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The Irish Farmhouse
With the addition to our family we realized the need for a family friendly cottage. The cottage does not necessarily reflect Irish architecture. A thatched roof just wasn’t in the budget. So we’ll rely on our Irish gardens and pint of Guinness to carry the theme. We cantilevered the upstairs over the bottom story to create more space upstairs and cover the front porch. We got really bored tacking up cedar shakes, so we got a little wavy gravy in the middle. Doors and entryways in general are a very important in Ireland. A lot of the detail of the building is concentrated in this one area. This salvaged wooden door almost became a table. It is only the first piece of our most recycled building. The heart of the cottage is the 140-year-old wooden barn beams, which were salvaged along with the trim from the Montgomery wooden toy factory. The red granite counter tops were a gift along with all the art pieces and circular window.
The stained glass was a particularly nice gift made by a friend from Montreal. The floor is clear spruce from Heath lumber, a local mill. The cedar all comes from Goodridge lumber, another family run mill. The staircase was tricky. It had to jive with international stairwell codes, and that is beyond my knowledge. Bucky Hoss, a guy I’ve worked with for many years took the challenge and nailed it. Bucky also helped on all the other interiors as well as the exteriors of the Farmhouse and Adobe. My friend Matt also helped out a bunch in this cottage in exchange for a promise it would be ready for his best man at his wedding, which was our first at Shéady Acres.