Today the crisp smell of frost was in the air and activity at the house matched that energy!

Upstairs Jeff, JR and Troy got an early start placing sheathing. Chad and crew from Architectural Metal Systems installed scaffolding and started installing roof panels on the south side of the house by nine. Russell Larson, Larson […]

There’s been a big push during the last week to get the roof finished so we’re ready for colder days ahead. Jeff, JR and Troy have hustled to get house framing done, breezeway trusses up, roof sheeting on and covered, and facia boards in place. Late Monday they nailed a product called Cor-A-Vent to carefully fitted […]

We expected a quiet weekend on the building site, cleaning and moving stuff to make it easier for Jeff and crew to get their work done. We did that, but though it started out gray, it turned out to being a sunny, social weekend, too.

We arrived early Saturday to meet Chad from […]

As Wisconsin Technical College (WTC) officials prepared to break ground for La Crosse, Wisconsin’s first Passive House on October 3, a squirrel scolded onlookers and ran from a tree shedding first leaves into the wet street. In this established neighborhood of modest homes the scene was quiet, but expectant. Onlookers who’d wandered from jobs and […]

It was a perfect autumn afternoon to take flight—and so we did! The result was a birds-eye view of how the construction looks from afar.

We departed the La Crosse Regional Airport around 4:30, making our way west from the Mississippi River through the Root River Valley toward Lanesboro. Friends Drake and Carol […]

Recycling plastics, aluminum, newspaper and more is top-of-mind for most of us; recycling our water is not something we typically think about. But when you stop to realize that there exists a finite amount of water and we’re constantly consuming it, washing with it, and flushing it down our toilets, only to be used again […]

When I arrived yesterday afternoon, all but three house roof trusses were in place.  I walked inside the first floor and all the way around outside, then climbed the ladder to the second floor, feeling the spaces. I saw in 3D what I’d seen on paper so often and felt the height of ceilings, the […]

The season has turned, bringing cool evenings, warm days, and darker mornings. We stopped to talk with Jeff, JR, Troy and Tom this morning and it was strange to see them in coats and gloves after so many blistering hot days on this job. A soft mist hung over the meadow where the house stands.

The weeks until the […]

We’re really quite pleased with how the house is taking shape. This past week ended with much of the second floor roughed in and the first of the roof trusses being put in place.

From ‘inside’ the house, we’re increasingly getting a feel for the rooms, their sizes, and their window views; it was particularly […]

“By the end of this week our house walk-through will be a little less imaginary…” Nancy closed her post a week ago with that line—and she was right! By the time the weekend rolled around a good share of the first floor was framed and floor boards for part of the second […]