Every Monday until mid-August, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are blogging about their progress building an affordable, accessible owner-renter residence in New Haven. Click here to read the previous posts.

The presence of “Jimmy” is noted through the changing board sizes. The denser the boards, the closer you are to Jimmy (cue suspenseful music). Photos: courtesy the Vlock First Year Building Project

As week 13 of the Yale Vlock Building Project draws to a close, many of us are finally feeling the effects of the long 40-hour weeks. And rightfully so, for the last few weeks have been anything but slow. We left last week with a certain sense of accomplishment; we had finished painting the exterior siding, begun installing the birch-plywood ceilings, selected our interior paint color, and cleaned up the interior window trim. The roof was finally complete and the drywall was ready for a fresh coat of paint. All the rapid-fire installation and site work, made possible through our use of prefabricated components—the subject of several previous blog entries—seemed to live up to its promise. That said, none of us was prepared for the task at hand, or the trade-off for using so many standardized elements in the early phases: the tremendously arduous art of fine needlework, known to many of us as the exterior cladding. Read more…