Condemnation Plantation

She's a Rainbow

2012-01-31T00:20:00.001-05:00

There are colors everywhere, just like a rainbow. Or there will be soon.

The back of the cabin does not have as many logs as the front, so we needed to decide what to do with the wallboard. We looked at hundreds of different chips from different manufacturers and various color books, until colors were swimming all around us and nothing looked good together, or it all did. Finally, we stepped back and thought about clay. Since American Clay offers a relatively limited palette, it gives us boundaries. We worked at selecting clays first, then began to build up the colors of paints that seemed to complement the clay.

We have three spaces to color. We decided against clay in the office to help control costs. The office is the highest space in the cabin and gets lots of light, which we wanted to take advantage of, envisioning flooded gold mornings. The middle landing is dominated by the fireplace, with lots of color from the walnut tinged ceiling and orange russet logs. The living room flows into this space, so we wanted to keep it earthy. We selected a creamy clay with a hint of rose called Austin Blush. The same color will be used on the north wall next to the stairs and on the upper portion of the rear of the fireplace, which is being framed in to cover the not-so-beautiful stonework; the wallboard will also give us a flat surface to work with. The lower level is the den, with both a high ceiling and a low ceiling. The curved wall is dramatic and there is almost a cave quality to some of it (although the light is much improved over what it once was). The curved wall drops down a few steps into a still lower space for the bathroom and laundry room, both emphasizing that cave feeling. For this space, we decided on liquid blues and greens. We chose Powder River, a beautiful pale blue, for the clay on the bowed wall.

As we looked at paint to match the clay, we loved some of the gorgeous colors we found, but we also weren't keen on the quality of some of the paint or their VOC characteristics, so we are having them mixed at Pleasant's, an old-fashioned local hardware store in Richmond that will mix the Benjamin Moore Aura paint for us. Aura is a low-VOC paint that has been highly rated in ConsumerSearch (an excellent source to start evaluating all sorts of products). Even though Pleasant's has the smell and feel of an over-stuffed old-fashioned hardware store, their paint department has a decidedly modern spectrometer. They took our paint chips to analyze the colors we selected and were able to give us close enough matches, either with a standard Aura paint or through a custom mix.

Here is how the color schemes are laying out.

	Office (golds and creams)	Fireplace Landing (tans and reds)	Den (blues and greens)
Clay		Austin Blush Loma American Clay	Powder River Loma American Clay
Wall 1	Zinnia Pratt and Lambert	Truffle Benjamin Moore	Clear Creek Ace
Wall 2	Key West Ivory Benjamin Moore
Trim 1	Kenya Behr Premium +	Mayflower Red Benjamin Moore	Iced Marble Benjamin Moore
Trim 2			Intrigue Benjamin Moore
Ceiling	Vapor Benjamin Moore		Vapor Benjamin Moore

We have recorded all of our colors with their codes in a Google Document so we can replicate colors later if we need to. Trying to match the clay in the future is more problematic, since the color can change with the batch. Instead, we will retain some of the original in sealed containers. If we need to patch a wall in the future, all we will need to do is hydrate the stored clay and work it into the wall.

We are optimistic that our choices are going to work, but it is tricky. The cabin is open with lots of sight lines from one space to another. The colors need to work not only internally within a room, but also when viewing one space from another. We only want to go through this once. Mr. Seals has been busy priming the walls before he becomes our rainbow maker. We are looking forward to seeing how well the reality is going to match our inner eye. If it turns out, it will be our pot of gold.

She comes in colors ev'rywhere
She combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colors

Fire and Water

2012-01-25T23:52:00.002-05:00

The cabin has been bustling with activity. In rapid succession, the gas was hooked up to the GE Cafe stove in the kitchen and water was run to the Native Trails hammered copper basin in the bathroom after Virginia Soapstone finished the top for the vanity, giving us both fire and water in the cabin. All of the utilities (other than the FiOS for the Internet) are now fully operational. Troy has wired in the light fixtures in the bathroom. About the only thing left for the bathroom is to seal the clay around the sink and lay in the floor molding. The room is small, but we knew it would be and we hope it won't be our primary bathroom but for so long. We have a door on order with frosted glass to let in a bit of light, since the bathroom has no windows.

Even though we are keeping the thermostat intentionally low, when we walk into the cabin it no longer feels like we are in a meat locker. Not all the holes are sealed up yet, but Mr. Seals has made substantial progress. One day on my way to work, I passed a truck from Creative Conservation going the opposite way over the Huguenot Bridge. I knew it was on its way with a crew to blow Icynene foam into the ceilings and walls of the den and office, which will effectively prevent air filtration and give us a nice layer of insulation.

We stopped in last week and Mr. Seals was busy directing Gabriel and Mike as they worked a piece of heavy wallboard into place on the den ceiling so they could tack it up with their screw guns. Rachel stopped by later to give the boys a hand wrestling the heavy sheets. Almost all of the wallboard is up now, with the seams patched and the edges trimmed. We are turning our attention to colors.

We had to back off on the amount of clay we are going to use because of the expense. We are still going to use clay in several places. The first is a large wall coming off the pitched roof above the stairs going down to the den that is visible from the front room. This is the wall that is intersected by the long log that Mr. Seals installed to replace one that was defective. We selected a creamy clay with a hint of rose called Austin Blush. The same color will be used on the north wall next to the stairs and on the upper portion of the rear of the fireplace, which is being framed in to cover the not-so-beautiful stonework and to give us a flat surface to work with.

The second color we chose is called Powder River, a beautiful pale blue. We will apply it to the large curved wall in the den, which will create some drama downstairs. Both colors will be mixed with American Clay's loma mix, which contains some marble flecks to give it a bit of sparkle on top of the matte finish.

While we are waiting for the clay to arrive, we have been going through color options. There are so many to choose from that at times it becomes overwhelming. We divided the remaining spaces into three sections -- the office, the landing behind the fireplace, and the den -- which is making it a bit easier. We are avoiding even thinking about the laundry room for the time being. Each space will have its own color scheme. Since the spaces are so open, they have to go well with each other, but also match with the clays we have chosen.

We should have the colors picked out by the next blog post. It is only one of several questions we have about the cabin. The biggest one is -- When can we move in? Darien insists it will be Valentine's Day. She is a strong-willed woman. Mr. Seals is working weekends to meet the deadline.

A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart.
--Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor

Nesting

2012-01-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

I came over on Christmas Eve to check progress at the cabin. Inside was a small bird flying around, a Carolina wren. I think maybe she was testing things out, to see how livable it was. She seemed pretty comfortable, so I think we must be getting close.

Our bluestone floors are complete. Bret Bills came out to finish laying the stone and sealing it, then repaired a few of the tiles in the shower that weren't joined as nicely as we liked. In more good news, the roofer, Steve Kay, came out to fix some of the problems we have been having with moisture getting in, particularly around the chimney. He sealed the places around flashing that were problematic. There is still some work to be done on top, but things have been dry for several rains now. One of the things that was done right in the original construction is that most of the overhangs are very deep, which has kept water off of the logs. There are a couple of sections where Mr. Seals is going to extend the roof line, so we will need the roofer back finish those off and install the gutters.

The rest of the bathroom is close to being finished off. The dual flush Toto we bought at VAMAC is installed, which will help keep our water bills in check. We expect Virginia Soapstone to return next week and finishing installing the top to the vanity so we can connect the water. After that, we just have a few details to take care of and the bathroom will be complete.

With the addition of the French doors off the den, we now have all of the windows and exterior doors in place. Mr. Seals had to cut off some of the eaves inside the screened porch to make the doors fit, so he will have to come up with a way to dress that section up with a soffit of some sort.

Donny Simmons from Audio Exchange came by to begin installing the sound system. Mr. Seals wrestled the conduit from the laundry room, where I plan to have my media and network servers, to other rooms of the house. Donny set the speaker mounts in the ceiling of the office and the den, which are hardwired. Speakers in other rooms will be wireless as part of the future Sonos system. There is a conduit run to where we will have the television in the den. I want to hang a thin flat screen off the wall, but didn't anticipate having one for a while until Peter took pity on his parents and bought us a nice Samsung LED. He said it is to make up for not paying rent, although we suspect he is trying to hustle us out of the Gotham so we will be out of his hair. Cousin Ken Sikora from Access Technology came by to consult on network issues and ended up helping to run some of the cables through.

With the speaker mounts in, we are ready to have foam insulation blown between the ceiling joists, which is on the schedule for Tuesday. The roof above is flat to accommodate the future vegetative roof, consequently there is no attic. Mr. Seals has been using stiff insulation he salvaged from the deconstructed portions of the roof to fill in the spaces where the blown foam would be too impractical or messy. Already the cabin is more comfortable, as cozy as a bird's nest. It helps not to have wind whistling through the cracks. When the insulation is complete, Mr. Seals can finish putting up the wallboard, which means it is time for Darien and me to pick out wall colors. In anticipation of the walls going up, we are going to ask Rodger Childress from Vintage Pine to deliver the rest of the heart pine flooring so it can begin to acclimate to the cabin before we nail it down.

I met a neighbor at a monthly bluegrass mass last Sunday evening after bringing in the New Year with holubki, pierogi, and kolache at Aunt Connie's. Jane owns another log cabin in the neighborhood. She said she believes hers was built around the turn of the century and that the records were lost when the area was annexed by the city. She knows that an addition to her house was not built until the 1920s, adding credence to the earlier build date. Our cabin is of a similar vintage, so my speculations about the earlier date may prove correct after all.

Like most people, things slow down for us around the holidays. The whole family traveled to southwest Virginia to spend Christmas at Surber Station, a nineteenth century log cabin that used to be a whistle stop station for the train. Both Darien and I must have both been thinking a lot about cabins at Christmas -- she gave me a Stone County Ironworks hat and coat rack because we will have little closet space, while I gave her a couple of polymer clay decorated electrical face plates from artist Angie Wiggins. In one of those funny coincidences of life, I found out later that Angie has lived in her own log house for over 25 years. Of course, Mr. Seals outdid us both. He cleaned up an old amber bottle we found in the back yard and filled it with his homemade Kahlua, in spite of the embossed lettering clearly stating that federal law prohibited its sale or re-use. We already had a taste, but we are going to save most of it for when we move in. Like a pair of Carolina wrens, we are starting to get comfortable with the idea of living in a cabin.

Hard rain a-fallin'

2011-12-17T14:48:00.000-05:00

The rains came hard in Richmond, but the cabin held. Winds gusted up to 65 mph and streets flooded. After twenty minutes of huddling in the Pollack art building to protect me from the ferocious gales and listening to transformers around me blow, I dashed to my car. It took me an hour to wind my way home, trying to find streets that weren't blocked by downed trees. Rachel and Mike lost power at Hickory House and took shelter from the storm with us before venturing out to seek solace in pizza. Of course, we lost power at the cabin, too. A large limb fell next door and pulled down the wire feeding Antonia and Jonathan's cabin, bringing the electrical panel with it.

We were fortunate that no limbs hit the house. When I came over to survey the property the next morning, the back yard was littered with them. An 8" thick monster pierced a hole in the earth a foot deep when it hit. Another limb landed on the clay flower pots that I had so meticulously dug out of the ground where they had been buried for thirty years, smashing a good quarter of them. Thankfully, though, there was no water inside the cabin and no damage to the exterior. Antonia was lucky that Troy was working at our place the day following the storm and came over and reattached her panel after Dominion restored the power.

