Building a New House

Back in December a friend of mine, Calley Erickson, approached me about partnering to build a house in Bowness, the neighborhood where we both live.  We met and talked about it a number of times and I am very happy to say that we are moving ahead with the project and will be building over the summer.  We are currently working on building our construction estimate and clarifying our vision for the project.  Calley's wife Carrie is a gifted artist, below is her rendering of the front of the house.  

The Front of the House

I am excited about many of the parts of the house which I will get to work on.  This past week I have started researching how I will approach building a spiral staircase with an open central column, custom front entry door, and the kitchen and built-ins throughout the house.  

We have the a lot of work ahead of us and are excited to be moving forward.  If anyone is interested in being involved in or investing in the project I have attached our one page overview sheet below. 

One Page Overview
 

SAWS Timber Framing Presentation

On February 20th I gave a presentation on timber frame construction and in particular center line layout techniques. As promised, here is the power point presentation I used in the first half of the presentation.

Download Presentation

Tree Table and Chair

Progress on the chair and desk has seemed a little slow lately, this is largely because so much sanding and shaping was required on the carvings of the trees for the table.  The carved trees wrap around the entire perimeter of the table, there are 7 on the front and back and 3 on each side.  Totaling 20 trees on the table which required enough time that I could have watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy three times though.  There really wasn't much to explain in it other than it just takes lots of sand paper and sore fingers. 

Quite a bit of time also went into finessing the fit of the chair back to the legs.  It was secured with 1/4" steel rod which extends 5" into the legs and 1 3/4" into the chair back.  I've given the chair a good test sit with a slight lean and all seems to be well thus far. 

Table and Chair together for the First Time

Closeup of the Carved Trees

Once the final sanding and looking over of the chair and desk was completed I took the pieces over to the spray booth were I have applied a lacquer.  This was my first time to use a spray finish and while I have been taking my time I seem to be getting acceptable results.  I can't offer any tips and tricks as I am still learning how to do it.  I'd say thus far that it is coming out good, but not great.  Still have much to learn. 

The Chair in the Spray Booth

Hopefully, I will be able to  make the slip seat for this chair shortly and then put this project to bed.