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It’s apple season in the Adirondacks, in my view, the quintessence of the North Country autumn harvest. Grab a crunchy treat and sink your teeth into its sweet-tart bliss. Aaahhh…
Apple Concoctions
An apple (or three) a day keeps the concocter away? Perhaps. Unless, of course, you enjoy experimenting with the nearly infinite concoctions born of the forbidden fruit. The aromas of autumn profit amply from the influence of apples, so I’ll offer a few suggestions to stimulate your imagination. Cinnamon-y applesauce, apple crumble, apple butter, cider, apple pie, apple streusel, apple vinegar, apple fritters, apple chutney, applejack, apple upside down cake (aka tarte Tatin), apple brandy, apple-raisin muffins or pancakes,… It’s easy to get carried away.
Apple Abundance (Source: Geo: Davis)
Apple Family Tree
While apple picking, harvesting, pressing, concocting, and fermenting rightfully share center stage, apple season is at once an invitation to reflect on the diversity of apple varieties in particular, and the many somewhat surprising cousins in their broader family tree.
Did you know that domesticated orchard apples are in the genus Malus which is in the family Rosaceae? Yes, the same taxonomic family that includes rosebushes also includes one of our favorite autumn harvest fruits, the apple. Also pears, quince, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. And that’s just some of the edible Rosaceae.
And if apple season offers an annual invitation to celebrate the broader family tree, it’s also a nice celebrate the Malus varieties we cultivate in Rosslyn’s holistic orchard:
Belle de Boskoop
Duchess of Oldenberg
Enterprise
Freedom
Gala
Kidd’s Orange
Liberty
Pixie Crunch
Rubinette
And in addition to the twenty apple trees in our orchard, we have another dozen or so trees scattered along the borders of our back meadows that I’ve gradually pruned and pampered back into production. So far I’ve been unable to identify the varieties, but there are some tasty fruit among them. In keeping with our abundance approach to gardening, we mostly harvest the trees in our orchard and leave the outliers to the deer, raccoons, bears, coyotes, wild turkeys, and probably a bunch of other apple motivated wild neighbors.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on vessels. Crockery, boats, homes, books, relationships, memories. And conditions. Conditions of vessels, the contents they’re asked to contain, and those of us who rely upon them, who contemplate them.
Broken & Unbroken (Photo: Geo Davis)
The vessel above, a burly bowl, reminds me of another, gifted to us by Pam, crafted from a burl collected by her late husband, turned into this delicate work of art by Ron Bauer. Like this one, that handsome sculptural addition to our morning room would appear better suited to straining, than containing. And yet this one, one of the few art and artifacts we retained from our time at the Lapine House, cradles a fractured sculpture. The small, fragile figure once sat on a windowsill in our kitchen.
Haiku
Broken & Unbroken
Discovered damaged, the fragments reassembled in a burly bowl.
Vessel
A tree burl is a boon born out of damage. A luxury born out of injury.
A burl is a strange-looking collection of tree cells, which are called callus tissue. Normally, callus tissue is formed by a tree in response to an environmental injury such as a pruning cut, disease, or insect damage. In forest settings, callus often arises from storm damage that has eroded away or deposited more soil around the tree’s trunk. (Source: Organic Plant Care)
A broken branch becomes a bulging burl destined to become a bowl. A vessel conjured into existence as a celebration of possibility, purity of form, beauty. Not for serving soup. Not for watering our Carley, our Labrador Retriever.
A damaged effigy shaped out of soft stone by will, whimsy, and chisel has — not altogether unlike the tree-turned-art — been injured, been offered an opportunity to become something different, something new. Currently cradled by a vessel with enough voids and gaps to appear useless, incapable of containing very much at all, and yet robust and relevant. Not just beautiful. Practical. A crucible.
Sometimes we call her the air traffic controller — calibrating schedules, inventorying and coordinating and unmuddling messes, managing myriad micros and macros, and multitasking Monday, Tuesday, heck, every day — also installing docks, feeding ducks and songbirds, soliciting bids and perhaps painting clapboard or pruning persimmons, brush hogging meadows, and welcoming travel guests. In short she is all this — air traffic controller, conductor, ringleader, emcee and referee — but also cheerleader, advocate, confidant, colleague, and dear-dear friend.