Troy is about done with all of the wiring inside our cabin. Mr. Seals didn't like the location of the thermostat behind the fireplace, so he had him move it across the hall to the outside office wall. Light boxes are installed in the ceilings and wall plates are going up. With most of the wires in place, Mr. Seals has started stuffing the walls with insulation and putting up the wallboard. The office and bathroom are tricky because of the curved wall, so he built a frame and is wetting down the wallboard to bend it before attaching it. Donny at Audio Exchange is scheduled to come out today to run the speaker wire and put in the frames for our speakers in the office and den ceilings. Mr. Seals has conduit snaking through the house, so it should go quickly. After Donny is finished, Mr. Seals can continue insulating and putting up the walls and ceilings, but we can already notice how much warmer the cabin is. He wants to have foam blown in some places, but that cannot be scheduled until after the start of the new year. Once the French doors off the den are replaced, we should be in pretty good shape for keeping out the weather.

Mr. Seals picked up our bluestone from Luck Stone and Bret has been coming by evenings to lay it in the bathroom and hall. There are striking variations in color and texture that go well with the tile in the shower. We need a sealer after Bret is finished and are going to use Aqua Mix Sealers Choice Gold, a low-VOC, no sheen product. One more piece in the bathroom was fit into place when Bill Vick brought by the wall mirror. The glass was salvaged from another mirror and Bill used his sassafras to fashion a beautiful beveled frame with a back that will gently arc along the curve of the wall.

Another salvage job was the door leading to the pantry that Mr. Seals took from another job. It is beat up but has a few glass panes in the top, which will help bring more light into that dark hallway. Darien picked up the lights for the bathroom and hall from Atlantic Electrical and has been discussing with Frieda options for the dining room chandelier. She is pointing us to Hubbardton Forge, which we have used elsewhere for lighting. The sturdy wrought iron and glass appeals to us; we think it will hang well next to the logs and pale green clay. The difficulty will be in choosing just one. Frieda told us that we should size the chandelier by adding the width and length of the room, then using that as the minimum number of inches for the fixture. So, with our 11x11 dining room, we need a minimum of a 22" light.

The Hardie panels are up on two sides of the office tower. The third wall will eventually be the interior to our bedroom. We met with Mr. Seals and walked the property, looking at where we were going to need gutters and thinking about how to handle all the water that pours off of the roof. Copper, of course, would look stunning next to the logs, but practicality tells us to look for a cheaper alternative. We are going to use a half round copper penny gutter that will give the look of real copper without the expense. After all, if we don't tell anyone, who will know?

We are starting to believe we may actually move in some day -- the inspector came by and we passed with flying colors, even getting the nod for a certificate of occupancy. That same weekend I was out in the back at the foot of the slope cutting old rusted wire fencing out of the tangled mess of ivy that grows there when I saw Richard next door. He was in a chef's apron tending his smoker and asked me if we were vegetarians. "Not since I saw you smoking the bacon," I replied. He is probably still using the logs from one of our dead hickories that landed on his property last year. He promised to add me to his list.

Maybe Mr. Seals is starting to feel the same sort of optimism. I stopped by the cabin last night after dropping Antonia off. It was raining lightly again and the temperature was dropping. In the gloomy dark I saw Mr. Seals had fashioned a wreath for the front of the house from a metal flywheel that had been dug up in the back yard when we had trenched it out for the geothermal. He had woven into the wheel metal coils from electrical sheathing and red rope lights, then hung it next to the front door for us. Our little log cabin is becoming no longer just a house, but a home.

For everything

2011-11-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

For each new morning with its light
Mr. Seals called us on Saturday morning, asking us to meet him at the cabin. With the shortened days, it is harder to take a look at things in good light during the week, so were happy to oblige.

Mr. Seals had just put the last coat of clay on the bathroom walls. The walls were still damp in spots. The Marittimo clay is a different finish than we used before. Fred Ackermann had dropped by earlier in the week to help him get started on the rough texture we are using, but Mr. Seals ended up developing his own skip-trowel technique that he is comfortable with. The photos don't do the room justice. Mr. Seals says that with the walls and and earthy tile and soon-to-be-installed bluestone floor, the bathroom will be like a cave, appropriate for a room that is buried in the deepest part of the cabin with no windows to let in the morning light.

Darien found an old mirror that was the right size for the bathroom. The frame was not in bad shape, but not to our liking either, so we asked Bill Vick to do something with it. The first step was to remove the glass. He told Darien to trash the frame, but she hated to do it. She set it out at work and in no time at all someone had claimed it.

Bill dropped off a sample of how he wants to build the frame. It will have slightly beveled edge to it, made from the same sassafras wood as the vanity and shelf. He will need to create a curved edge to conform to the contours of the wall. The sassafras will tie the bathroom neatly together. Darien has been working on finding a frosted glass door so we can let in some of that morning light.

For rest and shelter of the night
Robert Hall has been chinking the interior the past two weeks. He is essentially finished now. We are very pleased with the decision to keep the logs downstairs exposed, rough as they are. They help to communicate the warmth and history of the cabin, and the white contrasting mortar shows them off very prettily. Although we still have a few gaps here and there, the downstairs is much tighter now. We can feel the difference in the temperature. Autumn nights can be chilly in Virginia, but our shelter promises to keep out the cold. Since this will be our bedroom for a while, we want it nice and cozy.

Mr. Seals has been keeping an eye on my wallet, in the best sense of the word. He visited Siewers Lumber to talk to Charlie about our windows and doors. Mr. Seals happened to spy a small double-paned window with a crank opening. At $25, it was too good to pass up, so he bought it without even talking to us. He built the frame for it and installed it in the low space in the hall across from the bathroom.

He made another pilgrimage to Siewers a week later to talk to Charlie some more about doors. We had given him an idea of what we wanted in the laundry room as an outside door. There are no windows there, so light is an issue. Scott suggested we go with a half window door, but Mr. Seals happened to notice a wood door with a large glass, double-paned. Charlie told him he was getting ready to send it out to Habitat for Humanity's Restore as unwanted surplus. A customer had ordered the custom-made door and then decided not to use it. Charlie let Mr. Seals have it for $100. Darien suggested he should have waited for the laundry door to get to Restore so he could have gotten it for an even better price, but I'm thankful he didn't push his luck on it. Mr. Seals told us his strategy is save us enough money to enable us to afford a nice set of French doors for the downstairs that opens on to the screen porch off our temporary bedroom.

There is one more window that we have to work on -- it is in the space behind the fireplace that one passes on the way up to the office landing. For the time being, Mr. Seals put a piece of temporary glass in the opening. Eventually, we will use this window to display stained glass. Mr. Seals recently built the casing for the window, so it shows nicely against Robert's white chinking. He has been working on the casings in our interior passageways between rooms, dressing up the ends of the logs. He has also been finishing up the moldings in our kitchen above the double doors. He had to cut it in two to be able to position it into place. He still wants to dress up the seam that he cut, then fill in the cavity above the molding with a shelf.

For health and food
The plumber and electrician have also been busy. In a milestone of sorts, we now have hot water in the kitchen. For a fleeting moment, we considered celebrating one of our Thanksgivings in the cabin. We are having two of them this year. Rachel's mother invited us into her home on Thursday, which suits our schedule since we defy tradition and have our usual dinner on the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Jonathan's parents will be joining us on Friday. Antonia has led the charge to be even more unconventional, so we are eschewing tradition and incorporating Mexican dishes with our turkey. As much as we would like to use our new kitchen, we are acceding to the wisdom of convenience and spending one more Thanksgiving at Gotham.

There are now electrical wires snaking everywhere through the cabin. Half of the conduit has been installed. It will bring computer cables from our server in the laundry room up to the office, but Mr. Seals had difficulty finding enough room to fit conduit next to the duct work for the wireless switch and the Sonos bridge. We will probably have to get to the last mile by threading the cables after the conduit run is blocked. As soon as the frames for the ceiling speakers come in, he can drop those in and then begin putting up wallboard. Some of the wallboard will be painted and some will be done the same way as the bathroom, in clay.

The outside is getting skinned as well. Scott recommends that we use Hardie panels rather than boards or shingles. He is afraid that the strong horizontals of the logs would not work well with too much busyness. Kevin Wu, from Maggie Walker High School, is interning with Scott and sketched out what it will look like, although we will have a horizontal piece running beneath the windows to cover the seam. Mr. Seals tacked up a few boards to see how things will work, but wants to wait for his son Zane's break at college to get started in earnest.

For love and friends
We did have one unfortunate incident in some recent rains. Mr. Seals, demonstrating a true love of his work, came over to check on how the cabin was faring and found water in the living room. Evidently, the leaves in one of the roof troughs caused the water to back up and it seeped into the living room, travelling down a post in the ceiling and then marring the clay finish on a wall. He climbed up on the roof in the rain to get the leaves down, then rigged a rope to draw the water away from the wall. He will ask the roofer to re-do those troughs, which were never done properly to begin with. I'm looking at this as a test of how easy the clay will be to repair, but realize what a good friend Mr. Seals has turned out to be, for which I am thankful. We could have ended up with a real turkey. For everything Thy goodness sends.

Thanksgiving

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The zombies walked

2011-10-31T23:59:00.000-04:00

À mesure que la maison s'édifie, je me ruine.
(As the house is built, so I am proportionately ruined.)
-- Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris

I told Linda, who has worked for years in the office of our insurance agent, that sometimes it seems like we are handing out our credit card like it is Halloween candy to pay for the renovations. She murmured words of sympathy as she informed that she would do what she could, but that the underwriter was canceling our policy because the cabin has been vacant for so long. I tried to tell her that Mr. Seals was as good as living there, but she wasn't buying that trick.

Mr. Seals and I met Donny Simmons from Audio Exchange on Saturday at the cabin to look at how sound and data services could be incorporated. It was a dreary day, with rain coming down like it might in the streets of Soho in London on a dark night when your imagination sees werewolves in the shadows. Peter and I had already sketched out some preliminary designs for the networks, but we thought it would be helpful to bring in a pro to make sure our instincts were right. I had thought of using wireless speakers in parts, but I wasn't certain if the quality was going to be sufficient. After visiting with Donny and Steve Copeland at their store on Broad, we were convinced that we would be able to achieve a lot with the Sonos system. We were more than impressed with the quality of the sound, as well as the digital controls we would be able to incorporate. Since much of our music is already digital, we rarely load a CD or listen to broadcast radio. Sonos will enable us to take advantage of this by controlling all the speakers, volume, selection, and so forth from our computers, a digital tablet, or even our smart phones. Donny said he probably would recommend a few high quality hardwired speakers in the ceiling of our office and den. Both our sound system and our data network will be located on servers in the laundry room, isolating the noise and bulk. The office is right above the laundry room that will be the hub of the network. We will have several big pipes coming up to connect to a wireless switch, which should give us good data and sound coverage throughout the cabin. Donny explained that each Sonos speaker serves as a relay point in the network, so it is easy to extend the system, even to outdoors. We will take another big pipe to the den, where we plan on having a TV mounted to the wall on a pivot arm to swing it out of the way. Since we don't subscribe to any television service, using it only to watch the occasional movie, we don't want the TV to dominate the room.

Donny wasn't the only visitor we had this last week. Scott and Andy from Johannas Design dropped by to look at the exterior. We had asked Scott to help us think about what we should use to cover the parts of the exterior that were not logs. Right now, that is mainly the office tower and some places around the green roof, but eventually we will have several built out rooms to think about as well. We wanted to be certain we would be able to extend the coverings to the other parts of the building and still have it look organic. We know we can't have logs everywhere.

