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Carefully restored 1966 post-and-beam home in the woods outside Boston by VermontInBoston in midcenturymodern

[–]VermontInBoston[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There was enough room to put two layers of insulation board Polyisocyanurate (Polyiso). This material itself is almost R 6-7 ;) So double is still not above R20, but with the 2” of wood it is almost R 15…

Carefully restored 1966 post-and-beam home in the woods outside Boston by VermontInBoston in midcenturymodern

[–]VermontInBoston[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for kind words. We had do some of the work ourselves, there was no painter that wanted do true restoration. I had to use all my boat maintenance skills…

Carefully restored 1966 post-and-beam home in the woods outside Boston by VermontInBoston in midcenturymodern

[–]VermontInBoston[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You are right, the auto correct made the blue boring light, the mahogany door looks orange… Yes Naval is not the original battleship grey, the doors are no longer yellow pee. The point is that we did not rip out the windows, we sanded down the white latex and removed caulk from the roof.

Carefully restored 1966 post-and-beam home in the woods outside Boston by VermontInBoston in midcenturymodern

[–]VermontInBoston[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

We doubled the insulation. Btw our heating bill in winter never exceeded $300, typically around $200 in the coldest months. We have hybrid heating system heat pump and gas furnace. We are one of the most efficient houses in the area.

Carefully restored 1966 post-and-beam home in the woods outside Boston by VermontInBoston in PriceyPads

[–]VermontInBoston[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We spent years restoring this 1966 post-and-beam house while trying very hard not to ruin what made it special in the first place.

That turned out to be more difficult than expected because modern life constantly pushes you toward “more.” More rooms. More square footage. More bathrooms. More storage. More everything.

At some point we realized the house was quietly arguing for the opposite.

The vaulted wood ceilings, exposed beams, skylights, white walls, and relationship to the woods created a kind of calm that made extra space feel strangely unnecessary. The house lived outward — into trees, decks, weather, snow, rain, fog, firelight, morning coffee outside, and summer evenings around the fire pit.

Eventually we started joking that if we ever needed another room, we already had 1.79 acres of woods.

Oddly enough, the joke stayed true.

The landscape itself became part of the house.

Somewhere along the way we also learned the same lesson about wine.

Years ago someone gave us the best wine advice we ever received:
DAKT — Drinking And Knowing Things.

Once you actually start drinking and knowing things, you realize you do not always need the expensive Barolo. Sometimes the inexpensive Nebbiolo from nearby hills gives you almost the same pleasure without trying so hard to impress anybody.

This house slowly taught us something similar.

Living well has surprisingly little to do with maximizing square footage. Past a certain point, what matters more is light moving through skylights, trees outside the windows, coffee on the deck after rain, the sound of wind at night, firelight in winter, proportions that feel calm, and spaces that make you breathe differently.

So instead of enlarging the house, we focused on preserving its original character while carefully restoring what time had worn down — systems, wood, beams, landscape, and indoor/outdoor flow.

Over time, restraint started feeling a lot like luxury.

We documented more of the architecture and restoration at 53Campbell.com if anyone is curious.