Our Home...Saltbox 13, circ. 1984
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New England Saltbox
Passive Solar |
1984, The Dream Came True
After spending 2 years drawing, sketching, and dreaming about
designing and building our own passive solar home, WE DID IT! My wife and
I planned every aspect of the design. I drew the plans with a t-square and
triangle on 18" x 24" vellum tracing paper. What a
rewarding experience.
We call this... Saltbox 13...... because we went through 13 total
revisions until we reached the final design.
Solar Energy Works!
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Solar Energy Works! |
living room |
We built our own furniture
Another plan was to also build all the cabinets and furniture inside
the home. I taught woodshop before getting into computers, so this made sense to design and
build the furniture as well. |
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...built the.....Kitchen Cabinets
and counter tops.
The doors have an interesting aspect, I designed the raised panel door
frames with mitered frames and inserted splines. |
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...built the.....Dining Room Table.
This piece is designed from the original door from my parent's home where I grew up. |
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...built the.....Staircase,
The biggest piece of furniture I ever built! This is solid red oak with an
inlayed stripe of walnut. This staircase is 2 stories. I plan to extend it
a 3rd story into the loft. |
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...built the.....Bathroom Vanities and Closet.
The interesting aspect of this design is the floating vanity with under counter
lighting. The side cabinets are linen closets. Material is black walnut
with a corian counter top. |
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...built the......Bedroom Furniture
This has been an ongoing project since high school. As a
senior, I built a triple dresser with 10 dovetailed drawers, along
with a queen size cannonball bed. While at Millersville University, I
built this dresser in advanced wood studies. Beginning at PVHS in 1980, I
designed the night stands and taught students how to build furniture.
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...built the.....Balcony
This was a fun project. Access to the skylight in the greenhouse is from
the master
bedroom. Using the beams we constructed this red oak balcony with a
railing design that matches the staircase. |
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...got tired.....bought IKEA
for the office!
That was enough building for 5 years. We outfitted the office with white
IKEA furniture. Inexpensive, easy, and fast! |
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...built the......Deck |
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This has been one of the
most
rewarding experience of my life. There is something fulfilling
about taking a piece of paper and sketching a floor plan or a piece of
furniture, and then building that design.
Now with the age of computers, I have not
built a piece of furniture in 5 years. Someday I hope to return to that
wonderful hobby. |
Thanks for taking a look
Solar Energy Works! |
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