The Liberalarium and other news

Now that the midterm elections are over with, we dread the creeping conservatism that is bound to take over the country.  Thus we are renaming our conservatory to now be called the liberalarium!  This name is more befitting for a household of bleeding heart, tree-hugging, animal whispering, left wingers.  So it's not a greenhouse, an orangerie or a conservatory; it's a liberalarium!

On to other news.  The interior is shaping up nicely, but we are holding off posting pictures since the work is proceeding on several fronts and no one room is completely finished.  Stay tuned.

The conservatory liberalarium! is now wired for electricity (as are the garden walls) and it has the southern skylights installed.

The skylights being installed on the liberalarium.

Trim and tile work are proceeding well and there is a lot of both.  Here's a picture of Isabel enjoying a dog toy on the tile being used for the shower floors:

Isabel on the shower floor tiles.  They must be pretty comfortable.

We also had three celebrations over the last few weeks.  Jason had a birthday, Scott had his birthday and of course we had a Christmas surprise one morning.  Here are the pictures (sadly there isn't one from Scott's party, but he's young enough to have many more):

Happy birthday for Jason (sorry he's blurry)

The Stylecraft crew the morning after a visit from Santa Claus.  

Back row:  Bruce, Sergey, Scott

Seated in front:  Jason

Jason's blurry again (hmmmmm, makes him seem kind of shady!)

Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark & Isabel

Planet Mark and Project Updates

Jason, the builder, now calls our project "Planet Mark" in reference to the complex of structures associated with the main house.  Here's a view illustrating what he's talking about:

The main house, garden walls, conservatory, pond, rain garden and garage of Planet Mark.

Here are some pictures to update you on the project's progress:

The conservatory walls.

The conservatory with its roof.  Yes, that's the darkest conservatory you may have seen, but the glass skylights 

still need to be put in.  Wait and see.

The pond and rain garden area.  The wooden structures are the supports for the plank walkways.  The pond hasn't been filled in this picture.

Another view of Planet Mark.

Onward and Upward,
Mark, Mark & Isabel

The Great Wall of Dolman

A couple of years ago we visited China and walked up a long section of the Great Wall.  Here's what it was like:

The Great Wall of China.  You get a Hero card if you make it to the top of this section.

And here's the kind of thing you see along the way:

A formal garden near the Great Wall of China.

Well we don't have the enforced labor of thousands of Chinese nor do we have several hundred years, but we are building two walled gardens as part of our project.  The idea is that they will form two courtyards off the south side of the house.  One comes off of the living room and the other comes off of the library.

Here's the first picture, I will chronicle the building of these walls as they progress:

View from front of the garden wall forms before concrete is poured.  The chalk lines 

are 3 shuttered windows that will be put in after the concrete is poured.

View from the roof next door showing the two walled garden rooms that will be created 

when the concrete is poured.  The one toward the street will be the English cottage garden 

and the other one will be the more structured eating area.

And yes, we know they can only be 6 feet high according to the historic code.  Give us some time to finish them and finish grading the land.  I think the results will be quite pleasing.  The courtyard room off the library is going to be an informal English garden and the one off of the living room will be a more structured area for outdoor eating.

Onward and upward,

Mark, Mark & Isabel

Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Candlestick

Get a clue!  We realized we were re-creating the popular board game by building a library and now a conservatory in this wildly complicated project.  We're considering the conservatory to be our project's crown jewel.

I will chronicle its construction in much the same way I showed different pictures of the main house as it went up.  Here's the first picture:

This is a view of the conservatory foundation wall.  The conservatory is attached to the back of the main house.  The doors shown above will lead into the conservatory from the house.  There will be a set of french doors in the middle of the wall in this picture that lead out to the rest of the yard.

Dear Mark,

Isn't a conservatory a bit snooty?  Wouldn't it be less haughty to just call it a greenhouse?

Sincerely,
A member of the unwashed masses




Dear Unwashed,

You need to pick up a book once in a while.  I believe a greenhouse is a structure devoted to the raising of plants, very often veggies or annuals.  Such a structure is designed to provide the best environment for plants.  An orangerie (that's o-ron-gery) is an example of a greenhouse built at the turn of the century (that's the 19th century) that allowed folks to grow citrus fruits in cold climates.  A solarium is the kind of structure people build that provides an environment mostly conducive to humans.  But a conservatory is the best of both worlds in that it is designed to accommodate plants and humans (and dogs).

Sincerely,
Mark, the not-so-high and mighty



Our conservatory is designed after the Linnean house at the Missouri Botanical Garden.  This is the structure immediately to the left after you first enter the garden from the main building.  Currently it's under construction, but is ordinarily where they house the camelias.  Our idea is to be able to have a garden all year long and enjoy the fragrance and sight of plants even in winter.

In my mind our conservatory will be the perfect place for breakfast cooked by the maid and served by the butler.  Whooops, looks like we are getting a wee bit uppity.


Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark and Isabel

Achin' in the rain

We started out singin' in the rain and ended with achin' in the rain.  Rain garden that is.  Yes, believe it or not we have another eco project going on around the crib.  The nice weather has again helped us to start on another outdoor project.  Mark and I are even helping with this one (shocking and a bit scary).  We did much digging, rock moving and liner laying.  Surprising how we could do this in the past without a lot of trouble.  Not so much anymore.  Now it's work, whine, wince and then wallow in agony with a whiskey.  But with the help of Scott Woodbury from Shaw Nature Reserve, his friend and Scott Powers of Stylecraft Homes (one of the amazing crew members working on the house) we have a really good start on a rain garden.

