I thought it would be worthwhile to write a bit about this special project, not only because it’s about reusing old, salvaged timber and giving it a new life, but also because of the “soul” element involved and how things can manifest and take place when we don’t force them and allow them to manifest as they come. I was called by Debin at first just to help her unload this load of oak timber she was trying to save from a family barn somewhere in Kentucky. What to do with it? She wasn’t quite sure what to do with it at that point other than building something that would last long enough to keep the memory of her family barn alive. Eventually she called me back and asked me to help her build a shed. And here comes what I love the most in what I am doing as a builder: working with people and help them manifest their dreams. Starting from her preliminary shed plans, we start talking about her and what she like doing the most in her spare time. It turns out that Debin had quite an artistic sense and that she loved working with wood. Well, the natural step was to push the idea of a woodshed to a small studio-workshop where she could eventually practice her woodworking skills.

Putting the puzzle together

As we didn’t have enough of salvaged timber, we had to come up with something that would blend-in with the old oak timber. Luckily we had some older locally milled timber posts that we could work with.

I especially fell in love with some of this timber. Like this one that reminded me of an I especially fell in love with some of this timber. Like this one that reminded me of an native american Totem pole:

Working with this old timber was quite an amazing experience; you could almost “feel” the presence of person that carved them; we could admire the manual skills that we don’t have anymore. Everything was carved by hand.

As Debin wanted to save every little piece of “memory-wood” our choices had to be very well thought. I was walking a tightrope; a small mistake and we could ruin the whole thing.

Post & beam little custom studio

See the whole project gallery: http://welcomehomegreenbuilding.com/projects/debins-studio-2

It’s been a good weekend despite discouraging news like this one. After an environmental disaster of such devastating proportions like the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig explosion on April 20, the Obama administration has still granted oil and gas companies more than 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. Or the decline of honeybee colonies by a third in one single year? Where are we heading indeed knowing that our own survival might be closely linked to these little creatures? But despite all this, it’s been a good weekend and mainly because of this wonderful place, the Nature Institute and it’s wonderful people. We took two of their workshops, on Regenerative Land Practices in Colombia and Brazil, and Edible Mushroom Cultivation, both workshops by Justin West. And it’s always so regenerative and rejuvenating spending some time around its director Craig Holdrege and his wife Henrike Holdrege. For those who has an interest in this check their 2010 Summer Course: Transformation in Nature and in Human Knowing. It’s a truly marvelous and transformational experience. We got to know them through the last summer week long workshop on observing wholeness in nature. And glad I am I went. Rediscovering a sound path in a world that seems it lost the direction, it’s quite refreshing and encouraging. It’s a bit hard to describe the experience but I would call it contagious. Having a glimpse of a better understanding of how nature works, I cannot name a better way of spending my time. While I cannot say that I learned how I can restore a depleted soil yet, I truly enjoyed the Shiitake mushroom workshop. As a musical instrument maker and woodworker enthusiast, learning how we can “eat” out of the beautiful logs of wood beside trying to model it into “useful things”, it completes the whole picture. I am so looking forward for the whole experience, from searching the woods for the best logs suited for such a task, inoculating the spawns etc, to simply observing how nature does its magic things and of course enjoying the fabulous taste of real fresh mushrooms. It really helps me to change how I look at things. For example, when I see a beautiful figured maple or exotic wood, I couldn’t help but imagine what a beautiful guitar (or any other musical instrument) that wood would make, the timber frame or that piece of furniture etc; and that despite of my desire of letting the forests just the way they are. Through this I hope I can just watch the nature do its things (and have a taste of it) and slow down a bit from the hectic pace of life we keep.

I have thought quite a bit about  how I will spend this very special day, in a way that I can make a difference, at least for myself. As things rarely happens as we expect them, here is what I end up doing. First of all, Mother Earth decided to offer us a gorgeous day here in the Hilltowns of Western Mass. I took the whole day off from my other projects and I have decided to tackle one small job that I have put off for too long; my grapevines were growing at such a pace that really needed my attention and some “support”. So I scavenged through my pile of pre-used wood and I pulled out some from our deck (that gave room for our sunroom) and I came up with this:

Grapevine arbor

It’s made entirely (except the nails) of recycled wood. Now I am looking of all those rocks that I didn’t quite know what to do with it, and now I know: I will make my beloved wife a stone bench within a stone wall; a place to rest after laboring in the garden. And I am a bit excited I have to recognize: it’s starting to take shape.

Passive solar greenhouse/sunroom

And after this I will be heading to our “Solar Evening”: within our local Sustainability Committee we have decided to put together a presentation about passive solar design and building, hydronic and PV solar panels and the federal and state tax benefits that exist for such things etc, all this around some home made cookies and all kind of sinful sweets. Maybe we can stir some interest in people on “greening” our homes, choosing a more sustainable approach in the how we live, maybe start growing a garden so we can disconnect from the not-so-healthy food out there. I hope lots of people will show up and we are gonna have a good discussion around all this.

