The New Leaf Inn Germinates

2006-06-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

Inside - the great room and bathroom medicine niche, shower

2006-06-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

The bedroom

2006-06-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

The outside

2006-04-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

We moved in yesterday (April 2)!
Atascadero signed off on the final last Tuesday.
A post of the house with us in it will happen after things get situated, and after we work out high speed internet access.
Below are full size pictures in the meantime, showing the house the morning of move in day.

A special thanks to all those who helped us get this far!

The poppies seeded as part of erosion control on the bank of the driveway are starting to bloom. It's been wet.

The kitchen and "Tucson" model heating stove.

The view out the back door.

The day beds / couch and clerestory windows with ceiling fan.

"The Bed" viewed from the door to the store room, and the bedroom heating stove.

2006-04-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Details of the bathroom. We were not able to take pictures of it until recently, since it had plastic sheeting over it for protection.

The sea turtles are by our friend Eric Krever.

2006-03-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Building block walls in sunny California.
This happens once every 25 years, maybe? We picked a good weekend to HAVE TO get the wall done.

Most of the garden wall is up, built in drier moments between bursts of rain (lluvia), hail (granizo) and snow (nieve).
On Sunday, the snow and slush built up too much to finish, but only the steps and caps are left to do.
The brick will have to wait.

Steve, Vidal and Gavino - Torino (CA) '06.

The stained concrete floor in the great room, done with the leadership of Chris Bailey of BL Concrete Staining.
His current website blconcretestaining.net is down - look for a new one soon at blconcretestaining.com.

2006-02-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

Bamboo floor in the bedroom,
silestone counter in the kitchen

2006-02-02T22:26:00.000-08:00

The clay plaster party!

2006-01-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

Kitchen cabinets;
Reworked bathroom shower ready for pan then tiling;
Store room painted with primer
(all ceilings and almost all other surfaces prepped for clay)

2005-12-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

Drywall, photovoltaics and ... STUCCO!
Skylight above the shower;
bale wall from interior of storage room, drywall in office/bedroom area;
interior stucco before plaster (nice composition!);
kitchen wall stucco;
Solar panel facing north to discourage charge buildup while disconnected;
west exterior wall
after stucco;
before stucco.

2005-11-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

Windows, doors, insultation, rough electrical, partial sheet rock.

Re-purposed door

2005-10-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Interior framing of the walls dividing bathroom, closet and bedroom.
The left is taken from the bedroom looking towards the hallway.
The right is from the great room looking through the kitchen corner into the bedroom closet, with the bathroom on the right..

2005-10-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

The house gets its wings - wing walls that is.
After all the bale raising, we took some time to sculpt the two wing walls and a niche.

The niche will hold the truth window; it's about 3 inches deep, though its hard to see the depth in the image.

2005-10-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

As the bales were up and the day wound down, on came Duane, the accordion master, Gary, the wild salmon master, and Travis holds down the barrow.

2005-10-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

We've got walls!

2005-10-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

The site early Saturday October 8 before the bale raising.
The builders did a great job getting everything ready!

2005-10-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

How things looked the Monday before the bale raising.

2005-10-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

The framing and the beginnings of roof.

2005-10-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

More framing nd the utilities trench.

2005-10-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

A better view of retaining walls and the first framing.

2005-10-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

The owl house that Ray and Barbara built was mounted on a post near the bottom of the orchard. It may need to get taller.

Block retaining walls went in. I'll rotate this photo next session.

2005-10-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

Then the pad was poured.

2005-10-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

The footings were filled in to prepare for the pour of the pad.

2005-10-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

The footings were poured.

And there was peace at the construction shed.

2005-10-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

More foundation prep.

2005-10-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

Foundation blocking was next

2005-10-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

The excavation began.

The backhoe operator was described by admiring onlookers as an artist ...

2005-10-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

Then the earth moved ...

We lost several rows of the orchard, eventually all the figs in the front area (one still is left on the side fence), but so far none of the peaches have been taken - and we lost a cherry due to disease and overzealous pruning on my part.

The bottom of the orchard with the more mature trees, the apricots, walnuts, persimmons will all make it. We'll diversify from the apple heavy near-monoculture as we recover next spring.

2005-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

In July we had a groundbreaking party with our friends and family, the architects (San Luis Sustainability Group - Scott Clark did most of this one) and the builders (Semmes and Co.).

Ground was broken by something other than gophers. That is Laurie "The Original Squirrel Queen" helping me as we dig with one hand and have champagne in the other.

The safety fencing went up too. This is looking back towards the oaks from about the same vantage point as the initial very green pictures.

The party and the potty (background). The addition of a porta-potty was the first official act by the builders on the site.

2005-10-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

These pictures of the site were taken after a very wet winter, so it's exceedingly green.

2005-10-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

This is the story of the New Leaf Inn.

Over time, the New Leaf Inn will develop into a five bedroom bed and breakfast inn, designed with sustainable principles, and "alternative materials": passive solar architecture, active solar power, straw bale, bamboo, clay plaster.

In this phase, we are building a cottage that will eventually become two of the rooms.
This blog has a bit of catching up to do. We'll start with some pictures and fill in the rest as time allows.

The front of the cottage will look like this

This is the side facing south, with high clerestory windows for solar gain in winter, overhang to block sun in summer. It has more or less a shed roof. It looks bigger than it is: the living space is 874 square feet, with 140 square feet of storage.