The second *official* week of our icehouse rehab project has come and gone. Please excuse the tardy week-in–review. Better late than never! (Did you miss last week? Here’s the link: “Icehouse Rehab 01: The Ice Hook“.)
The idea behind these weekly updates, chronicling our progress on the icehouse rehabilitation project is multifaceted (ie. muddled and evolving.) As I recap the second week, here are few of the underlying objectives:
- recognize/celebrate our distributed team (Trello to coordinate, @rosslynredux to showcase, rosslynredux.com to chronicle, etc),
- transparently map our rehabilitation process, accounting for the ups and the downs without “airbrushing” the journey (rehab inside out)
- document our fourth and final historic rehabilitation project at Rosslyn,
- inspire others to undertake similarly ambitious and rewarding rehab adventures, ideally with an eye to adaptive reuse of existing structures,
- and leverage this current experience as a way to revisit and reevaluate our previous sixteen years of Rosslyn rehab ad infinitum.
Overview
In broad strokes, the week started with a site visit from Colin Mangan, the Town of Essex Code Enforcement Officer, included a site visit from John Bean, the sales rep for Windows & Doors By Brownell (who is coordinating new windows and doors), and ranged from prepping foundation for concrete forming and pouring to refastening the existing cladding (two layers s) to the studs. Also lots of small projects and final materials estimates for insulated panels, replacement clapboard, etc.
In addition, Hroth was able to begin work first finisher/refinishing lumber that we will be using in the project.
Garapa Re-Milling
We have begun re-milling and re-planing garapa decking salvaged from Rosslyn’s summer 2022 deck rebuild. These sample boards are among the many weathered specimens carefully removed this spring and summer prior to rebuilding Rosslyn’s deck substructure and re-decking with new garapa. Hroth’s patient. Hroth’s patient exploratory experimentation is the first phase in our effort to adaptively reuse this character-rich material in the icehouse. Still preliminary, but exciting possibilities ahead!
Homegrown Lumber
Another exciting milling and planing project underway is looong overdue. Rosslyn’s carriage barn is stocked floor to ceiling with years and years of lumber grown, harvested, milled, and cured on our property. Two local sawyers, Mark Saulsgiver and Andy Vaughan, labored over the years to transform trees felled by storms (and for reopening meadows) into finish lumber. Well cured and stable, ash and elm is now being planed and dimensioned for use inside the icehouse. That’s right, it was grown, harvested, milled, and dried on site.
Thank you, Hroth, for painstakingly preparing and analyzing this beautiful material to help plan icehouse rehab.
What do you think?