It’s curtain call on the Myers’ Home, construction that is. The team wrapped up just in time for the holiday season and towed away the trailer and all. The keys have been given to the clients. The team can’t wait to hear how the house functions in action. But how about a dive into those last few weeks on site in Newbern?
Flex Walls, Finally
One of the primary aims of the Myers’ Home was to provide a formwork for varying generation needs. The team explored this concept by building the “shell” house with no spatial divisions outside of the “core” volume. With this method, a client could hypothetically walk through the full-scale model of the home. With full experience of the space, they can decide where they’d like bedroom divisions from several schemes.
South wing – view East
South wing – view Southwest
North wing – view Southwest
View North to South
North wing – view Northeast
These “flex walls” are stud walls constructed in place, rather than tilt up, and anchored with a few masonry screws. They are paneled with sanded and primed plywood and fasteners are entirely visible. These details allow the walls to be more easily altered or removed years down the road. If the family is in need of a new room configuration, these walls can handle it.
Framing the flex wall
Paneling in plywood
Primed bedroom flex wall
Bits and Bobs
Of course, at the end of every building project there is what’s called a “punch list.” It’s a list of the remaining tasks to ready the house for turnover. On this list for the Myers’ Home was a few coats of finish to the butcher-block countertops, making the stair handrail, caulking the last of corners, tightening up door hardware, and sealing the interior and exterior slabs.
Porch Conclusions
Another final task was to complete the lower row of siding on the front exterior face of the home. A quick task that certainly visually completes the house quickly!
One row left!
With all bents in place and secured, we begin raising and securing purlins. Then, we welded the purlin mats at the same time as the bents and installed them as single units by bay. Riley took the reins and began welding up a storm while the others clamp and shimmy the pieces to level.
Finally, we wrapped up the roofing, a quicker job than expected. After just a day and a half the team completed the final line of siding and the porch roof. The panels went on with slightly more precision than the main roof. The tapping screws needed to catch the 1-1/4″ purlins, so measuring and pre-drilling of the sheets and purlins were required.
With a final coat of sealant to the interior slab and porch pavers, the house was ready for move-in!
That’s a Wrap
Madeline, Judith, and Riley are on to new endeavors, though questionably bigger and better than this one.
Start spreadin’ the news! Riley is kicking it in the Big Apple, starting work at MADE Design/Build in Brooklyn, NY. With an in-house woodshop and IKEA next door he’s sure to be up to his ears in miters and meatballs.
Judith is sticking around Newbern and joining the teaching team as 3rd-Year Instructor/Coordinator. She’ll be working on Rosie’s Home with Emily McGlohn and the new batch of 3rd-year students. Hale County just can’t seem to shake her off!
Madeline has hit the road to Bozeman, MT, where she’ll be working at Minarik Architecture. She’s pleased with her new snowboarding opportunities and excited to get into conscious and contextual residential work. Stay thawed up there!
The team could not be more grateful for the support of Rural Studio faculty and staff, student colleagues, consultants, donors, and friends. It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later. This is the Myers’ Home team signing off.
The Myers’ Home team has been busy preparing the porch structure on the Western face of the home. This porch is unique among previous Rural Studio projects for a few reasons: It’s fabricated from steel, has its own slab, and barely touches the rest of Myers’ Home.
Mildew, Mil-don’t
Looking back, the home was designed for longevity and flexibility through generations. In previous Rural Studio homes with front porches, the space is most often subtractive. This means that the open porch is carved from the main volume of the house and its structural system. In doing so, the rafters are exposed and gaps between trusses are exposed. These must be filled in some way, usually bird blocking. The other solution is a soffit under the eaves.
In both cases, the exposed undersides of the rafters or soffit are nearly always in shade and tend to mildew. Over time the uncovered portion of the truss or rafter can degrade faster than the interiorized segment. In these cases the whole member is still compromised.
Flashing makes all the difference
The final detail as planned in Spring
The execution of the detail
The team addresses this problem by eliminating the condition entirely. Myers’ Home has no true eaves, only a slight overhang of the corrugated roofing material. Flashing details are tight and the long Western porch is entirely removed from the structure of the house.
Finding Your Footing
But how’s that little gap mitigated? A separate foundation for the porch is planned. Ideally, this job could be completed with just the team and some extra hands in one morning. This settled into five separate pavers, with two inches of gravel between and roughly a foot of separation from the main house slab.
