Almost 10 years ago, we migrated south from urban Portland to rural Beavercreek. We settled on a 20 acre farm/woodlot that’s nestled on the south flank of Highland Butte (that’s the knob on the right of the masthead photo), what we hope is the extinct vent of the volcano that formed the land for miles around in this part of the world. We moved into a couple of buildings that had been constructed in the ’60’s by the late Charlie Trainer. As you’ll see when I post the first photo, our shop, which was his camp site while building the house, was a fire hazard near the forest and falling down. Nonetheless, we used it as our craft shop and for storage.
As phase I of our redevelopment plan, we’ve replaced that shop with a proper Shambles Workshop. Our intent, the County notwithstanding, is to use it as our “clean” studio where we’ll prepare wool from our sheep and llamas, spin, knit, weave, and do other crafts that don’t produce lots of dust. Dusty and really dirty projects will remain in the farm workshop in our main barn.
The “Studio” became phase I because we thought we could get approval for this simple auxiliary building more easily than for our ambitious, earth sheltered, passively heated, solar house. It turned out to be more difficult than we imagined, partly because we used the studio to test a couple of elements we hope to incorporate in the house. In addition, we have a lot of stuff in the house that needs secure storage that the studio will afford.
So, there follows a pictorial chronology of the studio’s progress. I’ll keep comments to a minimum and let the pictures speak for themselves. When something needs an explanation, I’ll try to provide it. Perhaps it will be instructive to someone else.
I will say at the outset that one should never begin by taking any building for granted. Everyone involved in the project underestimated the complexity, lulled to that approach by its purpose as an auxiliary out building. It has plumbing, wiring, is built on a robust slab, and is the test bed for the Yarnell/Moore hydronic heating grid we hope to use later for back up in the main house. Later, as an economy, it will function as a zone of the main house. Because it is first up, it has 400 amps of electrical service. Later 200A of that will be routed to the house and already, 100A of it is still fed to the main barn. This arrangement confused a lot of people.
Note: This site is not organized as most “blogs” appear to be. This account is in chronological order with the oldest at the top and each next step in order thereafter. The dates are arbitrary since there is no WordPress utility I can find to allow reverse chronological order. All entries will appear in December 2007. When you get to the bottom of the page, click on “Older Posts” to continue.
First up is a photo of what used to be: The Shambles Workshops.
The Shambles: Evolution on the flank of a volcano 
