My Design Build blog series was intended to be chronological but I suppose this is as good as a time as any in this series to jump ahead in my building journey and mention the fact that once you're done with the build part of the design/build, you're not really done at all. This picture was taken recent to this post which is about a decade or more beyond Part 6 of this series. Engaging in a design/build at any level is a labor of love if it's anything. The truth is that you'll likely be working on something new for as long as you own the property because you love it. I do. I don't think I ever really want to stop. Stewarding and sculpting our little acre in the mountain foothills of the American Southwest is a joy and a privledge and something I relish everytime I get some work in.
Here is a rare photo of me working on the house. I'm always working on the house but the photos of me doing so are rare because... well, when I'm 15-20 feet in the air on old scaffold boards band-aided on the bottom with plywood which are stretched across scaffolding that's boosted on one side by a questionable stack of cinder blocks and I'm fastening heavy boards above my head, the last thing on my mind is 'should I get a selfie of this?'. So, you see, pictures of me working on the house can be rare. However, every once in a while my wife sneaks up on my toiling and snaps a couple of photos of her laborer busy at work.
In this case, I'm working on the back patio pergola. The beams that reach out into the landscape are the same LVL wood beams that we used throught the house and in the same radial pattern as the ones in the adjacent interior spaces. I want to continue and show the pattern/repetition of the studio/home's overall structure by taking the opportunity of an outdoor setting to expose it. In these photos I'm installing the pressure treated wood joists/trellis boards. The pressure treated wood will protect the main LVL beams to some degree so there's top plates along their tops. The trellis/joists that connect the two beams are pressure treated lumber as well because I do not want to have to go back up there to maintain or replace them anytime soon. I used 2X12s which are structurally oversized of course but the scale looks good with the rest of the surrounding elements, additionally, the extra height creates extra shade below. Nonetheless, the overall structure is too tall for any great measure of shade to be generated by the boards alone during the summer when the sun is high and you want the shade. I've got a really fun and creative solution to generate more shade from this design. Next will come the finish details which are bold and fun and functional, and I can't wait to finish and show you all. Materials are ordered - just a couple more weekends and we should have it completed! Images will be forthcoming...
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