Leftovers and Building Fulfillment

“So, when are you gonna finish up?” An age-old question. It is truly the most consistent inquiry made to us “leftovers”—students who have stayed past the 5th year. And why not? What a fantastic question. Of course our friends, family, and colleagues would be curious to know the answer as to when our project will reach its fruition.

So are we!

If someone knows the answer, please feel free to email our team. In the meantime, we can try to answer another question. What is the meaning of our blog title?

I. Building Fulfillment –

The act of completing, or fulfilling, one’s architectural project to the best of their ability.

In effect, this is everything we do as leftovers. When we last wrote a blog post, we had just moved the cores into their final positions and craned our trusses into place. Since then, we have kept very busy. Our priority was to get the house dried in (sufficiently sealed) with ZIP System® sheathing to protect our beautiful cores. We had to install the blocking, place the sheathing, and tape and roll every seam and hole.

Once we had a dry space to work under, we were able to unwrap and resume working on the cores. We accomplished a lot off site, but there is still plenty left to do. We have been connecting all the water, electrical, and PVC systems to their respective outlets in our utility room. We are taking immense care to ensure that these systems perform as designed while looking as pleasing as they can. Having them exposed is an idea central to the cores themselves. The homeowner will easily be able to see when and where something breaks. That ease of maintenance will contribute to the longevity of the home, while also encouraging the homeowner to develop higher level of familiarity with such systems.

In addition, we have been working on the exterior of the house. We were able to install our windows recently. It’s a great feeling to use the windows as we intended, taking advantage of cross-ventilation on these hot days since we don’t have the A/C installed. We have also been busy layering on the insulation, battens, and flashing. All of this work is in preparation for, at last, putting on the final layer—the corrugated metal—which we hope to complete by the next blog post!

II. Building Fulfillment –

The act of building and the fulfillment it provides or the attempt to learn how to build a sense of fulfillment within ourselves.

In a blog post, we can only offer a snapshot into our daily routine of working and building. It’s difficult to convey in writing every decision made or every step of the process taken. To fully understand, you simply need to be there to see it for yourself. What we can convey is that being present and fully committed to learning how to build for the first time, and then actually doing it, is an incredibly rewarding experience. Plenty of stress and frustration balance the good times. No cup of coffee in the world will wake you up faster than the landing of a hammer when it hits your thumb instead of the nail. And coffee rarely results in expletives.

Every member of our team remembers moments on this project that were challenging to manage at the time. Many we tackled as a team. Others we entrusted to each other. But we managed them all. Once said and done, these moments and their solutions left us replete with personal satisfaction.

Personal fulfillment is a lofty goal, and difficult, especially when the finishing touches for our project are still a bit down the road a ways. One thing we hear almost as often as “So, when are you gonna finish up?” is the shared sentiment of past leftovers as they reminisce about their time at Rural Studio.