brokenbranchfarm

As the Leaves Turn Golden: The road to enclosing

It has been a little while since my last post. My husband and I, as well as our builder, carpenter, and now the roofer, have been scurrying around solving problems. When everything holds its place in sequence, any delay in a decision or solution can be very hard to swallow. So far, at this point, the issues have been solved. Until we find the next of course.

Hurdles we have leapt in the last few weeks have included: Resolving a couple of wrong window sizes that were placed in the print, moving window framing down to meet egress, sorting out how to meet egress on windows we couldn’t move down, replacing some missing custom flashing for the triangular windows, and a few more on the fly design decisions and hurried trips to the hardware/lumber store for last minute vents and such that had to go through the roof.

As it stands, we are so very close to having her (the house) protected against the every hastening winter weather…

Rain Rain Go Away: a Week or More of Wet

One of the first things anyone who builds houses will tell you, or should tell you, is that your house will get rained upon before it is roofed. In Michigan and similar climates it just remains a fact of life for site-built houses. Our builder John was sure to warn us, and we are of course aware that a little rain is not ruinous to our house’s structure.

Knowing those things is one thing. Seeing the water pour down on the bones of your house and have there be nothing you can do about it is a whole other thing. A thing that makes stress knots form in your back muscles and threatens to shorten the tempers of even the most even-keeled of owners.

Upon this Rock: The foundation

(Retro Post) The foundation and basement of the house took a couple of months. We were nervous, as it was critical that the basement measure exactly to the print in order for the house to fit. unlike a traditional house, the kit measurements were non-negotiable and there was little margin for error. Enter in Superior…

Heart Transplant: Framing the Kitchen

This week has been very exciting, so I am posting a mid-week update. The custom kitchen extension is framed and finally I can physically see it, stand in it, and measure for cabinets (we are pretty far from cabinets)! I am a chef by trade, though on (maybe permanent?) hiatus for SAHM duties. Needless to…

C’mon Let’s Vogue: AKA More Framing

This week the T-blocking and studs on the outer dome were completed. There are open triangles where the windows are going to go and the framing of the first floor within the dome is done. Now we can “walk through” the rooms and our almost-three year old M delights in saying “I am standing in…

Meeting in the middle: Getting the dome framed

When the truck carrying the kit for our dome arrived our carpenter got to work laying out the riser walls on the waiting first floor deck (subfloor). It looked like a giant Erector set. Timberline guidelines suggest that the dome can be put together just using scaffolding, but we had to figure another solution since…

Broken Branch Dome Home Project: Getting Started

Everyone has a dream home. It is unique and different for everyone. Ours ended up being a dome. We searched a long time after we got married for a piece of land that would have what I wanted (acreage, trees) and what we needed (location location location… specifically a sane proximity to T’s work). We…

Broken Branch Farm

Author: brokenbranchfarm