Before the pavers can be placed though, footings for the metal columns of the porch must be set. This system shook out to be a trench footing, with ten-inch-deep reinforced footings at the columns and a six-inch-deep trench spanning each bay.
Couldn’t do it without a little help from our friends!
With the help of a handful of 5th-year students and professors Andrew Freear and Steve Long, the pour was complete in just about an hour with all levels squared away. The team can look on to the next pour the following week of the pavers.
Prep for the latter involves formwork once again, this time with removable dividers between eight by eight-foot segments. These folks took a leaf out of Horseshoe Courtyard‘s book and used a system of stakes and plywood strips for this maneuver. They then mound backfill dirt around to keep concrete from spilling out beneath the forms. The last step before the concrete arrives is reinforcement with metal mesh and grade pins. The mesh strengthens the concrete as it settles over time and grade pins are fluorescent marked stakes driven to signal the correct level of concrete in the forms.
Finally, the team can tackle their third and last concrete pour of the project. The truck arrived and they were soon in the groove of a process with aid of Patrice’s Home team and Steve. Riley manned the chute; Judith, Daniel, Adam, and Lauren shoveled and screeded; Madeline and Lauren troweled and floated away; and Steve edged each one.
Finding a way to reach all edges of pavers
Paver 4 of 5
Steve’s last hurrah
These pavers, being on the porch, are also exposed aggregate which necessitates an additional step after the concrete is finished but still wet. Following a half hour’s wait, Judith misted a specialized concrete retarder atop the fresh pavers, bright ectoplasm green. This allows the majority of the concrete to cure normally while the topmost layer of cement is kept a slurry.
Late night slab-scrubbing session
The pavers post-formwork and pre-gravel fill
Pea gravel exposed aggregate
After roughly eight hours, Madeline and Judith return in the evening to hose and scrub the surface of the pavers and wash away the cement. This reveals a texture of the aggregate, in this case pea gravel specially ordered for this type of slab. The team is aiming for a change in surface material between the concrete of the porch and that of the interior as well as a more rugged finish for the home’s entrance.
Weld, Weld, Weld
These three can now focus on the porch structure itself, made entirely of metal with a corrugated roof to match that of the main home. Thanks to the generosity of Studio friend, Jim Turnipseed, the team was able to spend about a week in Columbiana, Alabama at Turnipseed International’s metal shop. There they built jigs, practiced welds, fabricated purlins, and built bents.
With the oversight of teachers Flo and Luis, they quickly learn the equipment, cut pieces to length, and weld up a storm.
Cutting 45 degree angles for purlin corners
Using a jig to cut 150 degree angles for the bents
Ends of pieces must be ground before welding
Purlins are up first, a good practice run as most welds will be hidden from sight. For east of installation and transport, purlins are designed as mats. These mats are welded in a line and installed as a single unit in each bay. Tables are placed a specified width apart and a simple rectangular jig is made with four ninety-degree angles to catch the mat’s corners.
Practice welds are a necessity
The last of the purlin mats
Don’t look at the light!
The bents are pitched with a solid four-inch-wide plate welded atop to catch the purlin mats and provide more tolerance. These take more complex jig-work. The needed angle cannot be achieved in the range of the band saw’s angle. So the extra distance is made up by welding a separate tray to make up the difference.
Setting up jigs
2 of 6!
Following this, the angle for the bents’ top and bottom knee-joint are welded to the tables similarly to the purlin jig. Once the pieces are arranged, baseplates with holes drilled are attached to the bottom of the columns. These baseplates are what will anchor the porch structure to the footings poured earlier.
A big ol’ stack of purlins
The final step in fabrication is to prepare the members for galvanization. A series of half-inch holes must be drilled in all pieces to allow them to drain. This is relevant when components are dipped in the zinc bath stage. Results can be…explosive, otherwise.
Let’s Taco ’bout Halloween
The welded component are shipped off to Mississippi for galvanization! The team is on their merry way back to Newbern to continue site work. But several days earlier the team returned to Hale briefly for the annual Halloween Reviews! Those who may have spent a few days in this neck of the woods may recognize the wall murals from Greensboro’s own Mi Tenampa Mexican restaurant. As leftover students from the previous year, these three spend review day listening in on new thesis and 3rd-year work, attending the costume contest, and eating quite a few Reese’s peanut butter cups.
