timber frame carving complete, porch partially erected, plus the kitchen sink!

last weekend we finished our timber frame carving for the kitchen. reaching this milestone has been a lot of work, and at times it seemed that little was happening, but one of the joys of timber framing is the speed with which the work goes up once it's finished. yesterday, the porch posts and braces went up in a couple hours. after the hours of measuring, re-measuring, chipping away, hand drilling, to see it all fit together and be mated for a lifetime, makes it worthwhile to me. it feels good.

thursday, a mighty crew reconnoitered to white river junction to load the big big stove into my pickup for transport to the land along with the three bay sink, pots and pans donated by rick cole. we set the stove more or less in place and it took command of the kitchen right away, and also expelled any doubts that the building might be anything other than a kitchen.

friday and saturday we continued to carve. i kept saying things like, "this is the last joint!" only to realize, no, there was one more. but, as of today, we are in fact finished with the timbers. this coming friday, because we want to get a move on with the interior, our excavator is coming up to the land to assist in lifting the heavy beams and rafters. so, if you can help friday morning, 7:30am, please come on up!

as you can see in the pictures, the porch is taking shape. i'm always amazed by how vertical elements change the feel of a place. i'd been concerned ever since we designed the kitchen that the porch would feel too small, and with just the concrete stubs to hold the porch posts, it did feel small to me. with the posts up, though, it feels grand and i'm happy the sight lines up the circle seem to work well. i had thought the roof might clip the view.

many thanks to daisy, especially, for persevering the entire last month to get the timbers cut. in addition to daisy, we had help last weekend from zenya, greg, bugbane, peat, chris and hummingbird. thank you to the entire gathering for carrying the beams up from the workshop to the kitchen. we could not have done it without you, literally.

next weekend will be dedicated to finishing the porch. this will include fastening the rafters to the support beams, attaching strapping on which the clear roof will sit and building narrow ledges over the tops of straw bales.