The idea behind this rain garden is that it will absorb rainfall instead of having the water roll off the land and enter the sewer system.  We are also connecting some of the downspouts from the house, our garage and the neighbor's garage to the rain garden system.  That way even that water, which ordinarily barely even touches any ground, also will not enter the sewer system.  We don't have the system set up to be used as irrigation, but in the future we plan to add some sort of storage system that will fill with rainwater from the other downspouts not used in the rain garden.  That stored water can then be used for irrigation.  We probably won't use rain barrels, because they only hold 50 gallons and we would need a lot of them to really make a difference.

Our rain garden will receive water from rain falling directly on it and from the downspouts.  The downspout water will flow through a tube and bubble out like a natural spring.  It will then flow down a stream bed and into a pond.  The pond itself will have the capacity to hold a large percentage of the water from the downspouts during an average rainfall.  But if we have more rain or frequent rain, the pond will overflow into the rain garden planted next to it.  This pond and rain garden system will have the capacity to absorb the rain that falls on it directly plus 60-70% of the water that hits the roofs of 3 buildings.  It will do this even for a 2 inch rain event, which is twice the normal, average rain fall amount.  Then finally, if we have even more rain, the water will flow from the rain garden through a pipe to the sewer system.  That should be a pretty rare phenomenon.

Sorry to disappoint those neighbors who thought we were putting in a swimming pool!  Here are some pictures:

A view of the pond.  The spring that is fed by the downspout water is out of the picture to the left.  The wooden structures to the left and right will be boardwalks that will allow us to walk over the stream (on the left) and through the rain garden (on the right).

Here's an example boardwalk from the Japanese garden at Missouri Botanical Garden 

that resembles what we are trying to build.

Pond filling ceremony using a bottle of spring water.  A hose will be used for the rest!

Our first pond visitor.  A fearless Robin made a foray to the water's edge only minutes 

after we started filling the pond.

Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark and Isabel

Can you believe this weather?

The springlike autumn we are having has been helpful since we fell behind a wee bit on the outside work.  On the south side of the house there will be two stucco walled garden rooms.  From the inside we can access each of these rooms and from them we can move into the rest of the yard.  One will be planted as an English cottage garden (think roses and lots of flowering plants, a little bit of messiness and lots of color and fragrance).  The other will be more Mediterranean (think tile, fountain, neat beds of plants) and used as an outdoor eating space.  We had to hold up the construction of the walls to get approval from the City (yes, we had to go back again).  Then we were further delayed as we waited to get the exterior geothermal system hooked up.

Exterior tubes of the geothermal system buried in a trench about 4 feet under ground.

The picture shows part of the tubing that is buried in a trench.  Toward the top of the picture you can see the tubes curving downward as the enter the well hole that was drilled to take them 200 feet into the Earth.  There are a total of 4 such holes.  A pair of tubes enters each hole, one tube takes water down into the Earth and the other tube brings it back up to pass on to the next well.  After the water flows through all 4 wells it can then enter the house and be used by the geothermal heat pump unit to heat or cool the house (see an earlier post for an explanation of how the system works).  We just learned today that the solution in the tubes will be a mixture of about 85% water and 15% methanol (the same alcohol that is used in that blue liquid you squirt on your windshield).

There's not much to show on the garden walls yet, but the next week should bring some progress in that area.

Onward and upward (or in this case, downward),
Mark, Mark and Isabel

The walls are up and the floors are down.

We are ecstatically happy because the drywall is up.  It's amazing how fast that happens and totally awesome that it makes the house really look like a place you want to live in.  Drywall can contain differing amounts of flyash (the burned residue from coal-based power plants).  I believe someone told me that all drywall contains at least some flyash.  The use of flyash is a way to turn a waste substance into a useful product.  We elected to not use a high flyash content drywall because we were concerned about heavy metals contaminants.  So the drywall isn't as green as it could be, but in terms of IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) we think it's better.  This is another good example of how going green isn't a kneejerk reaction; it requires you to balance several factors.  Sometimes one green aspect (use of flyash) can conflict with another green component (IAQ).  Queue Kermit the Frog, who famously said, "It isn't easy being green."

Isabel guarding the drywall.

Also recently completed are the radiant floor tubes.  The whole house will be heated with radiant floor tubes.  This is the same principle as a radiator that sits against the wall in many old houses in this area.  Hot water, produced by the geothermal system, flows through the tubes in the floor and releases its heat into the room.  From science class you may remember that heat is transmitted in 3 ways, radiation energy from a hot body (not Angelina or Brad), convection (the heating of air) and conduction (contact between your body and a heat source).  Radiant floors will transmit heat using all 3 of these ways, thus partly explaining its efficiency.  Of particular note is the conduction transmission of heat.  Unless you stand right on top of a floor register or next to a radiator, you don't experience conduction in most homes.  In this home heat will be conducted to anything that touches the floor.  This means the furniture will be warm, we will be warm and even toilet seats will be toasty!

The radiant tubes for heating the house are laid over 

a moisture barrier which is resting on the wood subfloor.  This picture

also shows some of the drywall, plumbing and electricity in place.

An important aspect of the radiant floor system is the use of a lightweight concrete under the brand name Elastizell.  By using this concrete we get the best possible transmission of heat from the radiant floor tubing into the room.  You can leave the concrete as the final surface or you can put carpeting, tile or wood over it.  Tile and wood don't affect the heat transmission very much, but carpeting tends to block some of the release of heat from the tubing.  We will be using tile, wood, marmoleum and cork coverings.  Of all those coverings, cork is the one that might block some heat transmission.  Go to this website to learn about Elastizell, including its sound deadening and fire blocking qualities:  Elastizell Floors

In this picture you can see the same room from the picture above, but now

the Elastizell concrete floors are poured over the radiant floor tubes.

Onward and upward,
Mark, Mark and Isabel