Bringing Down the Hammer(drill)
While waiting on the return of the porch structure, Madeline, Judith, and Riley move back into finishes and porch groundwork.
Judith and Riley borrow the Studio’s hammer drill and a masonry bit and spend a morning drilling four six-inch-deep holes in each footing. Riley has a specialized jig that expedites the process. After snagging only a bit of rebar, they’re ready for the next stage. Threaded rods are anchored into the holes with epoxy, these will catch those baseplates on the porch columns. With a system of threaded rods and nuts, the team can micro-adjust the levels of the bents upon installation.
Precision is key
That’s what’s going on around town, catch the final stages of finishes soon. Myers’ Home is getting fitted out with cabinetry, sinks, stair treads, and more!
The Myers’ Home team has made it to the top layer of finishes. Almost every material and layer they apply at this point is completely visible and the finish surface in the home. So they’re watching their step with the mud and taking some extra care in details.
Painting the Day Away
After sheetrock is complete, the team and their helpers scrub up the drywall mud and prepare to begin painting. While the home’s core, outer walls, and to-be-built flex walls are designed using different materials, they’ll all be painted white to reduce noise. It also provides a clean surface, should the homeowner want to paint it to personal preference.
a good mopping for Myers’ Home
Thanks to the 5th-Years!
Madeline prepping to paint
Tongue and groove seams take some extra care
The sheetrock is the cleanest surface on the outer edges of the home. It contains most electrical for the possible rooms and is more workable for openings like windows and doors. The board surface on the home’s core—the kitchen, bath, and stair—is a durable tongue-and-groove board. These surfaces are interacted with more often and need added durability. The flex walls that partition bed and living space will be plywood, and primed white. These walls will be anchored in only a few points should the home configuration need to change years down the road.
Just a Trim, Please
Sanding upper trim in the kitchen
Installing trim around the south window
Once the walls have their first coat, trim can be installed around the whole house. As materials change, so does trim design strategy. The baseboards run along sheetrock surfaces, and where board material begins, the trim moves to the top edge of the ceiling. Windows are trimmed out on their edges.
Last Call on Windows
Speaking of windows, all of the custom window units are installed and Riley is adding the last few components post-install. Each of the operable and fixed windows get their own trim box, also constructed of cypress. These are taped off and kept natural as the last coat of paint is applied to the surrounding wall.
Riley installs backer rod to seal window gaps
The window in the last stages of paint
The wall wash detail in the shower, lovely morning light!
Steel-Clad Sensibility
Meanwhile, the exterior of the house is getting the full treatment. Siding is starting to be installed on the two gable ends and back of the house. The lower twelve feet of front face will be clad after construction of the porch slab. This prevents siding from being dinged and damaged during concrete pours and metalwork. The porch structure will then be used as a platform to finish the top few feet of siding.
However, the installation process is straightforward for the other three sides. Panels are pre-drilled with screw holes, openings for windows and vents are cut, if necessary. Then the panels are moved into place, overlap length checked, and screwed in from overlap edge over. This prevents most bubbling in the panel as the lines of screws progress over.
Riley manning the boom lift
Making cuts for the gable angle
The backside of the home
South face siding with a sneak peak of the porch footprint!
The Thermal Mass & Buoyancy Ventilation team has also kindly lent their rental boom lift. The Myers’ Home team is using this lift to install siding high on the gable ends. It’s certainly a much smoother route than multi-story scaffolding! They also used it to install the last few pieces of flashing around windows. The flashing details on this house are in the same family as those used on the roof. To maintain the tight shell, window openings are designed to be sharp and clean.
On Deck
The team is now on their last big push for the interior. They’re building flex walls, preparing for stair treads, painting cabinets, and making the rounds on finish electrical and plumbing. Soon, all lights will be on and water will be flowing!
The kitchen space; here come the cabinets!
Bedroom/living area pre-flex wall
On the outside, these folks are on standby for porch plans. Imminently, they’re headed up the road to Birmingham for some porch fabrication. This means steel cutting, drilling, and welding! Before that they’ll be boots in the mud again digging for the footings and pavers of the porch. More on that soon, thanks for keeping up!
Swamp Sunflowers are blooming at Myers’ Home!
Riley, Judith, and Madeline in their new medicine cabinet
Madeline and Judith have been working away on site, but where’s Riley been? What’s this mystery man’s secret? Alright…he’s been out shopping. Woodshop-ing, that is. He’s been crafting the window systems for Myers’ Home with his own two hands!