We are leaning toward a combination of shingles and planks from Hardieboard, an engineered cement board that we have already used on the den wall that we reconstructed. We stepped out on the platform off of the office, where I hope to drink pina coladas or eat a big dish of beef chow mein someday while enjoying a full moon over the trees. Scott and Andy told me it is likely that shingles won't work there because of the curve and size of the wall, and that we will probably have to use some sort of PVC to wrap it. Mr. Seals is going to pursue that angle and see what he can come find.

I'm confident that Mr. Seals will be able to perform some sort of black magic with it. He did a superb job of leveling the ceiling in the den. The green roof is above the den, and Andy had designed it with a slight slope. Although it was hardly perceptible and probably wouldn't be noticeable to most visitors, it bothered Mr. Seals. He ended up taking two-by-fours and tapering them down, one inch to the foot on the slope. He attached these as extenders to the joists, so by the time the tapered boards traversed the length of the room, the taper had disappeared and the ceiling was level, removing the fun-house aspect of it. At lease Mr. Seals and I will know it is level.

The interior walls of the bathroom are complete and Mr. Seals has applied the rough undercoat in advance of the clay that will come next. He is going to use a different type of clay and finish in the bathroom than he did in the front rooms, one that is rougher with more voids. He told me he had a long conversation with Carrie, who writes the color blog for American Clay. She used to live in Richmond, so they had more to talk about than just clay. Mr. Seals needs to divide up the clay into smaller batches than is normal. Carrie told him how to weigh out the clay and colors to be certain the proportions are right. She gave him the name of someone in Richmond she trained under. Mr. Seals will contact him in the hopes of getting some expert guidance.

Robert Hall is preparing to chink the rest of the house. We think he can start working on that this week. Charlie Ball at Siewers has given us some quotes for our remaining windows and doors, which we are mulling over. We have been pleased with the kitchen doors we got from him -- they keep out the howling, strange forces of nature -- and we hope we might be able to do something similar for the back screen porch at a reasonable cost.

Before he left that day, Mr. Seals and I did battle over the Tea Partiers and Occupiers, each drawing a little blood. The rain was letting up as I left, and the slight drizzle couldn't keep the zombies from walking in Richmond that afternoon, all tailored and with perfect hair. I think I saw Lon Chaney in there, and maybe even a queen or two. I also came home to a letter in the mail, telling me our insurance on the cabin was being extended. Now that is what I call a treat.

You say it's your birthday

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

Mr. Seals

They say it's your birthday

We're gonna have a good time

I'm glad it's your birthday

Happy birthday to you.

Turn to face the sun

2011-10-22T12:14:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I was working in the back near the bottom of the slope, trimming back my piles of bamboo to reduce their size and stacking them so they will decompose more quickly. The sun can still be very hot in Richmond at this time of year, but if you turn and face the wind it will cool your face and hint at the coming fall.

The yard is filled with piles of trash that have accumulated over the years, some of it sunk deep into the earth or twined into the rhizomes of the bamboo. Most of what I find is worthless, but some of it is interesting or even bizarre, such as the corpse of a dog buried in a mail box that we found when the land was being trenched for the geothermal hoses. This time it was a bottle. I almost threw it aside as trash before I scraped some of the dirt away. I saw it was an old milk bottle, inscribed Richmond Dairy Company.

The Richmond Dairy Company was founded in the last century. Their building was in downtown Richmond, built in 1914.(1)The distinctive characteristic of this building was its three forty-foot towers, built to resemble milk bottles, shaped exactly as the one I found. The company went out of business in 1970, so the bottle is more than forty years old. After providing a home for novelty-rock squatters GWAR, the old building was renovated in the 90s and is now condominiums, towers intact. Not everyone gets to live in a milk bottle.

Our own renovations are proceeding apace. Some things are subtle or simply not very noticeable, such as the electrical wiring and plumbing that is now snaking through the walls and under the floors. We were finally able to slide the stove into place after Virginia Soapstone came by and shaved off a couple of millimeters from the kitchen counter before taking the measurements for the top to the bathroom vanity. Hidden into the utility chase in the laundry room is a dual-port exhaust fan from Grainger that will vent moisture out of both bathrooms. It is already quiet as well as Energy Star compliant, but locating it some distance away from the bathrooms means that there will be essentially no annoying hum when it is turned on -- although we will have an indicator light so we know when it is on. Some of the changes are big but invisible to the unobservant. Darien told me three weeks after it was done that DeltaTemp had replaced the second hot water tank we had wanted to use with our geothermal system because it was old and rusting inside.

Other things are very visible, such as the curved walls of the bathroom that are now prepped and ready for the clay that arrived this week. Since the bathroom is so small and without windows, we will ask Mr. Seals to spread an off-white color called Sugarloaf to lighten things up and provide higher contrast to the bluestone floor we will have. The finish will also be different -- a more rough, thick texture called Marittimo that is achieved by mixing the clay with seashells and various minerals. Bill Vick finished the sassafras open cabinet that will be inset into a wall in the bathroom to match the vanity he constructed. As promised, he made it without plastic or metal. The shelves can fit into cool little notched grooves that will give us lots of room to adjust the shelves up and down.

Darien has been out looking at frosted glass doors that will allow some natural light into the room -- she is waiting for a price on one with a bamboo pattern pressed into it. We picked out the CFL lights that will go above the vanity and commode, as well as the LED low profile light that will light up the hall outside of the bathroom. The toilet we ordered is waiting for us at VAMAC. It is a dual flush Toto model, using but 1.6 or .9 gallons per flush. It is, as we say around here, it is a Big Flush-Little Flush.

Another obvious transformation is to the back wall downstairs. The logs on this wall were never intended to be exposed. They had been covered by cabinets and panels in what was then the kitchen. As a result, the logs were in very bad shape after the layers were peeled back. Mr. Seals initially had thought he would just cover them up with wallboard, but he decided to try cleaning them up a bit and see how they looked. The sample came out nice, so he had Mike Ross get to work and do the whole wall, transforming it after the shellac into a warm glow with deep character. It is not designer-pretty, but very little in the cabin is. After it is chinked, the story of the logs is going to pop out.

The cabins and the land are inspiring a raft of craftiness. Jonathan and his Speckled Bird crew released their Kevin Gallagher video shot in the depths of the cabins' bamboo field, complete with primitive totems of indeterminate meaning, disturbing images of a dead deer, and bamboo canes being cured in fire. Gabriel took inspiration from the bamboo to begin building a fence at Hickory House, weaving and lashing the canes together.

I don't know what it is that inspires Mr. Seals. Darien told me that when I stopped to check on progress in the cabin after work, I should go inside, switch on the light, and then turn around and face the door. I turned and discovered our little gable window had been transformed into a sunburst. Mr. Seals had taken some of the old pine boards that had been used for the portion of the roof that had been replaced, cut and shaped them, then stained them nicely before ringing the window with them. The knots and old nail marks shine through. It is a charming effect, achieving a folk art simplicity and beauty.

Here comes the sun.

1. Photo courtesy of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries: Richmond (Va.). Dept. of Planning and Community Development. 201 West Marshall Street. Photographer John G. Zehmer, Jackson Ward Historic District, ca. 1978. Retrieved 21 Oct. 2011 <http://dig.library.vcu.edu/u?/jwh,263>.

Blow wind blow

2011-09-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

The hurricane Irene that followed hard on the heel of the Mineral earthquake have kept things interesting for us. Although Irene was no Katrina, it blew in a lot of troubles. After the initial fury of wind and rain, the neighborhood was left devastated. Fallen trees blocked streets, killed electrical lines, and damaged houses. We were fortunate not to lose any trees, although a large limb from one of our oaks landed on Richard's fence, and a tree at Gabriel's around the corner totaled Mike's car. Another tree fortunately missed his house. Mr. Seals helped clear some of the initial limbs with his saw, then Gabriel bought his own chainsaw to finish the job. He and Mike made short work of the trees and now have a five foot wall of split logs sheltering their patio. I still have one limb dangling precariously above some electrical wires out front of the cabin.

Although our Gotham house gained its electricity back after only two days, the cabin neighborhood suffered for eight days without power, making it difficult to work with power tools. We had scheduled Brett Bills to begin work on tiling the shower, which is in the darkest part of the house. He had a generator to cut tiles and power a light, but it couldn't have been pleasant working in those conditions. He managed to finish the shower, other than completing the shelf. He will come back later to take care of that and to work on the bluestone floors. Darien ran into Courtney from Luck Stone at a coffee shop; she says the bluestone she is holding for us is beautiful, with lots of veining to give it character.

Mr. Seals constructed a frame to hold the wallboard, which he wet and weighted to get it to follow the contour of the curved bathroom wall. The interior of the bathroom wall is partly done. He will use the frame for the outside wall as well. The walls will be done with clay, so we have started to look at colors. Because space is at a premium in the bathroom, we designed a shelf that will go above the toilet that is sunk into the wall. When we told Bill Vick what we are doing, he suggested we use some sassafras shelves there to pick up on the wood he used for the vanity. "I could make a cool wooden adjustment thing so there is no metal or plastic," he said. I'm not sure exactly what he has in mind, but I'm all for cool.

Things are far enough along that we called Glenn and Dave at Virginia Soapstone to pay us a visit to finish off the soapstone counter for the bathroom vanity. While they are here, they will have to shave off a fraction of an inch of the counter in the kitchen where the stove is to be placed. Bill constructed the cabinets to space shuttle tolerances, and the slight lip of the counter is preventing our shiny new GE stove from sliding in. At least we hope that is all that is causing the problem. Once the stove is in, the kitchen will be near complete. We had some difficulties finding the right flange for the sink (Kevin at Renovation Resources insisted it had to be white if he was to be able to sleep at night), but once that was taken care of and the garbage disposer installed, we were able to cut the water on to both sinks.

Other signs of progress are apparent. The electrician has been wiring the rest of the house. Delta Temp installed the ductwork to take the HVAC through the shower bench seat to the laundry space and stubbed it so we can eventually bring it to the master suite. They also talked to the plumber to make sure he understands how to install the second tank to take advantage of the way the geothermal system will preheat water.

The reclaimed pine flooring in the living room was taken all the way to the end of the fireplace, giving us a much better image of how the flooring will look. Mr. Seals has been framing doors and windows. He has also been using the Van Dyke walnut crystals to stain more ceiling boards and wood trim. Six weeks ago we talked to him about the beat up logs downstairs and he was inclined to cover them up with wallboard. He must have changed his mind, for he is now experimenting with shellacking them. After Robert chinks them, they may not be half-bad.

It is going to take more than Irene to slow things down at this point. It was shortly before she started to blow that Mr. Seals had tightened things up with the Lincoln windows and door in the office turret. Irene gave it her best shot, and we hardly got a drop of water inside. However, just this week our insurance company told us they are canceling the house's policy because it it has been vacant so long. I don't want to press our luck with the next hurricane and risk divine wrath, so I called them to explain that Mr. Seals is now our permanent resident. Just like the good Doctor ordered.

Blow wind blow
All my troubles away,
Blow wind blow
Until Judgment Day

Earthquake update

2011-08-24T22:21:00.001-04:00

Many of our friends have written to ask about the recent earthquake that surprised the East Coast. The epicenter was 59 miles NW of here, but people definitely felt it. There was fleeing, there was running for cover, there were loud cries of fear. As for us, we arrived back in town from lovely Minneapolis, five hours afterwards.

