N-01 The program
What the house had to do
A retired veterinarian and a potter wanted a working homestead, not a farmhouse-styled suburban plan: mudroom big enough for actual mud, a pottery studio with a kiln yard, a kitchen that cans forty jars of tomatoes in an afternoon.
The house is two simple gabled volumes joined by a glass dogtrot — the old farmstead diagram, drawn plainly. The proportions do the charm; there is no applied 'farmhouse' anywhere on it.
N-02 The materials
The palette, and why
- Board-and-batten cedar
- Rough-sawn, finished with an iron-oxide stain that will silver evenly instead of blotching.
- Standing-seam galvalume roof
- The valley's snow slides off it; the rain on it was in the brief, verbatim.
- Local granite stoop
- A single split boulder from the site excavation — the house's founding stone.
- White-oak interiors
- Site-built cabinetry throughout, from one lift of lumber, by our own carpenters.
- Lime-washed brick stove wall
- A masonry heater at the center of the plan — the hearth is the furnace.
N-03 The timeline
As it actually ran
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Feasibility 4 weeks
Kiln-yard fire setbacks and a second septic field for the studio, resolved before design began.
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Design & documents 6 months
A simple house drawn carefully — simplicity is a discipline, not a shortcut.
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Permitting 5 weeks
Rural county review; the studio outbuilding permit ran concurrently.
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Construction 13 months
Our carpenters built the cabinetry on site through the winter — the schedule was designed around it.
N-04 The collaboration
Designed in-house
In-house design, and the project our carpentry shop is proudest of: one lift of white oak became every cabinet, shelf and bench in the house. Design-build earned its keep here — the millwork was designed to the lumber we'd already bought, not the other way around.
“It's a plain house done perfectly, which we've learned is the most expensive kind of plain — and worth every dollar.”
