As Underhill House nears completion, we are holding our final open house Sunday January 13. This will be a chance for those of you in the area to have a walk-through and check out some of the materials and methods we have employed, some new and some ancient, to build […]
6 STAIRS THAT GET YOU THERE WITH FLARE AND ROOM TO SPARE
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 […]
THE GOLDILOCKS METHOD OF DOWNSIZING
PLANNING TO DOWNSIZE WITHOUT REALIZING IT Things were happening fast 9 years ago for Doug and me. After years of searching for land in the Driftless Area, we happened upon the 44 acres that would change our lives the weekend before Labor Day. We came back for a second look […]
WHAT’S HOT AT UNDERHILL HOUSE? A THERMAL MASS WALL WITH EMBEDDED PEX TUBING
guest post by Doug Hansmann We always planned to have a mass wall between the kitchen/dining room and the den. It was designed to soak up sun on sunny days and heat from the wood stove on cold nights and cloudy days. But over time we began to realize that […]
UP, UP AND AWAY! RAISING THE TIMBER FRAME BENTS AT UNDERHILL HOUSE
In my first post on our timber framing process (Whole Tree Timber Framing Begins at Underhill House ) I stressed the patience required to start a whole tree timber frame project. A week later, I’m still trying to catch my breath after a whirlwind ride (literally and figuratively) as the […]
UNDERHILL HOUSE — WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Much of the inspiration for the home we are building has its roots in the 300-year-old farmhouse we lived in while Doug was doing his postdoc in the Netherlands about 25 years ago. We were particularly open to the idea of building a whole-tree, unmilled timber frame house because we’ve […]
MY VALENTINE TO THE TIMBERS THAT WILL MAKE OUR HOUSE
It’s time for an update on building our house because things have been moving along swiftly this winter. Last summer we went over our 44 acres with Roald Gundersen and Della Hansmann from Whole Trees Architecture, selecting specific trees to be part of the house based on both their suitability […]
TURNING TREES INTO UNMILLED TIMBERS part one
When we got out to our land last Friday it had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Thursday we had been clearing and burning the tops and side branches of the pine trees that had been harvested over the last two weeks for use as un-milled rafters and joists as […]
Digging in the Driftless 