Log cabin report? Mr. Seals was right on when he dubbed the cabin Stupid Sturdy. No damage.

How did the local animals react? Check out the National Zoo report. Mr. Seals reports a large black snake on the log house front porch, around the time of the quake.

Swamp on fire

2011-08-22T19:15:00.000-04:00

The Dismal Swamp is on fire, sending acrid smoke north as far as Richmond, reminding me of a full-on smog alert in 1965 Los Angeles. They sky feels like purple rain is swallowing the city. Darien and I have fled to Minnesota, hoping the smoke will clear by the time we come home.

We're leaving behind substantial progress in the cabin. It almost seems things are moving much too fast. Bill Vick brought by the sturdy yet beautiful bathroom vanity he crafted. The princely coloring of the sassafras wood is unusual. The grain changes the color depending upon where one stands in relation to the wood. Once the vanity is set in place, we will top it with a soapstone counter and the hammered brass vessel sink.

Before we get to that point, though, the bathroom will require finishing. Courtney at Luck Stone steered us to a great deal on Virginia bluestone (the same type we used for the fireplace hearth) for the floors of the bathroom, the shower, and the small hallway outside. The sandstone has an uneven finish and some might consider it an unusual choice in both color and texture. For me, it is evocative of stone outcroppings of the land. The stone is on the dark side, so we will complement it with a light, creamy porcelain tile called Beige in the Bengali line from Florim for the shower walls, rather than the dark blue black slate we had been considering. The Italian-style tile comes from Tennessee and is distributed locally by Mosaic Tile. For accent, we are using the darker Bengali Verde 1x2's. Brett Bills has agreed to lay the tile, as well as to lay the pan and do some of the other shower construction. Brett gave us some good ideas for how to install the tile. We hope he will be able to get started this week. Mr. Seals is doing some of the prep work, including building a seat within the shower that will hide the duct work that will deliver the geothermal HVAC to the laundry room and eventually to the master bedroom. Frieda at Atlantic Electric helped us come to some tentative decisions about CFL and LED lights for the bathroom and hallway.

One floor above the bathroom is the office. The Lincoln windows and door out to the green roof landing came in and Mr. Seals lost no time in getting them installed, bringing him one step closer to being able to turn on the air conditioning. We started looking at floor registers for the HVAC and found some gorgeous brass ones that cost over $100 each. We decided on a less elegant but still serviceable alternative from Pleasant's Hardware.

Moving up one level, there is progress there as well. Steve Kay's crew returned to finish laying the PVC membrane layer for the green roof. With the windows and roof, I'm hoping that leaks are a thing of the past. The only water inside that I'm happy to see is that is flowing through the kitchen sink after the plumber turned the water on.

We have discovered a number of "worker" connections with Darien's school. Godwin graduates include: Steve Kay's son, Kelly at Mosaic Tile, and Brett's wife Erin. All avid library users when they were in high school, no doubt. (Although Mr. Seals says that the roofing crew was sharing stories about mischievous activities in the library. Fortunately Darien has a short memory.) Go Eagles!

Whew. One after another, we are clicking items off our list. I keep thinking, "Baby, you got to slow down." It has become a race between time and money to see if we can get the project done. You don't have to be rich to be my girl, nor do you have to be cool to rule my world -- but a little more of both rich and cool sure would be nice right now. I'll see how fast we really are going tomorrow when we return to Richmond.

The gates of hell

2011-07-26T00:28:00.001-04:00

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
No more water, but fire next time

After the torrential rains of the previous week that came with such fury they could have floated an ark, Richmond became hellishly hot, with the heat index hovering around 110. One gauge said the temperature alone was 109. It is easy to see how fire and brimstone became metaphors for hell, although high humidity should be thrown in there as well. In one of those little ironies that make me shake my head, some of the earliest forms of the English word "hell" derive from ancient, frozen Norse and Icelandic manuscripts. The poet Snorri Sturlson in the Poetic Edda speaks of Hel, the name of both a goddess and the realm she rules. People living in a land of volcanoes and geysers probably think of such things frequently.

I'm hoping our roof is going be a bit of help keeping the brimstone from raining down upon us. The roofer finally got the membrane sealed down on the large flat space in the back that will eventually become our vegetative or green roof. Before we get to green, however, it is going to remain white. The membrane is made of PVC, sort of a rubberized plastic. Its seams are sealed tight by heat to keep out the water. We won't be able to afford the plantings for a while, but in the meantime the white is a good option for beating back the sun, although it might be a bit hard on the eyes when we are in the office. The roofers did their work on some of the hottest days of the year, and not early in the morning. I admire their fortitude but question their sanity. We expect them back next week to put the PVC on the office roof. Another heat wave is predicted, so I don't expect to see them until the mercury is over 100.

Mr. Seals has been cast into the blazing furnace as well. The cabin must seem at times like one of the nine circles. I won't venture an opinion on which sin consigned him there, since political incorrectness alone doesn't qualify. The past week he has been making the baseboards for us. Nothing is ever straight in this cabin. The shape of the logs and sometimes the presence of portions of the foundation stones require that he get out his jig saw to get the boards to conform to the surface of the wall. He is using the baseboards to house the electrical boxes, which makes them a little lower than found in most houses, but solid logs require some compromises. With some of the baseboards, he is having to frame them out as boxes to get things straight, then he will add insulation inside to prevent the cold air from seeping up from the basement -- even though we could use a little seep right now.

We are going with a non-traditional paint on the baseboards. Most log cabins would have stained them, but we are not trying to be Daniel Boone and the amount of wood in the rooms can be overwhelming. We are aiming for a blend of the rustic and the modern, and the thought of all that wood was just too overwhelming. We are matching the paint to what we already selected for the windows in each room. Traditionalists may blanch, but we think the results work. I'm hoping the deep blue of the living room will soften once it is filled with furniture.

We are beginning to get things together for the the bathroom. We had been thinking about what sort of tile we might use when we decided to see what natural stone might cost. We contacted Courtney at Luck's and it so happens she has some blue black slate with specks of mica in it from nearby Buckingham Slate Company, where it has been quarried from the same vein for the last 150 years. This is one of those eco trade-offs that we seem to encounter frequently. Stone is often not thought a green product because it is not renewable and requires a fair amount of energy to extract. On the other hand, this quarry is less than sixty miles away and the product will last forever. I won't lose sleep over it. We have a recommendation for someone who can install it, so we are investigating.

Darien worked with Kevin at Renovation Resources to find a Danze oiled bronze shower kit with a low flow head (variable from 1.5 to less than 2.5 gallons per minute). We are looking at toilets now. We will use a government approved WaterSense model to conserve water, but we aren't sure yet if the dual flush variety is worth the cost. We are conducting a household survey to measure flushing practices. (I have a spreadsheet. Don't ask.) In any event, toilets use about one-fourth of a house's water, with the average person flushing 140,000 times over the course of a lifetime, so we want to get this right. American Standard directed me to the Veritec site, which does a nice job of comparing different models of toilets, showers, and other water appliances.

While work has been proceeding on the inside, the hunt for the yellow jackets on the outside continued. I made some traps with plastic bottles and bacon -- yellow jackets are carnivorous -- but only had moderate success in capturing them. Paul Davis was not having luck finding the nest, but one evening with the sun low and the light bearing down, Antonia noticed a lot of activity. Watching, it was clear that the yellow jackets where returning to a nest. They were dropping down into a hole in the ivy and the bamboo remnants, like demons returning to hell's portal in a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare. Figuring I had enough skin in the game, Antonia and Jonathan volunteered to rid us of the demons. They suited up to provide as little exposure as possible to the wasps. Waiting until hive activity had subsided in the evening, they poured a generous amount of soapy water laced with insecticide in the hole, then turned a bucket over it and weighted it with stones to keep curious squirrels away.

Paul called a few days later to tell me he had discovered a nest near where I had been hit the second time. He took care of that nest, then confirmed that Antonia and Jonathan had indeed killed the other. Time will tell if we have sealed all the passages to evil on the property. We may be tempting fate, however. We selected a kitten from the Richmond Animal League to maintain our cat quotient after Xuxa's passing. She is ash-gray so we named her Hekla, after one of the most active volcanoes in Iceland. The volcano has been reported to be on the verge of erupting soon.

Icelanders call Hekla The Gateway to Hell. It gives me pause and makes me shake my head.

Come on in my kitchen

2011-07-11T23:36:00.000-04:00

You better come on in my kitchen
It's goin' to be rainin' outdoors

Fortunately, the kitchen has remained dry through the torrential rains we had last week, even though some water is getting in elsewhere while we are waiting for the roofer to come show us some love.

I stopped by the cabin to work on reducing some of the bamboo brush piles that have accumulated. I didn't expect to see Mr. Seals there on a Saturday, but there he was installing the crown molding to cover the Lithonia florescent lights above the cabinets. Maybe he was as excited as we are about how things are shaping up in the kitchen. He had the electrician Troy in last week, who not only installed the lights above the cabinets but also the Juno LED lights below them and Hubbardton Forge lamps above the windows. He and Mr. Seals installed the Craftmade Haven bronze fan in the kitchen. It sits very well there. If pioneers had had ceiling fans 150 years ago, I'm sure this is what they would have chosen. All of our lights and the fan are from Atlantic Electric in Richmond.

We are getting ready for the plumber. We asked Mr. Seals to pick up a middle-of-the-road electric water heater for us, a forty gallon GE. He corrected Darien when she said it was a hot water heater, since it doesn't heat hot water. Actually, we should call it a warm water heater, since it will use the water from a second tank fed from our geothermal unit that will pre-heat the water for the house. This should make it much more efficient. We had hoped to use a tankless heater, but we can't afford one right now. I expect we would eventually make up the cost in lower electric bills.

We are trying to stay organized, but sometimes it is difficult. For 24 hours last week we owned two garbage disposals. We were amazed that the mail order arrived the next day from California, then realized the one we were looking at had been ordered a week earlier. Fortunately, we were able to cancel the second one before it shipped. The Waste King we selected is nothing fancy, but it should get the job done.

In another move dictated by economy, we are going to delay tiling the kitchen back-splash until after we move in and can accumulate more capital. We asked Mr. Seals to paint that space instead.

We finally found a local source for wallboard that is more environmentally friendly. The brands I had looked at before required a minimum order that was more than we needed or would have required us to drive a hundred miles to pick them up. Mr. Seals discovered that one of his supply houses carries a board from National Gypsum Company. It is LEED certified and uses recycled consumer and industrial paper with 100% recycled synthetic gypsum, thus there is no off-gassing (VOC) to worry about. The plant uses all gray water that is recycled back into plant with zero discharge. It is manufactured close to us in Pennsylvania and shipped by train. I was on the verge of caving in and going with a standard gypsum product, so I'm glad Mr. Seals found this.

After I finished admiring Mr. Seals's progress, I went outside to work on my own chores. I had asked Paul Davis to come out and try to take care of the yellow jackets that had taken up residence, but he had not been able to find them. His visit was not completely for naught, however. He not only deals with bees and wasps and other stinging insects, but snakes as well. Antonia had encountered a copperhead by the door of her chicken coop. Unfortunately, she didn't notice it until after she had stepped over it and was inside. That is very bad if you only have one door in and out of the coop, so she had to step over it again to escape. The woman has nerves of steel. Paul laid down some irritant in the soil to keep the snake away and gave her some advice on yard maintenance to keep it at bay. We like nature, but not that close.

