Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 53: floor system and granary framing finished

We finished the tasting room floor system and the granary internal framing today…and will move onto the north porch and tasting room flooring tomorrow.  The morning felt pretty disjointed and the crews seemed a little out of sync–which is often true after putting in a big day such as yesterday–not to mention wrestling with the [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 48: porches, posts and tasting room precision

Last night I realized I had never sent a “DAY 40″ so in the interest of maintaining some degree of accuracy I am repeating day 48 to compensate for the omission.  One of the crews jumped onto framing up in the staff area above the kitchen, while another almost completed the veranda porch framing, and [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 42: finicky framing, wrestling with rafters, superb siding

Today marks the end of our tenth week on site at Bundoran Farm –and we are all thrilled with where are on the job as time has flown since our mid-November start.  One of the crews got into a good rhythm and got all the staging area girders set and bolted and began running the [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 41: trials and triumphs

Today was very much a mixed day–starting out with an early morning phone call that Thom had hit black ice on his way here from NC in this aftermath of the storm morning and was bruised and banged up in the hospital with my truck totaled after rolling it over down an embankment.  I thank [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 39: a triple day….

We had an exceptional day–coming off the frustrations of yesterday–with three crews running who were all amazingly productive. It was especially gratifying to see the siding going on so professionally with superb pre-painted material–even though it breaks my heart to see the framing covered up…:’( …Ben doing a superb job of running a brand new [...]

Homestead Preserve Launches New Website

Bundoran Farm’s sister preservation development community, Homestead Preserve, just launched their new website. Developed in conjunction with Blueion, a website design and interactive marketing firm based in Charleston, SC, the Homestead Preserve’s new website provides a wealth of information on one of the last extensive pristine areas of the southern Appalachian landscape, bordering both The [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 37: sunrise to sunset…labor of love….roofed at last

Today can only be described as a marathon which began at dawn with me taking pictures of the rising sun on the rafters for (hopefully) the last time–and finished up in the dark with all the roofing panels on–through one of the most passionately tenacious days I have ever seen a crew pursue…. It was [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 34: one of those days…all starts and no finishes

Today was a bit of a strange and frustrating day…in that we worked on a large number of disparate phases and were not able to finish any of them.  the eaves are almost done but because we had plumbing inspections, etc–some of the foundation is not backfilled so we were unable to get our machine [...]

Pippin Farm & Vineyards – DAY 33: cupolas framed. one eave trimmed

Today was a little slower than we all would have liked–but we got into the groove as the day went on….I rented a platform lift since putting on the fascia, v-groove backing and vent blocking is such a major and exacting chore–hundreds of blocks, inaccessible location 21′ up in the air, and tight tolerances over [...]

Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards – DAY 27: roof trusses begun…

Today the crew got to finally see the results of all the prep work…cutting thousands of pieces of blocking, rafter tail assemblies and purlins in preparation for–you guessed it–the roof system.  After some deliberation with Matthew Crane–our lead sub on site–we decided it was good to go for it and get the crew acclimated to [...]