It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t making progress.
The last pictures of the house were just of a hole in the ground with some forms in place. We’ve got that hole pretty well filled with basement now, including most all of the framing and the first floor trusses in place.
1st floor
Those four posts are the base of the tower which will rise (I think) 57′ feet from the basement floor all the way up to the attic (and beyond). The main stairs will wrap around it. The tower is all timberframe, and made out of heart pine. Heart Pine is long-leaf pine, previously the primary pine species found from Virginia to Texas. Because it grew so straight and true, was as strong as oak, was very rot resistant, and hard as a rock, it was extremely desirable for everything from ships masts to high end flooring. As such it was pretty much totally cut over by 1900 and is now all but extinct. The main source for it now is reclaimed timbers from old manufacturing buildings such as cotton mills and the like. These timbers came out of the dismantling of the original Old Crow whiskey distillery building in KY, I’m told. The “family room” will also be a heart pine room with all the timbers, flooring, panelling, and ceiling decking made of reclaimed heart pine. That portion of the house should also be going up in the next few weeks, as Streamline has finished cutting the frame, and we’re just about ready for it.
Crooked River Farm 
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November 8, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Jeff
While heart pine is no longer cut, to the best of my knowledge, it is not extinct, by any means. There is a lot of research and re-planting taking place in many areas of the Deep South, particularly around Tallahassee, FL. Go to talltimbers.org for more information.
November 9, 2009 at 12:37 am
Crooked River
Thanks, Jeff – I think I said *all but* extinct. Although I couldn’t find anything about planting of long-leaf pine on the talltimbers.org web site, I am familiar with other limited efforts to replant and cultivate longleaf in the south. But they can take 150 years to reach maturity, and 70 years just to produce seed, so it is slow going. In order to out-compete loblolly and other species, it needs fire, which the forest service is really great at suppressing. Sadly, it is highly unlikely that any significant stands of longleaf could ever exist again.