And  I also hope that all of you out there had a wonderful celebration of our common mother, Mother Earth. Peace and Joy, Julian

PS If you need some sketches or details of any kind of what I do, just let me know and I will be happy to send it to you. And of course, any suggestions, as long as are constructive, are welcome. Joy J.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Julian’s answer to having solar heat at an affordable price, the addition is made of panes of high performance solar insulated glass, approximately 4 by 9′ 6″ feet each, that face southeast on the first and second floor. He catches runoff from the roof, allowing the water to flow down a gleaming gray metal chain into rain barrels, to catch the light, rather than enclosing the water in a gutter.

“When the sun shines through it, it’s just magical,” he said.

Traista uses the water for his garden, which is built inside on the first floor. It is inset against the right wall and has a dirt floor, just as a garden would outside. The water from the roof is stored in barrels inside that he uses to water the garden with a hose. Any runoff from watering the garden flows directly into the ground.

The rest of the room’s floor is made of a 10-inch slab of combined concrete and stone that absorbs available heat from the sun, and releases it at night.

“This (garden) is how the whole thing was born. I believe in self-sufficiency. The greenhouse is a must-have,” he said.

Side windows release the heat, termed “solar gain,” for a passive self-ventilation system, he said. A 6-foot diameter ceiling fan circulates the heat. Noticeably missing was any condensation on the windows, a usual side effect in greenhouses.

“There is a free circulation of air so there is no condensation buildup,” he said.

Upstairs in the sunroom the glass is tinted so the sun shines gently. A large gray tabby cat named Pepino sprawls on the rug. Once a stray, he entered the yard just as Traista started building the addition last spring and moved in.

“He thinks I built it just for him,” he said.

The addition includes a Finnish/contraflow design masonry stove, which Traista installed three years ago. The major difference between a regular stove and this stove is that it reaches 2,000 degrees F, he said. Since wood gases ignite at 1,200 F and burn off, the stove burns clean, leaving no creosote buildup, he said. One two-hour hot fire creates 24 hours of warmth. The only drawback is that a freezing house takes three hours to warm up. The stove has an inside core and an outside “skin” made of concrete blocks, stones, brick or soapstone, both which store heat.

Meanwhile, Joa Agnello-Traista has been studying Ayurveda medicine at the Kripalu School in Lenox. Ayurvedic medicine is used in eastern India as the traditional medicine, using herbs, massage, yoga and foods; it is taught as alternative medicine in the United States.

“I love it; it’s wisdom channeled through thousands of years, learning to stay balanced in nature,” she said. Together, she and Traista conduct healing-sound groups in Florence, with Himalayan bowls, crystal bowls and their voices.

“The process taught us how to listen to each other and connect to nature,” said Traista, and in turn, to apply it to his building.

“It helps me to connect and really hear what the customer wants,” he said, “rather than me telling them how it is built.”

The next Healing Sound Circle will be held April 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Smart Move Pilates Studio on 221 Pine St., Suite 245, in Florence. For information, call 238-5336 or 238-5310.

The joy of having and experiencing life in our greenhouse/sunroom is so present and multidimensional. I can keep talking about the joyful aspect of having one but it would be good to talk a bit about the technical aspect of it. I am a builder after all, not a writer. How it works and what it means as a way of reducing our ever increasing consumption of finite energy just to be comfortable and happy?
From the beginning I had a small problem with happiness derived from just having things. Well, I still do that: I draw quite a bit of happiness from having and playing my guitars or having those fancy tools, but I am working on that. I am trying to tone down on those and move my focus on the life around which, first of all is the subject of what I want to sing or write about.
Anyhow, getting back to the building aspect of it: now that the greenhouse/sunroom is almost done and the sun is up and shiny, we are experiencing for the first time in many, many years, the joy of starting our garden again from the seeds. The joy of having our hands back in the blessed dirt while the snow outside is still there is almost impossible to describe.
For me, its like the craving for the sun after being deprived of it for the long winter times. We are so ready and longing for it. My hands are so happy to be back in the thing, feeling the texture of the soil, the healing property of it. The joy of opening every new pack of seeds, the delicate handling of each and everyone of them, the filling of the little paper containers and planting that little seed that will come into being in almost no-time, the joy of watching them grow to the ceremony of watering them. Al that water in the blue barrels that served as a heat storage over the winter, now is served as food for them its magic to me.
The point of all this is that such a building allows all this to happen. Not only that because of it we no longer worry if we are gonna have enough of fire wood; (it actually cut the fire wood consumption by about half), that with every sunny day we open the windows and doors toward the sunroom now, that we already sunbathed quite a few times etc, etc, the point is that because of it we closed an essential loop with life. With this we have let the life in. The home is now a integral part of the garden, it’s a sanctuary now where life begins, an observatory toward the open “wild” outside, it’s a meditation place and so many other things.
With such an addition we succeeded to create the multi use dimension that was almost missing before.
Now we have to work on how to achieve the off-the-grid part. All the steel roof that now serves as a rainwater collection system, will house the hot water and PV solar panels.