Since Paul had not been able to locate the yellow jacket nest, I worked on the other side of the property. I really wish Paul could have found that nest of mine. While I was working I stirred up another swarm of yellow jackets and was stung half a dozen times.

It must-a be that old evil spirit
So deep down in the ground

They showed no mercy, and I wondered what evil I had done to provoke them. I bolted back for the cabin, swatting and cursing.

I got to keep movin
I got to keep movin'
blues fallin' down like hail
blues fallin' down like hail

I killed three of them on me even after I was back in the cabin, since they had crawled into my clothes. Mr. Seals probably didn't appreciate my return under the circumstances, especially after one took off after him.

I've decided I'm not going out there again until Paul can root out the nest. Yellow jackets have replaced bamboo as my nemesis.

I believe I'm sinkin' down

Fixing holes

2011-07-05T23:31:00.000-04:00

After Mr. Seals finished putting the new header log into place, he turned his attention to a pair of two by fours that had been used to replace damaged log braces in the ceiling. He had a pair of logs that he had salvaged and shellacked, which fit neatly into place after he notched them. He also tore out the very fresh looking boards in the the ceiling that had been patched in and replaced them with some better looking planks he had saved from elsewhere in the cabin. That space has gone from looking like a hack job to looking like it has been sitting there the past fifty years.

Having purchased two microwaves, Darien is trying to do the physics to make one of them work in our small cabinet dedicated for this purpose so she can return the other. We are trying to avoid cutting another hole in the back.

We are starting to trim out the kitchen. There are a number of things we have to do. Because of the existing configuration, we are stuck with windows that continue several feet below where the counter ends. One of them faces the front of the house, so we really needed to come up with a way to make the back of the cabinets attractive. Mr. Seals ended up using a bead board on the back, painted the same colorful way as the dark green window trim. We are very pleased with the result, but Mr. Seals didn't like the way there was not enough room to pull the retractable screen all the down to keep out the insects. His solution for this will be to put some Velcro on the back edge of the soapstone counter, with its mate on the bottom of the screen. This should do the trick to fill the crack.

We are preparing the kitchen so the plumber can bring water into it this week, which means shopping for a water heater: more research. Mr. Seals picked up the Bosch dishwasher that Cline's has been holding for us the past six months. The drain for the farmhouse sink has a problem with its thread, so we need to get that replaced before we can move ahead.

Gladys asked me for an explanation of the two kitchen sinks in the photographs. The big white sink is called a farmhouse or farmer's sink. It is deep and large for washing dishes, pots, and pans. Its lip is a little lower than most sinks. It is also set slightly forward with the front exposed, so the tips of one's toes are actually under it. This makes it easier to wash without bending over as much, with less stress on the back.

The small copper sink is a prep sink. We will use this mostly for washing vegetables and other food preparation tasks. It doesn't have a garbage disposer since we compost and we won't use it to rinse dishes. We often have three or four or more people cooking at once in the kitchen, so two sinks will (in theory) make it easier for us.

We also expect a visit from the electrician this week to install the lights in the kitchen (florescent and LED) and the fans in the kitchen and living room. The other visit we hope to see this week is from Steve Kay, our roofer. He will seal up the back of the cabin with a membrane to prepare us for the green roofs that we will install later. We have suffered a lot of water coming in through the roof lately, so fixing these holes will be a big step, but until the windows arrive we can continue to expect problems. Summer storms are a fact of life in Richmond. The forecast this week: thunderstorms, rain, and precipitation, followed by showers. Highs in the humid and lows in the hot.

The cabin is its own little ecosystem. Our property and Antonia and Jonathan's next door are a final resting place to a number of different animals that have lived out their lives with us -- dogs, chickens, parakeets, fish, lizards. This last weekend we interred another one, our aged cat Xuxa. We knew the end was near and that we needed to end her suffering. While Darien took Xuxa for the final ride, I dug a hole. Antonia said I could use her property for the hole, which is appropriate since the cat was initially hers. She named Xuxa after she visited Brazil. There was soft dirt where we had planted some bamboo totems used in a music video a few weeks ago, so I picked that spot to dig. There were still live bamboo roots deeper down, so it was slow going with shovel and mattock. When the yellow jackets arrived, I figured the hole was deep enough and left well enough alone. Darien brought Xuxa over and we interred her, then piled rocks on top to keep other animals away. It will also stop my mind from wandering when I look over and see the filled hole with the rock cairn through the dark green bamboo forest.

Requiescat in pace, Xuxa.

Exalting the humble

2011-06-27T01:20:00.001-04:00

Mr. Seals knows how to recycle. Not newspapers or cans, but 16 foot logs.

The log in question was originally a humble floor joist, sitting for decades precariously under the cabin on a piled rock pier and tenuously secured to the frame of the house. The thin floorboards groaned and creaked and bowed whenever we took a step. Mr. Seals pulled out the joist a year ago and set it aside. Several months ago he put some shellac on it, then left it covered outside, about the only convenient place big enough to hold the beast.

The header log at the rear of the cabin was in poor shape. One end had rotted away because it had been poorly attached where the roof and walls met. Instead of holding up the roof as it was intended, it was being supported itself by the log walls and chinking below it. It is a wonder the entire roof didn't collapse. Mr. Seal’s idea was to bring the joist in and replace the rotten header.

Setting the replacement log into place was no easy feat. Rather than simply replacing the existing header, Mr. Seals wanted to set it 18 inches higher, in conformity with the new roof line to give us head room to move from the living room into the office tower, which has a slightly higher floor. He also had to get it into the house at what is the equivalent of a second story.

We use a service to remove our construction trash. There is a large dumpster on the property that is carted away and replaced every month. The company uses a heavy-duty hydraulic lift on a truck to move the dumpster. Mr. Seals convinced the crew to use the hydraulic to hoist the log up, elevating it high enough to swing it into the house. He and his son Zane guided it through a small two foot by three foot window on the upper floor, then positioned it close to where it would ultimately sit. They lashed everything together and came back the next day to set it. They notched the bottom of the log on each side, and then babied it into its new home. All that was left after that was to cut away the old header and stand back and admire the work. Other than some cracks in the window that was going to be replaced anyway, the operation went smoothly. One hardly notices the duct tape holding the window together, and the log looks like it has been holding up the roof for years.

With the header in place and much of the framing of the office tower completed -- Mr. Seals is working now on the parapet edge -- we took a closer look at the proposed layout inside. Our original idea was to position our desks to the right as one comes up the step, so we would look out over the green roof as we worked. The media hub for the cabin would be located there as well. To the far left was going to be the "reading nook," which we conceived as a bench with cushions, suitable for lounging, reading, and napping. The opposite side of the room was undefined, but perhaps a bookshelf or cabinet could stand there

This plan may not work. We can see now that there may not be enough tolerance to have a desk and chair right where one walks into the room. Besides the danger of a chair wheel dropping off the edge of the step, positioning two chairs there could be tight. We are now thinking of putting the reading nook there instead. The view out over the green roof will be pleasant for the reader. The media hub can go on the other side of the step on 20” shelves with an electrical and cable chase to the basement. One desk will sit where the nook was going to be and the other across the way in the undefined space. Since Darien is likely to monopolize the nook, I’m taking dibs on the desk with the better view.

Darien got to work on the soapstone counters, applying Soapstone Sealer and Wood Wax. We could have used oil, but we liked the more muted look of the wax. Stephanie from Ecologic gave Darien half a can to try out. She may put a second coat on, but we are very pleased with the way it looks now. She tried the wax on some breadboards and a butcher block table, with similar excellent results. The wax is not a petroleum product, which is another mark in its favor. It is made from walnut oil and carnauba wax (also called Brazil or palm wax) after the plant that grows in Brazil. Unlike mineral oil, it will not rub off and be transmitted to other parts of the house, but polymerizes or cures after it is applied. It is also food-friendly.

While I’m sitting in Atlanta on my way to Louisiana waiting for a lightning storm to pass so the planes can fly again, Darien is meeting with Bill Vick so he can get a better idea of how he wants to build our sassafras bathroom vanity. I haven’t been displeased with anything Bill has built to date, so I’m sure he doesn’t need me around to come up with ideas. I expect Darien will show him the office space so he can start thinking about that as well.

Even Bill couldn’t squeeze a full-size microwave into our kitchen, however. Although we are very excited with the way the kitchen has turned out, logistically it was very difficult to put everything in there. We mostly use our microwave for reheating leftovers anyway, so one big enough for a humble dinner plate should be fine. Darien will pick that up this evening while I head to Bourbon Street to elevate my spirits.

I've got my ticket in my hand, I'm gonna go to New Orleans
I've got my ticket in my hand, I'm gonna go to New Orleans
When I get to New Orleans, I wanna see the Zulu King

Soft as stone, hard as fire

2011-06-17T23:54:00.048-04:00

Heat came hard on the heels of the rains that week. Richmond began to steam as the days wore on. It was unfortunate that the soapstone was due to be installed during a record heat wave. John and Catherine had recommended Virginia Soapstone to us after their own kitchen renovation and we really liked the owners, Glenn Vernon and Dave Trimbur. Soapstone is their retirement job, but you would never know it the way they worked in a heat index that topped 100. They spent two twelve-hour days laboring and sweating. They brought all their tools with them and cut the stone on site.

We chose soapstone because it is locally quarried in Virginia. It is a metamorphic rock that can have a soapy feel to it. It has properties that make it a good choice for counters. It is soft but non-porous -- so soft that I am able to shave it with a sharp knive. It will not stain, even by acids or alkalis, which is probably why you may remember it from your high school science lab benches. Some people use mineral oil to darken it, but we want to try a less aggressive rubbing paste this weekend. There are different varieties of soapstone, each with different colors and veining. We chose a type called Old Dominion. It is grayish with lots of veining. We were willing to live with smaller pieces that have more seams, so the price we received was very attractive.

Glenn and Dave are excellent craftsmen. They enjoyed working in the cabin, even though Glenn admitted it was probably hotter inside than it was out. Once the windows and roof is on in the back, we will probably be able to start running the geothermal air conditioning again, but that will be too late for Glenn and Dave. The second day was particularly long. Antonia took them over some iced tea in the evening when she saw they were still working as the sun was setting.

The soapstone has transformed the kitchen. All of the colors seem to be working together. The kitchen also looks much larger than it did on the drawings.

The cabin is definitely beginning to assert its new shape on the land. As soon as the windows in the back are installed and more of the old boarding ripped out, we should see the light flooding into the open spaces. I've also achieved a measure of victory myself over the land, having removed the last of the established bamboo stands from the property. I am now just having to deal with the the new growth that continues to crop up.

I also have to deal with a persistent hive of yellow jackets. I disturbed a nest in the ground when I was chopping old bamboo and pulling out ivy, trying to extract some old fencing. Although the hive will be abandoned once the weather turns cold, for now the yellow jackets are very protective. I can look forward to the hive becoming more aggressive as the summer wears on, eventually growing to a community of five hundred to one thousand. Even now, the wasps do not seem to appreciate my intrusion on their territory so I may have to take firm steps to remove them. I felt their stinging rebuke last weekend, and it burned like fire for days. I'm content to let them have that patch of ground for the time being while I think of the best strategy to neutralize them. They are hardly the most friendly of creatures, as Ogden Nash warned us.

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

Towers and sassafras

2011-06-16T23:42:00.004-04:00

Mr. Seals has been working on the office tower that is being built on the back of the cabin. The roof was not framed in yet, but Mr. Seals used a system of tarps and ropes to keep out the moisture. We talked some more about the windows and looked at how he was constructing the roof to keep the water flowing away from the structure.