Primer, Painter, Polymath
Not my first Pamuela Murphy post, and certainly not my last. Susan and I recount our good fortune daily to share in this work, this journey, this life with a woman of such character and integrity, such persistence and problem solving, such strength and kindness. This preliminary piece of poetry is still germinating, still unfurling its precocious fingers and reaching toward the sunlight, toward springtime’s sweet awakening, the promise of a delicate bloom. With luck a clutch of blossoms soon…
Much of the current and upcoming stage in Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab involves covering, cladding, and closing in: clapboard siding, T&G nickel gap paneling, upcycled garapa paneling, and plenty of hardwood flooring. Today I’d like to get you up-to-date on the loft flooring.
Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)
We’ve installed beech flooring that remained from the first floor reflooring (entrance hallway, living room, parlor, and kitchen) completed in 2007-8. Stored in the icehouse for the last decade and a half with plenty of additional surplus building materials, this handsome hardwood — originally selected for its local origins, pale color, and character-rich grain — has been repurposed as our new loft flooring.
But, as often, I’m getting in front of myself. Before installation came acclimatization…
Loft Flooring Update (R.P. Murphy)
Acclimating Beech Flooring
A few weeks ago Tony and Peter relocated the beech hardwood flooring from one of the storage containers to the icehouse loft area where it was stacked and stickered strategically to maximize through-flow of warm, dry air. Frequent metering enabled us to track the moisture content of the flooring as it stabilized.
The beech was oriented perpendicular to the loft floor joists, starting at the east edge of the loft where we temporarily attached spacers (retainers for railing bottoms and the top stairway tread) to accurately determine the flooring’s start point. Beginning on this side enabled us to minimize the likelihood of a visible “pie wedge” given less than perfect geometry of our 130+ year old building.
Prior to working west from the loft overhang, yes team marked out locations for future cabinets that will be fabricated and installed along the north and south knee walls. Because we were using remnant flooring (think limited quantity) we needed to prioritize the area of the floor that would be visible once the cabinetry was in place. We ran the flooring “ragged” under the cabinets — underlaying the figure cabinets without extending all of the way to the wall, allowing us to ensure sufficient material for the exposed area of the floor.
Especial attention was paid to sequencing beech boards in a visually attractive progression, board-to-board, ensuring that the color and character variations would enhance the cohesive integration across entire floor.
Another less visible but important detail: integrating the top stair tread. Peter shaped a beech slab to frame the flooring at the top of the staircase, routering in a tongue for the 90° conjunction between flooring and beech stair tread. This has added a little extra time, but it ensures a more stable joint in a high traffic, high visibility transition.
Now that the loft flooring is installed, it’s time for sanding and sealing. I’ll post an update soon!
High on my Adirondack Coast lifestyle list — my mental “Aren’t we lucky to live here?!?!” database of people, perks, and activities that add incalculable value to my existence — is bicycling backroads and byways from the shores of Lake Champlain to the Adirondack High Peaks. Sometimes solitary, sometimes accompanied by a friend, these pedal-power adventures through the Boquet Valley and rolling foothills, are like mini vacations, adventures concurrently familiar and exotic. From adrenaline pumping thrills to mellow meanders, shaded forests to bucolic farmland, breezy lakeside routes to stream and river crossings, the diversity of conditions, terrain, and landscape is captivating.
Often something catches my eye, and I stop to observe. An industrious beaver engineering a dam. A bald eagle breakfasting on a landlocked salmon. A team of draft horses pulling a blue shirted, straw hatted farmer through rows of crops, leaving a wake of disinterred weeds. A pair of young women, braids bouncing, executing a perfect jibe in stiff winds on Whallons Bay…
The bovine beauties above, photographed on July 22, 2021 (but visited frequently during my summer bicycle rides), are a poem unwritten. These gentle ruminants are a pair of wordless couplets, perhaps a hay chewing haiku, or a black and white ode to a sylvan sea. I suspect that, for each of us, the meter and matter of these roadside verses differ. We arrive at a moment like this with our own distinct experiential lens that distills our perception, that provokes our feelings, and that underpins our aesthetics. Each of us possesses a totally unique way of seeing. Sui generis. As distinct as our fingerprints. As our irises.
