Likes: Ha! Ours says, "Please no dogs stopping/stooping". I guess that gives a green light to every other species...Originally Posted by mnoble485
"The Fantastic Mr. David!"
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Ha! Ours says, "Please no dogs stopping/stooping". I guess that gives a green light to every other species...
GO!
"The Fantastic Mr. David!"
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Oh, and sedum is great stuff, although at first it looks like a brown carpet on top of brown dirt... The roof plantings look fantastic!
We are carpeting our yard with varieties of sedum, juniper and bearberries.
GO!
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Re: Finally Bought Some Land
That should be great. Sedum is incredibly tenacious, as are their close cousins sempervivum (thus the Latin name,) better known as hen-and-chicks or house leeks. The latter name comes from the practice of planting sempervivum on wooden roofs as a fire retardant. Charlemagne (742-814 AD) created the first fire safety code for buildings with an edict that required wooden buildings to have house leeks planted on their roofs. More than a lot of years later, California is doing some of the same with succulents to retard wildfires.
Also, we're planting a lot of low growing Carex sedges, native thyme and moss instead of grass for path areas around the house so it will all be no-mow. And the septic field, which I will have to weed to prevent trees from growing there, will have a seed mix of shallow root plants that grow well in the sort of soil mix that percolates well. They'll hopefully be self-reseeding and have decent flowers each spring.
Right now it is a bit terrifying because it looks like a bomb went off. A bulldozer has that affect, even a small one.
"The Fantastic Mr. David!"
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Until I walked out of the door of my new house on the first nice spring day four years ago, I'd never given plants or landscaping much thought.
One of the (many, many!) things I've learned is that cultivation takes patience. Our gardener had to spend two years telling me that our lovely plantings wouldn't really grow or spread for two years. Now I pretty much trust her.
But even now I look out at the yellow juniper we planted last spring (next to the established green juniper that's now 3 1/2 years old) and want to be bigger!
GO!
That's Mr. Bob To You
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
^ First year it sleeps, second year it creeps and the third year it leaps...a gardener told me that once about ground cover and perennials.
rw saunders
hey, how lucky can one man get.
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Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Here are some additional photos of the green roof with ballast in place. The one skylight without glass is open to a space below that is open to the outside on its east end with a wall and glass on the other three sides - we have been calling it the observatory, the atrium, the courtyard, the rock garden - haven't quite figured out what to call it. But having the open skylight above will allow plants to grow there. It is also quite effectively plumbed for drainage to prevent water from accumulating. Anyway, the blue house wrap and glue-lam beam are not permanent parts of the decor. They'll be covered over with concrete board like the rest of the house. The small antenna-looking things are lightning rods. They are all around the main roof and on top of the pop-up room as well.
Last edited by j44ke; 05-11-2020 at 11:53 AM.
Rouleur
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Who knew, cool trivia!
The older I get the faster I was Brian Clare
Rouleur
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Jorn,
It’s really great to see this coming together so well.
Mike
Mike Noble
Merckx
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Jorn, I'm sure you've answered this before, and if so I apologize - will the office have an easy door access to the "main building" roof, or will you have to use a ladder to get up there? (then a second ladder to go up to the office roof, but I doubt you'll need to go there very often, unless there are gutter to clean out or other stuff like that)
That's Mr. Bob To You
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Just add one of these on top Jorn...
rw saunders
hey, how lucky can one man get.
*********-ish
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
There is a stair up from the main hallway on the ground floor to the pop-up room where my wife's office will be. Her desk will be built along the section of window opposite the stair (which will have a railing to keep you from taking one big step down to the first floor.) The window to either side of the position of the camera in the photo slides open completely, allowing access to the roof for weeding and cleaning. Behind where I was standing when I took the photo will be a Murphy bed and the windows will have sliding screens, so with both windows open and screens closed, the room will be a nice sleeping "porch" on warm nights. The opposite end of the room holds the air management system, an AC unit and all of the internet network connections. The roof of the pop-up room drains to either end down onto the green roof and from there to the gutters that run around the periphery of the green roof.
This is obviously an earlier photo. But you can see the hole for the stairs.
Last edited by j44ke; 05-11-2020 at 06:57 PM.
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That's Mr. Bob To You
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
These folks...my uncle Tom and his pal from HS maintain 150 hives in the area and they helped these folks get started a few years back.
https://www.burghbees.org/
Last edited by rwsaunders; 05-11-2020 at 08:22 PM.
rw saunders
hey, how lucky can one man get.
Burnum Upus Quadricepus
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Jorn
I have not clicked this thread since the very beginning and place looks really great. I'd like to do something similar in five years or so. Love the site and how well it utilizes so many elements that marry well to the environment. Silly question but all the red columns are structural? My first thought was that they were just molly columns for support while under construction.
Beautiful place and love the rock formations. Solid footing, literally.
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Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Thanks! They are structural. A combination of a design compromise after changing the build of the roof from cross laminated timbers to wood framing and a reference to a favorite building of ours and our architect’s, the Villa Savoye by Le Courbusier. They will eventually be painted bright white. I will probably run into one periodically but they are cool and I probably will deserve it.
Last edited by j44ke; 05-12-2020 at 09:36 AM.
Burnum Upus Quadricepus
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
[QUOTE=j44ke;1005231]Thanks! They are structural. A combination of a design compromise after changing the build of the roof from cross laminated timbers to wood framing and a reference to a favorite building of ours and our architect’s, the Villa Savoye by Le Courbusier. They will eventually be painted bright white. I will probably run into one periodically but they are cool and I probably will deserve it.
Excellent.
Painting them brown might result in too many bangs to the head. It will look great!
You have a fine architect it seems.
Bravo.
Steher 10000
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
Peter Eisenman gave a lecture my freshman year in college, and told the story of his House VI, which was designed using topological geometry- I think I remember this correctly- which resulted in a void in the floor in the master bedroom between the two beds. The owner got out of the wrong side one night and had to be extricated from the gap by the fire department.
I have a friend in DC who put a firepole in his house, just because.
Jay Dwight
Merckx
Re: Finally Bought Some Land
From the NYT, so SFW: Pole Dancing Without Nudity or G-Strings. Just Express Yourself. - The New York Times
Note to Jorn: If you read the NYT story you'll see that guys are doing it too. After a few weeks of practice we expect pictures of you...
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