Thursday, September 10, 2009

Why the Fuss Over a Garage?

Because Scott and I actually live in Logan, we needed to find a way to frugally live in Torrey during construction season. The best solution for us was to build our yurt, then erect the garage so we’d have a place to work out of the weather and so we’d have easy access to a bathroom.

Once the bathroom was in working order, it was good-bye to the Texaco station and hello to the next phase of house construction - the timber frame. To that end, Bruce Chappel (Thousand Lakes Timber Company) delivered the timbers for our entire house except for the porch. The very next weekend, Adam Riley and Jake Amadon (Teton Timber Framing Company) arrived on the scene to give us an intensive, one-on-one, three-day, crash course in the timber frame process.

If you remember an earlier posting, Scott and I had participated in a timberframe workshop through the Traditional Building Skills Institute at Snow College. But this time we were the only students and we were building our very own home.

As you can see in the following slide show, timber framing is an art form requiring precision, patience and good partners. We had all three! And the garage will be perfect for continued work in all kinds of weather!