Tag: Hroth Ottosen
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Old Year’s Day
Did you know that another name for New Year’s Eve Day is Old Year’s Day? Not used widely, in my experience, but logical. Retrospective. Emphasis on the year expiring rather than the year arriving. Despite a personal proclivity for forward-looking and possibility, a year-end review offers merits too. This day’s, this year’s minutes are too…
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Flashing Flashback
Weather reminds us that autumn will inevitably yield to winter. Frost. Flurries. Cooold nights… Probably soon-ish, at least for short intervals. And yet the threat of colder, wetter, even snowier and icier days ahead is 100% less concerning than it was a year ago. We’d only just begun our foray into Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation. And…
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Framing Flashback
At the outset of Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab, I envisioned posting weekly summaries, highlighting the team’s accomplishments in 7-day installments. Noble vision. Ignoble follow through. Among the many overlooked episodes, one especially significant accomplishment stands out: building interior structure for the loft, bathroom, mechanical room, etc. So today, months after construction was completed, I offer you…
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Garapa Paneled Bathroom, Pt. 1
Eureka! After many months of brainstorming, experimentation, painstakingly protracted preparation, troubleshooting, oiling, and meticulous installation, the garapa paneling in Rosslyn’s icehouse bathroom is complete. What a remarkable journey it’s been, and the final results are breathtaking. Garapa Backstory Our garapa backstory has its beginning waaayyy back when we built the original garapa deck on the…
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The Art of Thresholds
I’m slightly obsessed with transitions and betweenness. Liminality and interstices. Metamorphosis, reawakening, and transformation inevitably weave themselves into my words about gardening and historic rehabilitation. In fact, in a not altogether exaggerated sense, Rosslyn Redux is a kind of carefree contemplation of thresholds, the art of thresholds, and the artifacts of crossing thresholds… Transitions. Flux.…
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Garapa Roundover: Easing the Edge
Time for a progress report on the garapa paneling that will soon embellish the icehouse bathroom. We started out gently easing the edges, but several iterations later we’ve settled on a full roundover. Here’s why… Roundover Rewind Because the garapa upcycling backstory helps illuminate the decision to edge these boards with a diminutive roundover, let’s…
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On the Level
On the level, both literally and figuratively, this first full day at home has been invigorating and encouraging. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there are several concurrent projects in the works. Inside and outside. Home and outbuildings. Plenty of potential for discombobulation… But, by in large, this impromptu return to Rosslyn has been profoundly positive. The…
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Snow Falling on Homecoming
Today’s ferry ride from Charlotte to Essex — with snow falling on homecoming — tasted bittersweet if vaguely familiar. There was a wellspring of anticipation upon returning to inspect firsthand the team’s progress on the icehouse rehab, boathouse gangway, and some painting and tiling maintenance inside our home. There was also the poignant pique of…
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Finding Freudenfreude
Last week Tony, Hroth, and Pam all shared overlapping updates on garapa, elm, and ash upcycling progress. Virtually concurrent texts and photos sent by all three. Two of them spoke with me by telephone. All of them sounded 100% in sync. No griping. No grumbling. No blaming. And no complaints, frustrations, or regrets. They were…
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Stair Framing to the Loft is Complete!
First phase of interior framing (walls for bathroom, mechanical room, coffee bar, and loft floor) was an invigorating milestone in Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation project. And then, installing the loft subfloor helped complete the transformation, visually defining the new spaces. But the most notable triumph during the interior framing phase is the stairway which has dramatically…
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Upcycling Garapa Decking
You may recall that we’ve been upcycling garapa decking from Rosslyn’s 2008-9 deck that we salvaged and laid aside this past summer. Spanning half a year so far — from deconstructing and culling reusable material midsummer to multiple experiments determining optimal dimensions for adaptive reuse as bathroom paneling — we’re now scaling up production and…
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All Zipped Up: ZIP System Installation Complete
As it turns out, the snow-blizzard-cum-bomb-cyclone that hepped up meteorologists and newscasters, snarled traffic across the country, and added a decidedly wintery twist to the Christmas holiday for many across the country impacted us two totally opposite ways, one good, the other bad. Ever the optimist, I’ll launch with the glorious news: the icehouse rehabilitation…