In the image below — the same photograph as above, albeit with color removed — the poetry is transformed. Same subject. Same context, background, composition, and framing. But the tone is not the same. The mood and the focus have shifted. Textures and tonal contrasts have replaced the richness and depth and vibrancy of color. The stark black and white figures in the middle no longer pop against a wide spectrum of greens and blues. They’re in harmony with the near infinite shades of grey that envelope them. The clouds have emerged from the chorus to deliver a spellbinding aria.
Bovine Beauties (Photo: Geo Davis)
Are you scratching your head and rolling your eyes? “Stick with cows in a field beneath overcast skies, please.” I understand the urge. There’s a comfortable ease in assuming that we’re all appreciating the same thing when we look at the photo, in allowing nuance to fall outside our frame of reference. Comfortable. Easy. But potentially misleading. Rosslyn reminds me time and again that reality isn’t as comfortable or easy. She has invited me, encouraged me, supported me in seeing that no matter how universal or congruent our perceptions, our ways of seeing are subtly (and often not so subtly) dissimilar.
One person’s bovine beauties might be another person’s dairy bar. Or they might be unnoticed altogether, just another blur on the periphery. A metaphorical garnish.
Chronicler or Artist I: waterfront variations (Photo: Geo Davis)
I really *should* post an update on our loft flooring “research”, copper flashing (aka drip edge) installation, east elevation gable window framing, revised drawings from Tiho that address a few outstanding items like column, stairway, railing, and other trim details (plus lighting, electric, and mechanicals),… But I’m going to postpone these already postponed updates a little longer to talk instead about a recurring subplot in recent months.
Okay, maybe it’s unfair to dub it a subplot since so far it’s defied definition. At heart it’s a grappling with mission. And permission. As I pour over sixteen years’ worth of memories and plans and artifacts and notes and photos and stories and poems and intertwined lives and ephemera there’s an inner struggle at work. Am I simply gathering the strings of a vast collection, curating its diverse snippets into a sort of chronicle, a history, a retrospective map? Or am I creating from these fragments something new and unique? Am I more of an historian or a mosaic maker? Am I chronicler or artist?
Chronicler or Artist II: waterfront variations (Photo: Geo Davis)
“He chooses; he synthesizes; in short, he has ceased to be the chronicler; he has become an artist.” — Virginia Woolf (Source: The Art of Biography)
There’s an inevitable tensions between the duty of stewardship and the affinity for storytelling and poetic truth. Between the responsibility to document important details for future Rosslyn homeowners and the creative freedom to explore textures and layers, melodies and harmonies, whimsical what-ifs and errant adventures.
But it’s more than this. It’s verisimilitude. Veracity…
I believe that there are different kinds of accuracy. I am a storyteller, not an historian, and though I strive for verisimilitude, some truths are more effectively preserved and conveyed through stories than history or vaults. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)
And so I pendulum between two muses, each jealous of the other, both second guessing, both casting aspersions.
Some days I toil like an archeologist amidst a midden heap of artifacts, rewinding time’s mysteries, deciphering the prior summer’s garden vegetables from this season’s rich, dark compost. Other days I seduce and charm and coerce the artifacts to share longer forgotten truths. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)
Chronicler or Artist III: waterfront variations (Photo: Geo Davis)
And there’s the not too subtle complication of recollection. My memory muddles — more of the composting variety than the austere archival variety — appreciating the possibilities of parallax, and grafting whimsical paisley’s onto sturdier scions to ensure that they survive the tempestuous toils of time.
I am startled to discover that these precise, unambiguous reference points frequently contradict my recollection. Dramatic events indelibly etched into my brain at the time have already blurred despite the brief lapse of time. I curse my mischievous mind and then accept that 100% accuracy will inevitably elude me. My mind’s imperfect cataloging at once humbles and liberates me. Though an unreliable historian, I am a chronicler and curator of stories, not facts. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)
So there it is. I’ve flirted with this truth before, and I double down today. Caveat emptor. Ask not of me the court stenographer’s unblinking authority. And I’ll not ask of you the jury’s verdict or the judges conviction.
