In addition to getting our movingly important log stairs yesterday, for this home replacing our home that was consumed by a wildfire, we received a 32 ft wide king truss . It was too large to be raised by the machinery we had here so the machines lifted it as far as it could and then the men with hands and ropes–standing on scaffolding, on the ground, on machine tracks and leaning out windows–affixed it to the house. It was a tense and difficult time for everyone. At any moment the truss could break free and swing around taking workers with it as it plummeted to the ground. It 6 people the better part of the day to build and set the truss using the pre-cut logs that arrived. Calm was needed today.

After yesterday’s high drama we were running on the final bit of our reserve tanks. There was a lot of rapidly moving work being done upstairs but I swiftly ascertained it was clean-up work. The crew were racing up and down the stairs with stacks of left over wood, scaffolding, chunks of logs, empty dry wall mud bags, buckets of tools and trash. Very soon it became very quiet.

I could hear our dry wall person upstairs with his steady “slap, scrape.” Our contractor and I took some time to talk in springs ever lengthening waning light of the day. The mountains of our far view played hide and seek with the heavy rain-filled clouds that lumbered down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. I don’t know how far down the spine we can see but it is at least 50 miles. It puts space in perspective.

In that quiet moment we sat on the landing and first step of our new stairs pensively surveying the tall walls and the towering, but human scale space of the room that had been emptied of the scaffolding that had covered nearly all of the living room floor for the past several weeks while the wood was put on the ceiling.  I asked, mostly with my body posture, “How long?” My contractor replied “to what” to which I responded, “this” with a tilt up of my chin.

“Not long now.” We will bring the flooring wood in next week to let it start acclimating to the house’s environmental conditions. We need to paint but that will start next week. We can start the window trim next week and then put up the doors from the garage to the house. I don’t know, a bit.” We sat in companionable silence admiring our work and the mountains as they presented themselves to us.

Soon he too left telling me that the crew would have Friday off this week.

After he left and the house was empty of people, I went up stairs to the loft level and stood looking. With stairs and dry wall in place it is a space with a commanding presence. The shoulders are low, about 60 inches at the side. There are low windows that provide a perfect forest view from the vantage of a chair. The front of the library/office faces the Rocky Mountain’s spine. There are tall windows that let you follow the ridge with your eye.

The acoustics of the space are dazzling. They will dampen some with the addition of textiles but that will be counterbalanced by the addition of the wood floors so they will not change much. The sounds resonate, hanging in the air just the right amount of time before they depart the areal spectrum. Each word or musical note has its own resonant moment not covering the note before or lingering preventing the arrival of the note that comes after. The spoken word can be whispered and with direction and good articulation heard across the open area that creates almost half of the house. None of the cavernous echo present in so many homes with open space resides here. The space is warm and inviting and causes each note to bloom.

In this perfect acoustical space we shall learn again who we are and who we will become in our new space. We agreed tonight that we truly did live at home. We had no lingering feelings of being in yet another space waiting to come home. We are home now.

In the coming months the colors will bloom on the walls and sounds uttered will bloom in the air. The snow will recede and the plants will spring forth each blooming in their season. We too will bloom and grow here.