Working on a big canvas: 40 acres on Lookout Mountain, Alabama.


Purchase and Location

I bought this property in 2005 and named it Richmond Woods for my father who taught me about nature and respect for the wild. It's located in Alabama near the Alabama/Georgia state line. The small nearby village of Mentone, AL has been a mountain retreat for 150 years for people escaping the summer heat of Birmingham and Atlanta. My companion, Carolyn, has helped me every step of the way.

A Cottage in the Woods
When you were little, did someone read fairy tales to you? Invariably, there was mention of a cottage in the woods. Our plan is to build such a place: handmade, no architect plans, buying local materials or using salvaged materials. The purpose of this blog is to document our progress.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Start on Sheathing

The weekend of Aug 2-3 Carolyn and I made a good start on the sheathing. But first...
I had to re-rig the big tarp that was blown down a couple weeks earlier. It was a hot-sunny weekend so we really needed the shade. The tarp took most of the day Saturday leaving just enough time to finish off the headers. We used more scrap lumber to bring them out flush with the outside of the framing so we would have something to nail the sheathing to above window and door openings.

We developed a pretty good system where Carolyn is the cutter and I am the nailer. Once we have have a good piece, Carolyn can use it to mark the next and so on. This way, she is usually ahead of me.

By mid-afternoon, we had gotten about a third of the sheathing on the front wall.

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