According to Garcia Marquez life is not only the experiences, the moments lived. Life is also the rendering of those experiences into stories, the recollecting, the filtering, the imagining, the sharing. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)
Recollecting, filtering, imagining, choosing, curating, synthesizing, sharing,… This is the map I use. Chronicler or artist? Yes, but mostly the latter.
Perhaps even with history we become overconfident that the facts are irrefutable… Absent an omnipresent video camera that documents my life as I bump along, capturing every minute detail precisely, permanently, Garcia Marquez’s perspective offers reassuring guidance. Though I frequently daydream about a collaborative memoir comprised of the recollections of everyone who participated in the rebirth of Rosslyn, my story is an eclectic nexus of personal experiences, filtered, aggregated and cobbled into narrative cohesion by me. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)
Chronicler or Artist IV: waterfront variations (Photo: Geo Davis)
And yet the challenge of a dual mission permeates this 16-year exercise. There’s an inevitable tendency, a responsibility even, to document. To archive. To showcase. And there’s the omnipresent siren song of wonder and whimsy. While I still endeavor to provide a responsible accounting of our life, love, and toil at/with Rosslyn, I’m succumbing to the beguiling song of the sirens.
My quest for permission needn’t require such wayward roving. It is first and foremost my own consent I’m questing after. And part of accepting this is granting myself permission to embrace art above chronicle. I’ve suspected this. Dithered. Wondered. Worried. But this morning a confident confluence is flowing. And I’m ready… (Source: Quest for Permission)
Fair warning, then, while I dive into the reflective waters simultaneously mirroring the misty morning and revealing the pebbly depths. I’ll be back. Soon.
Rendering for Icehouse Rehabilitation: East Elevation Gable Window (Source: Tiho Dimitrov)
I mentioned recently that framing for the expansive gable window in the west elevation of Rosslyn’s icehouse was completed, and the change was monumental. Now we’re on hold, anticipating the big reveal in a few months when the new windows arrive and the sheathing can be trimmed. For now that facade is concealed behind a plane of green ZIP paneling, effectively shrouding the dramatic transformation until springtime. Anticipation, I tell my dog, is have the pleasure…
Today, however, I’m able to update you on Hroth‘s gable window framing for the *east elevation*. Hurrah! As you can see in Tiho‘s rendering above, the openings on the lake-facing facade will remain virtually unchanged except for a shift from opaque (solid wood openings) to transparent (glass window and door). But the the east elevation gable window will be integrated into a whimsical Essex sunburst motif that echoes the same detail on the third story, west elevation gable end of the main house. I will focus on this detail separately once we’ve made a little more progress.
In short, we’ve endeavored to maintain the public view shed much as it has appeared in recent decades albeit with a reimagined sunburst embellishment that weaves the icehouse together with the main house, the gates, and multiple additional sunburst motifs throughout Essex and the Champlain Valley.
Envisioning the icehouse rehab from within, the photo below helps orient the new window as it will be experienced from the loft (still not framed) and, to a lesser degree, the main room. Morning light will illuminate the interior, offering a restrained prelude to the magnificent afternoon lighting that will bath the icehouse as the sun sets into the Adirondack foothills.
Icehouse Interior, East elevation gable window (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
The closeup below captures Hroth at the end of a long day of carriage barn carpentry looking a more than a little bit ready for some heat and a more comfortable perch. But it also captures the just completed window framing below the header, perfectly echoing the slope of the icehouse roof.
Another closeup, gets a little closer to imagining the perspective when standing on the future loft floor.
Icehouse Interior, East elevation gable window (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
Framing East Gable Window
Shortly this aperture will be concealed behind insulated paneling much like the west elevation, but for a fleeting moment longer we can appreciate the natural light entering through the east elevation gable window framing, and we can try to imagine the daybreak view of Lake Champlain, warm sunlight illuminating the north elevation of the main house as it rises up into the summer sky.
A new perspective is emerging as Hroth frames my future office window (from the icehouse loft). Looking east (actually southeast in this photo), this will be my morning view. Panning to the left 10 to 15° the view will be filtered through the enormous American Linden (basswood) tree and across the upper lawn, through the ancient ginkgo tree and across the front lawn to Lake Champlain. (Source: Loft Office View)
Holes in walls. Such rudimentary changes to a building envelope. And yet such profound transformation!
