Lone Fir Residence

a create of exterior shades arrives – mockup is next!  Stay tuned.

connecting to our neighbor's sidewalk

5 yards of concrete

with some help from expert friends, we poured a wider sidewalk in a new location to allow for a planting strip

partial installation of our new roof

Easily the best feature of our house – by the time December rolled around, we were happy to see this replace some shredded blue tarps.  We went with a white roof to keep us cool in the summer – we double checked all the vantage points in the neighborhood to make sure we would never see this Moby Dick of a roof from the ground.

Installing eave tie offs was a good idea: used to reach hard to reach spots safely with multiple tie off spots, makes setting up and taking down scaffolding easier.

top floor living area looking out the the cemetary to the north

guest bedroom on the ground level comandeered for a temporary workshop

Our focus has been on the exterior, but interior spaces are slowing taking shape.

window flashing details

Custom window flashing is coming together – we used dark bronze sheet metal to tie the dark cladding together with the alumiunum window cladding.  The aluminum windows have weeps that drain out onto the sheet metal sills.

the east and west elevations approaching completion

Hints of the finished home are starting to peek through – a sunflower oil based stain was used on the rough sawn 6″ cedar siding, while painted, surfaced cedar is used as to articulate the projecting volumes on the north, west and south elevations.

the big moment: performing the first blower door test

To meet Passive House requirements, an airtightness of 0.6 ACH (air changes per hour) at 50 Pa is required.   Even though the house is far from complete, we were able to perform a preliminary test, because the continuous air tight layer is in place – it is the structural plywood sheathing with taped seams (we used Grace Vycor with a primer).  The magic happened : a lot of thought and good execution invested in the framing details paid off!