Scott Corwin had dropped by earlier in the week with David Johannas to view progress. They recommended that Mr. Seals dig out another pier in the foundation to provide more structural support for the office tower, in particular since we may eventually install another green roof up there. This made our request that he re-route and hide the plumbing for the bathroom sink a little more palatable, since he would be taking up the floor anyway.

Structural support is getting tricky here. Mr. Seals is framing the office walls to buttress the roof where it joins the cabin, since we aren't sure if the logs are really going to bear up well and everything seems just stuck together. He has a complicated scheme to have the dumpster crew help him elevate a fifteen foot log up with their lift and slide it through a window, then slip it into a notch to replace the existing ineffectual log header, but several feet higher to give us the head room we need to step up into the office. This new log will traverse the width of the old part of the cabin behind the fireplace.

We showed Mr. Seals the sinks and faucets we had brought over in preparation for the soapstone kitchen counter that was to be installed that week. We have been saving them for months in Peter's old room, waiting to have them installed. Since we wanted to use soapstone on the vanity in the bathroom downstairs under the tower, we brought the sink over for that as well. Kevin Korda from Renovation Resources had helped us pick it out the night before. It is a vessel sink from Native Trails, hand hammered from recycled tempered copper. It is not sealed or lacquered so its appearance will alter over time. The only reason we could afford it is that Kevin had ordered it for someone else, who decided not to use it.

Bill Vick has agreed to build the vanity for us, which is very good news for us. His kitchen cabinets are a big hit with everyone who sees them. We are going to use a simple but sturdy open structure for the vanity, without doors, which is why we want to hide the pipes.

He suggested we look at sassafras wood, which is certainly not a choice we would have come up with on our own. It is often a gray color, sometimes with a hint of green. It is not used for furniture much anymore. Several years ago Bill had cut down a standing dead tree in Fredricksburg and is willing to mill it for us. He says he often gets calls to come and look at a dead tree, but he usually can't use it. We have one of the exceptions.

Bill prepared a sample piece rubbed with tung oil to show us what it would look like. If one scratches it, the smell the sassafras comes out, which is why it is often referred to as smelling stick (in addition to a handful of other colorful names, such as black ash, golden elm, cinnamon wood, and even file-gumbo). Sir Walter Raleigh was known to have exported it from Virginia back to England at the beginning of the 17th century, and it has been used to flavor root beer and other foods.

Bill says his grandmother used to make tea from sassafras, though he never cared for it much. That is just as well, since it is now suspected of causing liver damage and cancer. Poor Sir Walter, who lost his head in the Tower of London, had his own cure for too much sassafras. Upon examining his executioner's ax, he is reported to have said, "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all Diseases."

Spring to the cabin

2011-06-15T23:54:00.000-04:00

I was frustrated by my attempt to find the quarry that was the original source of water for the cabin, so I called Mr. Jewett again to see if he could help me. He told me that the quarry was next to Charles Gregory's imposing 1805 granite stone mansion on Riverside Drive. Although he had the street wrong (it was several blocks up the hill on Piney Branch close to Granite), it was enough information for me to locate it on a map. The quarry itself faces what is now Rockfalls Drive near Pony Pasture, and the spring flowing underground that feeds it sends its waters down a creek to the north and empties them into the James. The neighborhood is hilly and heavily forested. One can still see evidence of the nine-hole golf course Gregory built, where Mr. Jewett told me he caddied and learned to golf.

The quarry is long abandoned and overgrown. I am told a house from the late nineteenth century still stands there, but it is shielded by the heavy growth. Rockfalls is a good two miles away from our cabin. Evidently, Gregory even piped water all they way out to Bosher's Dam, another mile to the west, as he developed his properties.

I'm still not sure when he began pumping. I hope to eventually find that piece of the puzzle. The Virginia Historical Society has some of his papers, so I may pay them a visit soon.

Time to remember, oh so well

2011-05-22T20:39:00.003-04:00

I'm going to New Orleans in June, a city battling flood waters once again. Richmond isn't as bad as Louisiana, but the Lord could just be softening me up for the trip. We've had torrential rain off and on for days and the river is swollen and swirling. Some water began dripping into the cabin and we had to position buckets to catch it. Mr. Seals set up a fan to suck some of the moisture out of the air.

Water has long been an issue at the cabin. I was reminded of this in speaking with 86-year-old Fred Jewett, who lives over in Oxford across Huguenot Road. I had been introduced to Mr. Jewett because he has spent most of his life in the area of the cabin and I was curious what he knew about its history. He grew up in a time when the neighborhoods were still rural county property. He had to cross the James River to go to school and he had a difficult time rounding up enough neighboring boys to even field a baseball team for a sandlot game.

Mr. Jewett told me that the cabins were built "in the teens or twenties" by George Craghead Gregory (1878-1956), who owned vast tracts of land between Bon Air and the James River three miles north. Bon Air was developed as a resort beginning in 1877, an escape from Richmond's hot and humid summers, bad water, and angry mosquitoes. It was first known as Brown's Summit, which is the name given to the street one over from where we lived when we first moved to Richmond. The developers renamed the resort Grand Summit, but then hit upon the idea of calling it Bon Air in homage to the French Huguenot settlers who worked the coal mines in nearby Midlothian. The coal was transported down to Manchester on the James via a gravity train, which mules then had to drag miles back up the sloping land. The developers, many associated with the Richmond and Danville Railroad, wanted to capitalize on the tracks running south out of Richmond along the James and through the Bon Air district. Twenty years earlier it was the artery for supplies and troops that linked the Confederate capital with the Deep South during the Civil War.

Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again

Jefferson Davis and other notables of the Confederate States of America administration fled to Danville on these tracks when Richmond fell in the spring of '65. After, many residents came to quickly see proud and brave Robert E. Lee when he marched back in defeat after his Appomattox surrender along Old River Road (now Forest Hill Avenue) through the future Bon Air.

The cagey owners of the railroad and the newly acquired properties built a train depot on the Danville line at Bon Air to make it easier for Richmonders to make the eight or nine mile trip to the Victorian resort. Later a hotel was built and streets laid out for the village. The venture was quite successful and the village prospered. The line that made Bon Air successful is now the Norfolk Southern and runs a few blocks behind our Gotham house. During its heyday as a passenger line, there was a private flag stop in our Gotham neighborhood when it was part of the Wherry farm. Trains run infrequently now, but up at the cabin on still nights or breathless days, you can hear the lingering moan of a whistle, like an aching, longing sigh for the past.

George Gregory had Bon Air in mind 30 years later when he led a group of investors to construct the Westham Bridge across the James River, completing it in 1911. The land on each side was low with a gradual ascent, which is why a ferry had once operated at this same spot in the nineteenth century. The bridge was conceived as a way to bring the Richmond electric trolley system across the river to spur development of the properties Gregory owned in Chesterfield County, so it was laid with metal rails. At first, twenty-five cent tolls were charged, but they were dropped sometime after the alcoholic toll-man, whom no one much cared for, was seen floating down the James, drunk. The trolley never materialized, whether because the bridge was too frail (and low, which caused it to flood) or because there was a right-of-way dispute, is difficult to determine. The tracks were torn up and sold. But the land south of the James -- known as Southampton after Gregory acquired it, but formerly called Locust Grove -- prospered, although it never acquired the cachet of Bon Air.

The narrow Westham Bridge touched the south bank about a half mile down river from our cabin's site. It was built of stone and steel, and was the same bridge Mr. Jewett traversed daily to and fro to school. The cabin is another 500 feet up a hill. How close to 1911 our cabin and the others in the area were built is an open question. The assessor's office says ours was constructed 1928, but I'm skeptical based upon the style of construction, the archaeology of the site, and the layers of addition. I don't have definitive proof yet, but it is a reasonable hypothesis that Gregory built the cabins or "cottages" closer to 1911 as part of his scheme to capture part of the Richmond vacation market.

There was a problem with the cabins, however, and that was the lack of fresh water. Drilling for a well would have been difficult because of the presumed granite bedrock along this area of the James. Granite was the reason many quarries emerged along the river beginning around 1830 and a principal reason the rail line and its spurs were developed. The trains were a convenient way of moving the granite blocks over to Manchester south of Richmond, where they could be cut by skilled craftsmen and then shipped out from Richmond's deep water port. The quarries themselves were often worked by former slaves, some of whom lived in a small community on what is currently Old Bon Air Road.

Gregory was a man of varied interests -- a lawyer, a banker, a real estate developer, with passions for archaeology, history, animal husbandry, and genealogy. Included among his ventures was quarrying. In fact, he later lived in a house known as Granite Hall. But in the early twentieth century, Gregory was still living in Southampton on the road of the same name, a short walk to his bridge.

As it happens, one of the quarries near his house was a good source of fresh water. It is from this quarry, Mr. Jewett recalls, that Gregory ran a pipe up to the cabins, solving the water problem. One source says that Gregory made a real concern out of this source of water, forming a company that serviced upward of 60 households. Old Spring Road intersects Southampton near Gregory's former house, so it is possible the spring is what fed the quarry pit.

In spite of the rain, Mr. Seals is continuing to make progress on the cabin. He hates having water inside, so he wants to get everything sealed as soon as he can. He has turned his attention to the transitional room, which will eventually become our laundry room on the lower level and the extension of the office and the reading nook on the upper level. In the past two weeks he constructed the joists and laid the subfloors, then framed in the walls for the laundry room that support the floor above. He expects to complete the walls for the upper level this coming week. Even now, however, we can walk around the entire office. On the east wall will be the reading nook, and on the south a door into the future master bedroom.

Mr. Seals wants Scott to come out and look at the roof lines to make certain the water will flow properly and the joints remain tight as the roof moves from the footprint of the old structure to the new. He showed us were he removed several log support beams from under the eaves in a place that will eventually be an interior wall. Some buffing and sanding and three coats of shellac transformed the ash-white logs that had been drying outside for decades. If anything, the shellac highlighted the history of the logs, how they were shaped with an ax or wood chisel, with every scrape and hack from the past clearly visible. He intends to fasten them to the ceiling behind the fireplace, replacing a couple of ineffectual 2x4's that someone had stuck up there with treated lumber for some sort of patch job. We will see his handiwork every time we walk down the stairs.

On the planning front, we are selecting a craftsman for the soapstone in the kitchen so we can install the appliances and lighting. We are also getting ready to purchase a second water heater. We decided to stick with a good, solid fifty-gallon tank that is EnergyStar rated and not select any of the more exotic models or the tankless variety that cost several times as much. Since our geothermal system uses an old tank to store water, our primary tank will receive its water pre-heated, which should reduce our costs enough to justify the low cost option.

Before we left, Mr. Seals and I solved the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and decided neither of us were fit for rapturing that evening. After, I drove down to the river to look for the the quarry. I went up and down Old Spring, then all the way down Southampton, which Gregory himself had graded in earnest anticipation of his trolley tracks. I walked up Butte and saw the boulders and sheared cliffs of a former quarry, but I don't think this was the one. Like my old timbers, you can see evidence of how the boulders were cut from the hills. I drove up the river to Bosher's Dam, but didn't see anything obvious. I spoke to a number of residents, but no one remembers. I walked down to the remains of old Westham Bridge site, stepping through the mud below my feet from the rains of recent days. Right next to the ruins I saw the majestic stone Huguenot Bridge that I cross every day on my way to work. In its shadows workmen were pouring concrete for the pilings of another bridge that will soon replace it, before the Huguenot too is demolished and its memory fades. I have an 1871 colorized lithograph by Harry Fenn in my office of a steam locomotive crossing the James at the falls on a beam bridge supported by massive stone piers. Ironically, it was found in an art gallery in Santa Rosa, California, by Darien's family. In hangs next to a 2007 print of the Huguenot Bridge from an oil canvas by Andras Bality that Patricia gave me. I hope to tell somebody about it some day when it is laid in its grave-- they should never have taken the very best.