What, Where, Why?
The team hasn’t just picked up this big task for the fun of it though. Designing and building the window system introduces a slew of advantages into the Studio’s home-building philosophy.
In rural areas like those studied by Myers’ Home team, the most common windows are not durable. The cheap vinyl and plastic warps over time and the window becomes useless for ventilation. They also are often filled with window AC units that reduce interior light and make passive ventilation near nonexistent.
The ventilation and lighting strategy of Myers’ Home
The Studio decided to tackle this challenge of durability and home efficiency so the team first studied the essential functions of a window in this context and boiled it down to: light, passive ventilation, and active ventilation. They decided the best tools for each of these elements and worked to fit them together into one window unit. By separating each component, particularly active ventilation from the others, light and passive ventilation are preserved.
The three components of the window unit
Windows are also typically installed in the rough openings of the home. In this case, installing three separate components makes the process more difficult. The team designed a dimensioned box that holds all three pieces precisely. This unit is then moved into the opening and leveled as one piece.
Riley Makes a Jig
First, Riley had to find a way to streamline the process. A “jig” is the most effective way to move forward here. Jigs are tools of a sort, they hold other tools, or pieces, in place so that they can be worked. Often they are a negative of a piece one is trying to build.
In the case of Myers’ Home windows, Riley set up a system in this line of thinking. He built low tables, drafted the window frames on the tops, routed holds for clamps, and assembled each window section atop them.
Riley assembling a section of the windows on a jig table
A Mill-ion to One
Once the jigs are complete and workstations ready to go, Riley can begin the first step before assembly: milling. The team chose quality pine boards for the base box of the window units. Cypress trim will make up the interior and exterior trim and the exterior lid to the box. The pine arrived slightly larger than necessary dimensions, so to the planer it goes. After a few passes the boards are ready to be assembled into the dimensionally stable frame for the three components.
Boxes and Squares
With all this freshly milled wood, Riley began scribing his dimensions and cutting the pine pieces to length. He moved these to his assembly space in the Red Barn where he begins laminating and screwing them into a solid unit.
measuring and scribing boards
cutting to length
predrilling holes
gluing reinforces screw connections
screwing the box together
Put a Lid On It!
The team designed the window unit as three pieces: the core box, the lid the shuts it, and the trim that covers seams. Once the box is complete, Riley uses the same jigs to assemble those lids. They are made of cypress, which is more weather-resistant for the lid on the window exterior.
The milling process is much the same, he continued to scribe and cut to size, this time on the chop saw rather than a sled on the table saw. After this though, some changes happen in the process. He used the table router to route small drip edges on each sill, another level of weather protection. And, as the pieces are so thing and would be prone to splitting, Riley employed pocket screws in the assembly of the window lids. This requires another jig and predrilling of each component.
routing drip edges
pre-drilling for pocket screws
pocket screw dimensioning
These pieces all move to the jigs and are ready for assembly. Once lined up and in place, the glue is placed, the whole things is clamped, and pocket screws are driven. It sits to dry for a day.
lining everything up
pre-gluing
post-glue and clamp
post-screw install
How About a Trim?
The last piece of the layered window system is the trim. Riley lays these pieces out much the same as the lid and assembles with screws and lamination. The difference in this piece of the window unit is its future-proofing. The box is independent and the lid and trim are tightly attached to one another. Then these two pieces are simply screwed together, sturdily.
meeting of trim details
center flange trim detail
When Riley attaches the lid, the screws are left visible and unpainted. This means that over time, when the trim of the window weathers or rots, the piece can be replaced with something else by the owner, keeping the rest of the window secure.
Steps to Site
Riley had a few finishing steps before the units move to site are installing operable windows, weather sealed taping, and priming and painting. All of was is done in the shop and Red Barn as well. The team’s plan was the finish just about everything that could be done in-shop. Designating the majority of window production as pre-fabrication allows the entire unit to be transported in nearly its final state.
installed operable
tape window
prime frame
On-site, the box is popped into the rough opening and leveled with shims. Then the team lined up the lid and screwed it on tightly. This leaves installing the fixed glass and wall-in conditioning unit, both simple and straightforward tasks.
