Serenity is perfect…
…for one person.
Unfortunately, I rechecked my math on this one, and Robyn and I are definitely two people. Sixty eight square feet just doesn’t cut it. We need more elbow room for art, gear, books, a place to go that isn’t within arms reach of each other nor outside.
So we’re building an 8x16 studio cabin. Conventional framing, sheep’s wool insulation, a ‘green’ roof, custom windows, salvaged metal siding, and I’m planning on nerding out on some DIY cabin-scale radiant solar thermal hydronics with thermal energy storage and geoexchange. Oh yeah.
It went vertical last weekend:
And since I’m in the middle of Project Analog, I’m designing it old school style:
…which I’m finding surprisingly satisfying. It’s nice to just sketch something out with a pencil, do some math in my head, and build something. After so much 3d modeling it can be easy to forget that it’s possible to build anything without digitally twinning it with hyper sophisticated software first.
I’m aiming to have the studio habitable in a month, although I’ll probably be playing with different systems and modifications for some time. I’m looking forward to using it as a test bed for off grid thermal comfort system designs I’ve had in my head for a while.