As I spent years thinking through the process of building my new cottage in the woods, the spirit of the place spoke to me, and became the guiding force for building this custom home in the foothills of the northern Coast Range of Oregon. I wanted to create an environment for that inner soul to flourish.  My connection to God/Spirit is very important to me at this point in my life.

Obviously this is a little elusive in truth, and probably very personal.  For me it starts with being physically comfortable, supporting furniture, an abundance of natural light with stunning vista views, warmth through the floor plane and backed up by point heat from burning wood in a stove, and finally clean air. This environment encourages growth of my spirit, and soul. One aspect that allows my creative side thrive is literally the silence of quiet space, which then fills that void with my thoughts, as they fill in the colors. I love this process.

One of the questions that has occasionally been discussed is the reason I have chosen a wood framed floor system. The answer is based more in spiritual context then construction methodology. One of the side effects of having wood framing, is sound reproduction. A concrete floor is a dead surface. There is no “diaphragm” effect, a place for sound to resonate. At my age a rich, responsive bass thump is joyous. One of life’s pleasures without lingering problems. Ahhh, the joy of multi-channel reproduced surround sound. Plus, if you change your mind later, drop down through the access hole, and rewire.

When this connection is established, everything else seems to fall into place, in a blessed fashion.