By strategically introducing apertures and maximizing transparency in this small structure we’re endeavoring to dilate the living experience beyond the finite building envelope, to challenge the confines of walls and roof, and when possible and esthetically judicious, to improve porosity with abundant new fenestration, dynamic interior-exterior interplay, subtle but impactful landscaping changes (including a new deck) that will work in concert to amplify the breathability of the interior and temptingly invite insiders outside. (Source: Gable End Window in West Elevation)
The photo below hints at the future porosity of the this space. Imagine the window near bottom right once it is glass.
Icehouse Interior, East elevation gable window (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
Of course, framing in the balcony and eventually adding blisters will shift add interesting layers, shadows, textures, and other nuances to the transparency looking east from within. Perhaps an interior rendering or two will help imagine forward…
A few days ago I came across a provocative Facebook post that artistNick Bantock had shared on December 30, 2022. The date’s not particularly notable, but the author is. Familiarity with Bantock’s work adds context and texture to the explanation about his creative process, specifically how he moves from found ephemera to finished artwork.
I keep an in-between tank, a collection of part-constructed smaller pieces that are in a state of flux or transition. Resonating bits that touch or brush-up against one another, in a pre-morphing box (or in this case, a studio drawer)… Ideas are rarely plucked out of the ether, in my experience they come from creating an environment where happy accidents and surreal collisions can best occur. (Source: Nick Bantock, Facebook, December 30, 2022)
I’d be wise to leave his words to stand alone. Unsullied. Undistorted. Unaccompanied. A beacon.
And I’ll try.
But trying isn’t enough. Temptation is building, like a wave rising higher, gaining momentum, wisps of foam falling from the curled lip.
And so I succumb. Slightly.
Creative Collisions
The image above, an illustration of Rosslyn’s boathouse by Essex resident, Paul Flinn, was documented by Tony Foster. Between upcycling garapa decking boards into distinctive wall paneling for Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab he popped into Essex Town Hall, spied this handsome architectural sketch, snapped a photo, and pinged it through the ether to me.
Collaborating with creative characters; emphasizing the merits and possibilities of adaptive reuse while repurposing collected curios, salvage, and surplus; and generally endeavoring to create an environment where “happy accidents and surreal collisions can best occur” just might be working. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Tony.
Happy Accidents
Fusion. Collage. Combinatorial creativity… It’s been immensely satisfying to help catalyze the morphing. And it seems that everyday their are more happy accidents. They’re not all tidy or comfortable. Sometimes there friction and frustration. Sometime fission in place of fusion. But we’re in a flow state that, like an undertow and a strong surface current, are pulling us forward. Where? Too soon to say. But creative collisions and happy accidents suggest we’re trending in the right direction!
Bowtie & Broken Memento, January 25, 2023 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Bowtie & Broken Memento: Poem
Amidst broken memento
and fragmented hope,
fractured sculpture
and ruptured carpentry,
a bowtie binds bitter ends.
A patchwork harvest
of homegrown cherry,
felled and milled,
cured and crafted,
offcuts conjoined,
scrappy remnants
sewn in singalong,
cradling conversation,
cutlery, crockery,
and nourishment.
Sun soaked, finger
tipped tenderly,
inadvertently
in thought,
in conversation,
in fast breaking —
the only breaking
the bowtie abides —
there's comforting
contrast and real
reassurance
in an inlaid
joint pulling
the pieces
together.
Bowtie & Broken Memento: Afterward
Sometimes, as I shared with a friend the other day, a hug is more articulate than a hailstorm of words. The same is true with a passing shower, a mist passing over, passing through.
This draft poem is still prenatal. Preliminary. A furtive foray into the curious coalescence of still tender fractures and ruptures that drew me back to Rosslyn (and that continue to disclose themselves each day of my stay, reminders of quaking in recent weeks) but also the durable bonds and the abiding beauty that hold it all together.
I reflected on the shell in the photograph above (when still unbroken) in an Instagram post a little over a year ago.