Pre-Fab Pays Off
The team carefully transported all six operable window units to site and have been steadily installing and weatherproofing each one. In help install the high attic units, the TMBV team has lent their boom lift!
the north unit, ready for AC
Riley adding backer rod to the system
just before installing fixed glass
In addition to the operable window units, Riley fabricated four fixed window units for the living space, kitchen sink, stair landing, and bathroom.
shower window
stair window
kitchen window
living space windows
News of Newbern
The team has already started installing siding on the exterior and working through finishes inside. It’s been exciting to see so much visible progress lately! They’ve also been getting some extra helping hands from the new 5th-year teams. Keep those eyes peeled for blogs from them and the 3rd-year students.
Windows and siding together
And a ridiculously loud congratulations to these three teammates over at Rev. Walker’s Home. They finished their project and hosted a housewarming party for Reggie. This team could not be more proud of their hard work and grateful for their friendship. These folks cannot wait to see what they do next, the sky is the limit. Over and out.
The latest is in from the Myers’ Home project site! The team has squared away interior framing and are close to debuting their windows. This means it’s about time for the house to get its nerve center. The Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing train is leaving the station in Newbern.
One of the core walls containing plumbing for the bathroom and wiring for bedroom outlets
Becoming Plumbers…
With Riley offsite in the woodshop working on the custom window units, Madeline and Judith have been at the helm on site for the past few weeks. Madeline is taking the reins on plumbing the whole house, and ducting it too! Judith has got the power alongside her, running electrical wires, installing outlet and switch boxes, sorting circuits, and labeling everything.
Madeline crimping pex couplings
stubbing out plumbing to the attic upstairs
Installing the shower fixtures one morning
The plumbing contains stub-outs to the attic space allowing a bathroom to be built for future generations. These are beside the water heater, also in the attic to save space in the downstairs. Electrical decisions were also based on rooms that could serve different purposes across generations. Dedicated circuits are in place for AC units and the home is treated in zones of use.
label, label, LABEL
Sittin’ pretty installing fan boxes
Lighting the Way
This also entails a discussion in lighting the house, helped along by a new consultant to the Studio, Thomas Paterson of Lux Populi in Mexico City.
The flexible nature of Myers’ Home doesn’t stop at the plan, section, or material finishes. The team’s been applying their goal of generational expansion and flexibility to the lights in the house too. The home was studied in zones to determine lighting strategies, and tools (fixtures) were chosen to achieve these. The team is working to balance task lighting and spot lighting with the necessary amount of immediate switched light in a space.
The team mirrored lighting and fan locations in each zone for alignment no matter the scheme of flex walls. They then worked to place lights in the core such that it remains a hearth and can be the main source of immediate light in the home.
Interior lighting sketch render
Night lighting porch light
As these folks press on with electrical work, they’ll begin to test how to optimize the tools they’ve chosen for each flexible space.
It’s Getting Hot in Here…
Drywall looms and Myers’ Home Team must consider all that the wall must hold before it is sealed up. Wires and pipes have been run, the lights are set in their places. It’s time to stuff if full of foam and fiberglass. The insulation line for Myers’ Home is at the roof. This requires five and a half inches of spray-in, open-cell insulation. It’s one of the few jobs that the Studio hires out. Meanwhile, the team put up blocking framing upstairs and left the premises for a day. Upon return, the attic was cool as a cucumber and ready for windows.
The attic post spray-in insulation
The original intention for the home was to install a flash-and-batt insulation system downstairs. However, foam prices are cost-prohibitive and the team moved forward with Rockwool insulation in downstairs walls. Madeline, Riley, and volunteer Bess from Project Horseshoe Farm knocked out the ground floor in just a couple mornings!
Sheetrock City
The team put some quick blocking in place and documented each wall before making the call for sheetrock. The crew arrived first thing and got to it. By lunchtime, the first layer of finishes were all in place. All that remains for drywall is mudding and sanding to smooth everything over.
Drywall about to go up on the ceiling
Neckdown
Much of this happened over the course of Neckdown week—where new students knock out work around Hale County using, arguably, everything but their heads. Myers’ Home played host to a few helpers who helped begin more layers of finish materials in and out of the home. Many thanks to new 5th-year students Jackie, Hailey, Davis, Brenton, and Caitlyn, as well as 3rd-years Peter and Laura!
Window units ready to show their faces soon! In the meantime, the home is being battened down with flashing and prepped for siding as the summer slides on by. Check out Myers’ Home team’s brethren over at Rev. Walker’s Home as they also install windows and siding. Or jump to the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation crew for some big moves upward! Best to all, over and out.
