Four years ago when I designed my gardens from cow pasture, I sited my studio/gift shop building to take advantage of the views and some passive solar. I also had the building placed between two sets on native willow trees on the East and West side to shade it from the sun during the summer. I have two doors in the studio/gift shop; one is a sliding door and the other is a 36 inch door with a window. The studio/gift shop is built on a concrete slab with concrete porches surrounding it. The sliding door faces South and in Winter the sun drops lower in the sky and warms the concrete and that warmth is radiated into the building during the night. Later in the year the sun is higher in the sky and the porches shade the windows from the sun.
The mountain photos illustrate why I call my studio/gift shop, Mountain View Cottage. The first photo is of Black Mountain which can be seen out of the sliding door. I took this photo in the winter. If you look closely, you can see some patches of snow on the mountain. Black Mountain is about 5,000 feet in elevation and there are giant Sequoias growing on that mountain. I can actually see the shape of the trees from where I am, which makes me realize just how big the sequoias are.
The other mountain photo is Snailhead Mountain which can be seen out of the 36 inch door. I took this photo last summer during an unusual thunderstorm in July. You can just see the beginning of the second rainbow in the photo. In July, the grasses on Snailhead Mountain are brown and crispy. Snailhead mountain is littered with huge granite boulders. Over thousands of years the granite boulders have been decomposing and making the decomposed granite soil we have here.
Today, I am continuing to rearrange the gift shop converting it into my clay studio. Stay tuned for more about my gift shop conversion into my clay studio.
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ReplyDeleteyou have GOT to be kidding, you live and work there????????????
ReplyDeleteHey, what is winter like, can we come over in February?
That's a really adorable cottage you have there for your new studio. How excited you must be!
ReplyDeleteHi Gary, the winter's are wonderful; sometimes we don't even wear a jacket, no snow and hardly any rain - hopefully we get some rain this winter. Normal rainfall is 12 inches a year. February average high is 64 and average low is 38. Summer's are very hot though. It takes time to keep this place up which takes me away from working with the clay which I want to do now. You and your family are welcome to come and visit (if we are still here). It's just my husband and I and we have two extra bedrooms. I showed him your blog and all the jokes, he was wondering what I'm doing on the computer. Ha!
ReplyDeleteWe hope to get out your way (relatives in New Hampshire) when we sell this place; we're planning on traveling around in a motorhome when se sell looking for a new place to live (we've done that three times so far). I know you probably think we are crazy, but we want to downsize and find a place where I can have my studio all in one building. Things change in life and we want to travel (again) before we are too old to enjoy it. If you know anyone who is looking to move here, here's more info about our place for sale on Craig's List (see we really are serious about selling) http://visalia.craigslist.org/reo/826747898.html
Hi Deborah, the cottage is cute, but kind of small for all I want to fit in there - 10 x 12 but I'm going to make it work for now. We hope to move somewhere else so I can have a dedicated studio all in one building a bit larger. Probably will be a bit more industrial looking and not so cute though. Ha!