I just checked the long-range forecast and it looks like we are on track for thunderstorms the next seven out of ten days. The bells are ringing.

To sleep, perchance to dream

2011-05-10T00:24:00.001-04:00

Mr. Seals called to find us still dreamily asleep on Saturday morning, wanting to meet us at the cabin to discuss windows. He also was hoping to get paid. He ribbed us about still being in bed at 8:30 a.m., while he was already working on his morning coffee. I have to hand it to him. Mr. Seals is always punctual on payday.

Don't tell Freud, but I had been dreaming at the time of a snake slithering on the ground. Coincidentally, Mr. Seals said earlier in the week he had found a snake in the living room in front of the door, rolled in the cheerful sun. He told Darien it was a copperhead, then admitted it was a garden snake. He doesn't really care to scare her off from taking up residence some day. He also said a lizard had startled him when it dropped out of the ceiling while he was working. Earlier in the week, I sat and watched for five minutes while a pair of diminutive wrens flit in and out of the lower room, scavenging material for a spring nest, "swift as a shadow, short as any dream." Nature ebbs and flows in the cabin while lumber is sawed and nails are hammered.

The blue plastic tarp on the roof was pulled off so we could step out into the turret, our future office. It has a small footprint now, but eventually it will also extend over the transitional room, giving us a generous space. The cinder blocks for that room now have the two-by-six sills bolted on in preparation for the walls. Mr. Seals showed us a couple of options for window placement in the curved office wall. Because the green roof will abut the wall of the office several feet up, he was concerned that snow not be allowed to build up too much and allow moisture to penetrate. Getting out and shoveling the roof around the windows during heavy snowfalls seems to be the most sensible option to avoid the nightmare of a leaking window right next to our computers and media distribution center. He recommended we use aluminum clad rather than wooden framed windows here to help battle the moisture. We will use the same style of Craftsman window from Lincoln that we selected for other parts of the house. The position of the green roof next to the office means that we won't be able to have a full vista when sitting at the desk, but we will still have plenty of foliage of the distant trees to gaze upon. There will be a door out from the office to the lower roof platform, where a little ladder can get us up to the main green roof. We expect that door to be heavy on insulated glass, which will give us a very nice view. We can see the hills on the other side of the river valley, but not the river itself. That is too bad. The James is a beautiful river, and a view from the office would be a pleasing midsummer daydream.

Once we are out on the lower platform, it will be large enough for the two of us to sit in reverie during nice weather and enjoy the southwest exposure. The platform and the green roof will be covered in a flexible but sturdy membrane made of PVC. Since we won't be able to afford the plantings for a bit, the white surface will help keep the heat out of the cabin -- which cleverly enough is called a "white roof" or "cool roof" in contrast to a green. The surface seams are bonded together with heat to make the membrane watertight. Mr. Seals has been thinking about drainage and how to move water off the roofs. He also doesn't want us to totter off the edge, either, so he will build some sort of barrier, like the parapet wall on the green roof itself. He showed us how he had the fastened the rafters of the green roof to the wall using hurricane ties. "Is that code?" asked Darien. "It is my code," Mr. Seals replied. I like that if I'm going to wake and find myself traveling to Oz, the whole cabin will be coming along with me for the ride.

We were standing on the roof under which Mr. Seals had notched in a replacement log for one that had gone punky, in the jargon of cabin dwellers. Punky wood is soft and unstable, usually from moisture or insects. Ours appeared to be insect damage. He also pulled out the small railway window that had been filling the space underneath the log. We need to decide whether to replace that window with another, or fill the space in with log. The lack of a window there could make the space in front of the bathroom a bit dark, but we have been talking about using windows in the half wall that will connect the lower platform and the green roof, meaning we will walk underneath the windows as we step down from the back room to the bathroom landing. We will likely install second-hand windows here from the ReStore until our finances allow us to put in a proper set. We may do the same with the door out onto the platform.

After paying off Mr. Seals, Darien said we were free to argue politics a bit. I credited President Obama with a stunning showing in new jobs, and he bemoaned the continuing high unemployment rate. About the only thing we could agree on is that it is a good thing Osama bin Laden is permanently unemployed. Sometimes Mr. Seals just wears me out with his argumentativeness. I'm going back to bed.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Open door policy

2011-05-02T23:44:00.001-04:00

We love having visitors come through the door of the cabin. We see progress as slow and incremental because we live with it daily. The effect on others -- some of whom remember its original state -- is more profound. I can see it myself when I look over past photos.

There has been a parade of visitors recently, interested in seeing progress for themselves. J dropped by to pick through some bamboo (yes, thank you), and returned later with Jan for a closer look. Kim and Kandy bicycled over, then spent a long time searching for the way home through the mysterious tunnel in the woods -- I called it a harrypotterish sort of thing, which one just had to know how. Gabriel has been geomapping the landscape, like Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood, so next time we will be able to give them firm directions. Our favorite little librarian Susan, with her matching Prius, ducked her head in quickly one morning, followed later by two sets of visitors from the West. Wendy and Duane have owned a plumbing and heating business in Spokane for years, so they were able to talk endless shop with Mr. Seals. David and Cynthia build beautiful rammed earth houses out of Napa that are very, very interesting and on the cutting edge of new building techniques. They dropped in with their Richmond relatives Murray and Diane, who are planning on building a log house in Colorado. Many years ago David had also built a log house on property in California. I remember he had bamboo tales the last time I spoke with him over dinner. If one digs enough, you find out things.

Mr. Seals is continuing to tear down and build up the roof in the back. The roof has been completely razed now. The office turret, sort of an enclosed pavilion, has emerged, so we can finally visualize what it will look like outside of the drawings. He has framed in the door that will lead from the turret out to the lower roof, but we are not encouraging our visitors to try it yet, since there is a ten foot drop. He has also begun cutting through the logs that will lead from the main living space to the office, breaking through a door to the other side. There is a slight difference in elevation here, so eventually he will have to build a step up to it. We no longer see as much daylight streaming in, since he has also begun to fill in gaps between the new roof and the walls.

If we are going to continue to have visitors, we are going to have to pay some attention to the kitchen. We have started to acquire some quotes for the soapstone counters, which will make a big difference once they are in. We will then be able to install the sinks and faucets, which we have been patiently holding at the Gotham house.

Outside, spring is in full riot. I saw my first lizard, scampering to safety under a rotting oak stump like some fugitive king. The bulbs and bushes that Lita, Antonia, and Gabriel have planted over the years are reasserting themselves on their own, providing nice splashes of color. I even planted a few wildflower seeds I had in the old bathtub that graces the front yard. With nature, however, one has to take the good with the bad, or the evil as I more commonly phrase it. Bamboo shoots are springing up all over, including in the geothermal field that I had hoped had been sanitized, so I have been assiduous in spraying and chopping them. There are two sorts that come up. One is leafy stalks that one must kill with a poison, clip with loppers, or claw out with a shovel or mattock. The other variety is a soft, thick and moist stalk that grows with a pointed tip. Up to a certain size -- maybe three feet -- one can give these a good stout kick and dislodge them. There is a certain satisfaction to be had from kicking evil.

There is no solution for the established growth but to get out the saw. On Saturday I pushed myself and finally cleared out the last remaining vestiges on the southern half facing Richard's property. There remains some of the tall, fifty foot stalks on the western neighbor's property, so I am resigned to dealing with new growth infiltrating from that until the day comes when she decides it has to go.

The hills tell each other, and the list'ning
Vallies hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
--William Blake, To Spring

Birds and bees and buds in the leaves

2011-04-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

There is a flock of fat, overfed geese that putter around the pond we ride past on the way to the gym. Insistent ringing of the bikes' bells never moves them from the path, where they deposit large piles of goop. One day I think one will attack me as I ride by, just to assert its authority. Yesterday the bell got the attention instead of the great blue heron that was resting on the edge of the water. He lifted off with a five-foot wingspan and glided effortlessly across the pond with long, slow flaps, almost but not quite hitting the water.

It is not only the birds, but the bees have also suddenly come to life. They like the cool and dark cabin that Mr. Seals has thoughtfully left full of holes to permit them easy access. The paper wasps and yellow jackets have my respect. I haven't seen any mud daubers yet, but the bumblers are constant companions. They are loud and insistent, but they never really bother you.

"You can never hold back spring," says Tom Waits. I have been trying, however. I almost have all the bamboo removed from Richard's side of the property. There is some poison ivy back there, so I want to get what I can before spring advances too far. I'm also seeing more fresh shoots coming up from the embedded root systems in the soil. I wrote to my local extension office. The agent there told me she was not aware of any research that would support controlling bamboo by changing the pH of the soil, so I may have to abandon that tack and rely upon brute strength. I cut a fair number of stalks today after cleaning up again Mr. Seals' continuing carnage on the roof. I was listening to Tom Waits while working. Antonia came over to try and cut a deal with me to attack our common curse together, but by that time my muscles were aching and I was ready to concede that spring's inexorable force was no match for my slight body. Some time after that conversation my earbuds became disconnected from the player and were lost in the dense bamboo brush. I walked over the property three times, looking for them. I still hope to find them, as they are a nice set. They are bright yellow, like the buttercups now coming up all over the property.

Mr. Seals is finishing re-building the roof in the back. He is working on the angled cut of the green roof. A landing next to it out from the office will be lower than the green roof by a few feet, so we will put some sort of steps or ladder there. He has tied the landing into the green roof, but can foresee a problem with the log wall. Not only is there a small railway window in the line where the landing needs to join, but the header log is problematic. He took out a hammer to show me. When he gave it a hard rap, there was a hollow sound and the log vibrated and spewed out a puff of dust. It looks like it may be insect damage from all those bugs busy around the cabin -- one more log that will have to be removed. We have enough others sitting around that Mr. Seals thinks he can notch one in.

Mr. Seals did shudder a bit when we mentioned trying to put some windows in around the ceiling to bring more light into the downstairs. As an alternative he suggested that we think about installing a window in the wall where the roof changes elevations, which is something to think about. For good news, he told us his roofer found a source for the green roof membrane that we can purchase in smaller quantities. Unfortunately, he hasn't had similar success in finding smaller quantities of the recycled gypsum drywall I want to use. I'm still searching. Mindful of our desire to recycle and be environmentally sensitive, Mr. Seals has been miserly hoarding the large pieces of insulation he removed from the roof, which he intends to use in some of the walls or ceilings to help baffle the sound.

Chaucer also spoke of spring -- of sweet April showers, of the sudden blossoming of flowers, of the birds and animals procreating.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his falfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen all the night with open yë,
(So priketh hem nature in his corages):
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

Pilgrimage for Chaucer was a spiritual quest, appropriate for the Easter season. On my pilgrimage, I hope to find bright yellow buds poking up through dead bamboo leaves. Wish me luck.

Young hearts of gold

2011-04-20T01:04:00.002-04:00

Neil Young was in Richmond this weekend for a show. He was spotted at Plan 9 in Carytown pawing through the vinyl bins. It does sort of make you wonder what tunes Neil Young could find in a record store that he doesn't already own. It also makes you wonder why an aging hippie just won't let rock and roll die. Maybe it is a bit like wanting to live in an old log cabin. It only makes sense if you don't think about it too much.