Muscle shell “name tags” for seating arrangement at a wedding reception celebrating Elizabeth — one of Susan’s clever cousins — and Nick in Maine some summers ago. We were invited to keep them, so we did, and they’re now nesting in a maple burl bowl on our morning room table. This beautiful vessel was gifted to us by our friend Pam in memory of her late husband, Bob. He had gathered the burl from a fallen maple at Rosslyn, an immense centenarian, perhaps even a duo-centenarian, that succumbed to a windstorm, nearly striking the house. I watched it fall. Bob had intended to craft the character-rich burl into bowls, but his honorable journey was abbreviated prematurely, suddenly, tragically by the mysterious fates. Pam fulfilled his plans with the help of another friend, Ron Bauer, a local woodworker who built for us the black cherry harvest table upon which this burl bowl rests and where we eat virtually all of our Essex breakfasts and many of our lunches and dinners. Ron turned this bowl, and Pam presented it to us last spring, a year after she lost her husband. So much life and memory and gratitude resident in a few vignetted artifacts, a daily memorial, commingling the stories and characters and nostalgia and beauty that enrich even our most quotidian moments. This is the abundance and texture that invests a poetics of place. This is the “singing underneath”. This is the art of wabi sabi living… — @rosslynredux, October 3, 2021
Today I met with Ron to collaborate on a new table. We talked about bowtie inlays, turning burls into bowls, wood, joinery, and the unique cutting boards he has made for us out of this same cherry that once grew just west of the icehouse and that we gift to some of guests at ADK Oasis.
This evening I will hold in my head the memory of our conversation, a meditation on bowtie joints as well as other acts, art, artifacts that resist fragmentation and fracture. I will dwell on the humble bowtie instead of broken mementos.
A butterfly joint, also called a bow tie, dovetail key, Dutchman joint, or Nakashima joint, is a type of joint or inlay used to hold two or more pieces of woods together. (Source: Wikipedia)
Today was one of *those* days. One step forward, two steps back. Setbacks. Not crises. So we are reminding ourselves…
Dishwasher Delay
Replacement dishwashers were halfway through installation when Susan walked into the kitchen and discovered that they were the wrong units. She was replacing two Fisher and Paykel DishDrawer units (that had started to fail) with Café Dishwasher Drawers.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (Photo: Geo Davis)
The service techs were as nice as could be, and their removal of the old units proceeded smoothly enough. Installation of one of the new units proceeded smoothly as well. Except it was stainless steel. The units Susan had ordered were white enamel. Full stop.
One step forward, two steps back.
They removed the new unit and rescheduled for the beginning of next week. Until then, two gaping holes in the kitchen and plenty of hand washing. Which, strangely enough, has been working out quite well.
Ceiling Sheetrock Complete (Photo: Geo Davis)
Shower Stem Setback
In a classic “cart before the horse” scenario, we got out ahead of ourselves with bathroom drywall installation. We actually have very little sheetrock (bathroom ceiling and mechanical room) in the icehouse, and so I’ve been pushing hard to get it off the to-do list in order to move forward with plumbing and tiling and…
Ceiling Sheetrock Incomplete Again (Photo: Geo Davis)
Long story short, today we had to cut out newly installed, taped, and plastered sheetrock in the icehouse bathroom to provide plumbing access for the plumbers to complete installation of the ceiling mounted rain shower.
One step forward, two steps back.
Plumbing complete we can now reinstall sheetrock, etc. And then we can actually cross it off the list.
Paneling Paint Hiccup
Tomorrow we’re excited to begin installing T&G “nickel gap” paneling in the loft. After a couple weeks of offsite preparation — and plenty of anticipation — the first delivery of material arrived from one of the offsite “paint shops” this evening. (We’ve been fortunate that two members of the team have been willing to temporarily prime and paint the lumber in their garages/workshops to help work around on-site space limitations.)
T&G Nickel Gap (Photo: Geo Davis)
Sadly we discovered that the hand brushed finish looked like a rolled finish. Think, texture of an orange peel. For many people that would be fine, ideal even. But given the 1800s historic building we’re rehabilitating, I opted to finish the “nickel gap” paneling with two hand brushed coats of Benjamin Moore paint. Unfortunately we made a compromise to improve efficiency: after hand brushing a stain sealer on knots, we rolled two coats of primer onto the wood before hand painting the finish. Some miscommunication and/or misunderstanding may have gotten baked into the mix, but I’m mostly frustrated not to have made offsite visits to the painting operations earlier on to inspect progress.
