These last few weeks we’ve gotten deeper into finish work. Not to say we’re close to finishing, but the tools are getting a little daintier, the lines a little finer and the site a little cleaner day-by-day. The finishing work is some of the most challenging in building a house; it is technically challenging, and for lots of reasons, it is important work. We have spent a great deal of time and energy building a structure that is strong, and will shed water and sunlight to protect both itself and its occupants; now it is time to make it all look good, and we want our finish work to honor the careful attention we paid to all the “dead work” that came before. For the most part, it is the finish you leave by which people judge you and your work. Especially in the era in which we find ourselves, when traditional methods and materials are seen as outdated, “not fast enough,” too “rustic” and a relic of yesterday– this is when we should be trying our absolute best to demonstrate that even now, there is a legitimate alternative to the ubiquitous fast fashion house.

The housing crisis that we find ourselves in today is not new. Since the 1950’s, the U.S. has been in a constant race to see how fast we can build another house, another acre of tract homes, yet another block of big or small boxes.

There is not space here to go into everything that is wrong with the way we build now. But one thing I would like to say, is that the precious few tradespeople we have in this country spend way too much time either “updating” homes that were ugly but in vogue when built, and fixing things that were built by people who didn’t know what they were doing, or weren’t paid well enough to care. One reason we’re in this current predicament: we can’t keep up with all the repairs from the last “crisis,” whether technical or aesthetic.

Would that we could collectively slow down, and think: what will our work look like 50 years from now? 100 years?!?! How should we regard and treat those among us who have chosen to make a living with their hands? Think on those a while, and then let that inform how we design and build. It’s not just about what you want in your house build right now. What about the people who have to own it after you? What about the people who have to build it? What about the rest of the community that has to look at it every day?

So the finish matters. A lot. We want people to see all the wood in these houses, and for it to remind them of what warmth in a home feels like; to see and feel the plaster, and for their eyes to pop a little when you tell them that its just dirt (“Really???”). To see the little details in what we do, working with earth, wood – simple materials – and think “I wonder who made that, how they felt that day, what was it like crafting that?”. And for those people to carry away with them a little memory, a spark of inspiration, a sense of how endlessly rewarding real craftsmanship is. We cannot expect to move the world with such a gentle gesture, but nothing good ever comes from the disingenuous alternative. So we carry on.

Anyway, here are some photos of what we’ve been building.

Sep 21, 2025