April is a cruel, two-edged sword in Richmond. On the one hand, Nature dons her wardrobe and walks down the runway with a visual display of the most amazing light "and colors flying," all the while tantalizing you to come outside and enjoy the show. Yellow forsythia, lavender wisteria, lawns covered by deep violet johnny jump ups, crimson rhododendrons, milky cream and pale pink dogwood blooms, a crimson cardinal perched on an aluminum gutter -- it all comes suddenly, in a rush, at once. At the same as Nature is strutting her stuff, she is also spewing out pollens that work their way into respiratory systems across the Commonwealth, resulting in swollen eyes, running noses, head colds, and similar noxious symptoms.

Cars are a barometer of spring in Richmond. They begin to wear a soft green and yellow patina as the pine trees let loose a shower of fine grain dust. The optimistic wash their cars frequently. The realistic wait patiently for the rains to clean things off. The rains did come, along with cold wind ripping tornadoes in other parts of the state. The skies darkened to a gray background pall, and there was a steady tattoo of rains all day. The gutters and creeks became rivers of chartreuse. Look at Mother Nature on the run, the man sings.

I've been concerned that the rains were going to cause problems on the slope behind the cabin, but I noticed this week that the rye and clover we planted is poking up through the amber, cinnamon dirt. It is more peachy fuzz on an adolescent's cheeks than strong grizzled roots, but another week or so should strengthen the young, delicate blades sprouting all over. To show that Nature really does believe in balance, the growing season season is also kind to the bamboo. So far, the excavation we did in the geothermal field seems to have disrupted their rhizomes enough that I am not detecting any growth there, but elsewhere small shoots are working their way up through the underbrush and soil. I am patrolling the grounds regularly, trying to halt any new growth I see. The idea is to eventually starve the root system of the chlorophyll needed to feed the plant. I was reading that changing the pH of the soil might be effective, so I'm thinking of having the soil tested to see if I might outfox Nature. The City told Mr. Seals that it isn't going to remove any more of the cut bamboo that Gabriel and I have been hauling up to the street unless the stalks are under six feet, so I've been working the reciprocating saw harder.

The rains brought another reason for concern. Mr. Seals has finished installing the rafters for the green roof and laid half-inch particle board over the whole area. He has draped the roof with a vivid blue plastic tarp, but there are large gaps between the roof and where the logs end. I was afraid the wind and rain would bring a lot of moisture inside, but when I stopped by to check things out, it all looked as parched as an LA riverbed in August. "That Mr. Seals knows what he is doing," said Darien. I agree, but I won't tell him. I don't want his ego to swell. He began ripping the other half of the roof off, so before long we will have a completely different look in the back. This roof will be at a lower elevation than the green roof. A door will give us walk-out access, and a small ladder will get us up to the green roof.

Antonia and I stopped in to look at the room late in the afternoon. It was hard to absorb the transformation. The former room was close and dark, with narrow tongue and groove ceiling boards pressing down, barely seven feet up from the floor. The room is now opened up to a good eight and a half feet. The gaps at the top of the walls flooded the space with the golden afternoon sun, giving the wood a warm glow. We are now wondering if we might want to use a couple of clerestory windows up there, or perhaps glass blocks, so we can enjoy the space even more when the twilight falls.

Rodger and his wife delivered enough flooring for us to finish up the living room. Mr. Seals intends to get his crew back so he can bring the finished flooring to the back of the fireplace, then halt while work in the back continues.

Mr. Seals suggested I put my talents to use and clean up all the debris he has been removing from the roof. I had to kneel in the red and orange mud from the previous rain to gather the three inch thick insulation, time weathered lumber, and burned black as pitch tar paper, then cart it over to the dumpster. Mr. Seals cautioned me about all of the nails sticking out. I have enough tears and sweat invested in the cabin. I don't want to add any red blood to the mix. Mr. Seals must have liked the quality of my work. When I went back the next day he had left some more trash for me to clean up.

George Bernard Shaw once asked if the devil must have all the passions as well as all the good tunes. Neil Young has offered up an abundance of good tunes for Old Scratch, but Gabriel is doing his best to keep some of the good passion out of his hands. He asked Rachel to marry him this week, ending his own search for a heart of gold. In my own search to discover a connected web in a meaningless world, I take note of the facts that: 1) Gabriel and Rachel used to live at the cabin; 2) Gabriel chose to propose in front of one of Rachel's favorite Picasso painting, L'arbre (1907); 3) I previously named the paint we used on the window trim at the cabin Picasso Blue. There is always a relationship if one digs deep enough, even if we have to make it up.

Green to green
Red to red
Yellow to yellow
In the light
Black to black
When the evening comes
Blue to blue
In the night

My my, hey hey.

Bamboo theology

2011-04-10T13:34:00.001-04:00

"You are an optimist," Richard called out, as he was getting into his car. "You mean a foolish optimist," I yelled back.

Richard had caught me in the front yard, ripping out ivy and hacking bamboo roots with my new mattock. I had intended to go to the gym with Darien, but after several hours doing penance with the bamboo, I decided I wasn't going to need more exercise. Already my back was hurting and my hands aching. Richard is gregarious, so having an excuse to stop and talk to him for a few minutes gave me a chance to catch my breath. He showed me the front porch of his own cabin that he was enclosing, giving it a more generous front door. Richard is a big man and he is tired of having to duck just to enter his house.

Richard asked what Mr. Seals was up to. He could see him hovering around on the back roof of the cabin like some winged angel, all the while throwing things down and hammering away. I told him Mr. Seals was slowly taking apart the back roof as he replaces the undergirding structure with the flat roof that will eventually hold sedum and other plants. Mr. Seals says it is like peeling back an onion, there are so many layers involved. "Right down to the center, it's nothing but layers -- each smaller and smaller," Peer Gynt says.

The new roofline is slowly emerging from Mr. Seals's labors. I've been researching the best membrane to create a moisture-tight seal for it. Peer Gynt also said that nature is a joke, and I certainly don't want to be its butt one day as water drips on my head. The new roofline elevates the interior ceiling, giving us another good twelve inches in what had been an oppressive space. I'm also searching for an environmentally friendly drywall to use on the ceiling, which is no small chore. It is hard to be good.

I was inspired to take up my mattock when Mr. Seals said he looked down from the roof and saw some bamboo roots near the house, healthy and green, like a cobra slowly tightening its coils. My plan this spring is eternal vigilance, and with mattock and shovel and Roundup, to smite any new growth to deny the roots the sun they need to survive. It is best to nip evil in the bud, before it grows to monstrous proportions. I am indeed confronting the serpent in the garden, like a sinner being tormented for my past dissolute life.

Mr. Seals had Robert come over and start building the wall for the transitional room that will connect the old structure with what will eventually be the master bedroom. Since the ground slopes away from the cabin at this point, Robert has had to build up the wall with cinder blocks to a level where it is now level with the lowest floor of the cabin. We will have to install plumbing in this transitional room, since it will house our laundry room.

Richard once called me the neighborhood saint for the vigor with which I have tried to exorcise the bamboo from the property, long a local eyesore. He has trouble enough just trying to keep it from encroaching onto his own property. I have been meditating on what Richard said. I'm not sure if the sinner or the saint is more of an optimist, but I am put in mind of Oscar Wilde's observation that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. That must make me an optimist.

Final Floor

2011-04-03T00:54:00.000-04:00

The VCU Rams had a great run up to the Final Four, but just couldn't overcome the size of the Butler Bulldogs. All of Richmond stopped to watch the game, and our disappointment in the score is only exceeded by our pride in the team. Both teams were beasts on the floor, playing with all their heart. I think there will be a lot of Rams pulling for Butler in the championship game. We underdogs have to support each other.

We have other reasons to be thinking of support. Mr. Seals ran a microlam beam from the back edge of the upper story across the middle of the ceiling in the lower level and out the roof in the back. Microlam is a engineered plywood-like product of laminates bonded with industrial strength glue, making it compact and very strong. It will need to be strong, since this is what is going to help hold up our green roof, which is heavier than a typical shingle roof. The beam is supported by posts sunk into the trenches that were dug beneath the floor, then filled with cement and concrete blocks. Mr. Seals has tied cross beams perpendicularly into the microlam. These beams are now poking through the roof on the side of the house. There is a slight downward slope to the roof, to help control runoff. We will probably remove the slope from the interior ceiling, so it won't be noticed. Mr. Seals also suggested we put the wiring in place in the middle of the room, even though we won't be able to install the ceiling fan until later, but it will make that job much easier when we get to it.

It is a delicate game of pick-up sticks that Mr. Seals is playing. Part of the old construction has to stay in place while the replacement roof is being built. As the new begins to shoulder the burden, the old can be gradually removed. It is like bringing in a fresh team in the second half to relieve tired players. It is gratifying to see a room that formerly had an abnormally low, claustrophobic ceiling transformed into an airy space that even a Butler player can walk around in without fear of bumping his head.

Mr. Seals may have gotten more than he bargained for when he offered drive out to Charles Luck to pick up the bluestone hearth that was ready. It is probably a good 400 pounds. He and a tile man first had to wrestle it into the house, almost breaking their backs. He then recruited some others to nudge it into place on top of a thinset coat of mortar, without anyone losing a finger. At one point, when things were not going well, he seriously considered taking it back and asking Luck to cut it into three pieces. He said it took "four men and a boy" to get it done, but they finally succeeded. I didn't dare ask which one of his helpers he considered a boy.

You've seen them, the little boys...boys, hell, they were men.

The two-inch thick hearth protrudes a half inch more than we had planned, so Mr. Seals will eventually build a lip up from the floor to ease the transition.

And what a floor it will be. Mr. Seals brought Harlow's Floor Service in to begin laying the reclaimed heart pine flooring that Rodger Childress had delivered from his Vintage Pine Company. Ryan Harlow is managing the work, cutting and fitting the tongue and groove pieces together. It is more challenging than most jobs because the edges of the walls are either logs or stones, with nary a straight line to be found among them. All of the dining room is completed, and most of the living room up to the hearth. We will stop at the back of the fireplace until the heavy construction in the back is completed. Rodger is storing the rest of the planks until we are ready for it, but we will have to get a few more pieces in sooner to complete the work. We won't ask Ryan to begin the final sanding and application of the tung oil until more major work is done. We don't want to risk marring the finish.

Michael Ross, a friend of Peter's, was put to work on some of the heavy labor, but we also asked him to sow the rye and clover in the back to help hold the soil in place. It should take well, since the ground is very moist after all of the rains in the last ten days. I've been anxiously watching the back for signs of bamboo returning. I want to get on it like the Rams executing the full court press. Relentless, in other words. The city has been hauling away the bamboo at no charge if we can get it up to the street. Lugging the stalks up is no treat. I already wrote about the time Gabriel and I put in one Saturday, while Jonathan Vassar and the Speckled Bird were next door practicing. Richmond Magazine came out with an article and a video of that session. You can see from the video what the inside of their cabin looks like and hear a bit of their music. If you listen carefully, you can also hear the sounds of grunts, groans, and curses coming from next door, as Gabriel and I struggle up the hill laden with bamboo. It puts me in mind of what the man once said,

I'll never be your beast of burden
My back is broad, but it's a-hurtin'

Mr. Seals and I could both use some of those Butler players about now to ease the burden and the hurtin'. One way or the other, they are going to be available come Tuesday.