T&G Nickel Gap (Photo: Geo Davis)
Tomorrow we’ll install the first wall and then experiment with re-brushing another coat of White Dove onto the wall in the hopes of improving the results. Fingers crossed!
Matt and Jarrett Installing Nickel Gap on Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: Geo Davis)
Time for a nickel gap progress report. But first let’s backfill slightly. As you may recall, we decided to finish the icehouse interior in T&G nickel gap instead of shiplap. We estimated and re-estimated material, ordered it from of T&G from Haselton’s, waited a couple of weeks for milling and delivery, and then offsite material preparation began.
Supi and Matt Installing Nickel Gap on Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: Geo Davis)
We’ve been fortunate to have two offsite heated garage-workshops serving as paint shops for all of this material because we wanted to pre-finish the lumber and had no viable space on site. Our prep and finish has included 1) shellac-based primer or equivalent on all knots, etc., 2) two coats of rolled primer, and 3) two brushed coats of finish paint.
T&G Nickel Gap Progress on Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: Geo Davis)
T&G Installation
We started by coordinating our installation plan to ensure 100% consistency across weeks of installation with rotating team members. We’re using 16-gauge brad nailers with 2” nails through the tongues, into the 2” studs and rafters. On sloped and flat ceilings T&G is being doubled up and “scissor nailed” as follows:
maximizing the nailing angle of fasteners as close to 90° as possible to ensure maximum holding,
taking advantage of the full width of the 2” rafters,
driving the fasteners through the shoulder of the tongues into the framing at a 45° angle to improve retention against gravity, and
shimming if/as necessary to ensure full contact of T&G with rafters and to eliminate waviness.
Nickel Gap Progress on Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: Geo Davis)
When installation began, we transported material into the icehouse in sufficient amounts calibrated to speed of progress. We still need a little more trial-and-error to perfect our flow while trying balance multiple considerations:
enough material needs to be onsite for ongoing/continuous installation,
material flow should anticipate enough acclimatization time so that we don’t experience expansion or shrinkage after installation,
and, just to keep things challenging, we need to avoid having excess material in the icehouse at any given time because it gets in the way of other projects.
In short, three challenges baked into one!
Nickel Gap Progress on Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: Geo Davis)
Nickel Gap Progress
As you can see, we started out with the two gable end walls per Peter’s prudent recommendation. Now we’ve moved onto the north ceiling, with close to 2/3 complete including the challenging integration where loft built is are being installed.
T&G Nickel Gap Progress in Icehouse (Photo: Geo Davis)
Matt, Jarrett, Supi, and Eric have been focusing on the T&G nickel gap installation, and the progress is really starting to add up. The coming promised to be another visual leap forward as the ceiling gets closed up. I promise to post photos as soon as significant headway has been made!
Nickel Gap Progress Video
Let’s wrap up with a little moving picture to show you what’s happened so far…
Some weekends are for relaxing or fêting friends. Other weekends are for backcountry adventures or polar plunges in currently 35° Lake Champlain. But today was dedicated to cladding — T&G paneling inside the icehouse and clapboard outside the outhouse — with four dedicated members of Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab team swapping R&R for punch list productivity. Let’s take a quick look at the Saturday siding progress.
Saturday Siding: Calvin and Eric installing clapboard on the icehouse’s west elevation (Photo: Geo Davis)
Proceeding with our unusual siding-before-windows protocol, Calvin and Eric moved forward with clapboard installation on the west elevation. The fourth and final façade!
It’s exciting to see the ZIP System paneling (and the Benjamin Obdyke Slicker) disappearing from view since it offers a highly visual barometer Reaser on the overall trajectory for this stage in the project.
Next we need to mark the precise location for the future gable window, install temporary trim “stops” for the remaining clapboard, and carry the clapboard on up to the roof. But given the forecast for tomorrow, a midday high of a about 25°, we’ll shift the focus inside to paneling.
Saturday Siding Mashup
Here’s a video remix of today’s Saturday siding progress (juiced up with a mesmerizing drum soundtrack and a retro film feel, my not-so-subtle homage to Rosslyn’s timeless allure.)
