UMass Building and Construction Technology, UMass Architecture, Five College Architectural Studies
A huge thank you to Louisiana Pacific and Bluelinx for supplying this year’s project with LP SmartSide board and batten siding. This is our second year using the product line and couldn’t be happier about this regionally produced, engineered wood product that saves us time and energy because it comes pre-finished and ready to install.
by Ben Leinfelder
After 12 intense weeks of building, we wrapped up the summer sessions with a celebration of everything we accomplished. Our dedicated students stayed late on many occasions to finish what they were working on, and it shows. Sure, there are a couple more doors and some baseboard to install, but our 16 students BROUGHT IT.
*Plus they wrote me a heartfelt card with Casita de Vida hand-painted on the cover. It was a ton of work, but well worth it. Thank you UMDB2025!
by David Perevala
Monday started off by sanding our first layer of dried joint compound to smoothly apply our next coats of “mud.” Hiding away the beige drywall tape and beginning to make the walls and ceilings as smooth as possible. Some rooms of Casita de Vida required more work than others, but our leader, Ben, spread us out to cover different areas and ensure this job will be completed with efficiently! If we weren’t dirty in construction before, there is no way anyone came out of work today clean. Mud and dust can get everywhere! Before that was finalized, we still had other work to do.
While some started off sanding and mudding, the cedar shingles on the exterior gable wall still had to be finished. Two of the crew got to work completing this task and the result speaks for itself! Finally, the roof of Casita de Vida has a personality of its own!
A highlight of the week is this new upgrade to our washing station outdoors! We are forever grateful to Ben again for repurposing the savaged sink for us and hopefully to future DesignBuilders if it can survive the New England weather long enough! (Yes, a proper p-trap is coming and it will be stored for winter.)
Significant progress in the bathroom this week! We modified a cabinet from the “bargain trailer” at Cowls Building Supply to fit in the limited space needed where the sink will be and added a color-matched end panel to complete the finish. We are leaning into shades of green for this house!
Bathroom tiling is coming soon for next week, so prepped the floor with the Schluter®-DITRA membrane for decoupling (crack prevention) and waterproofing. Seams were sealed using the KERDI-BAND and more mortar to ensure a tight barrier. Looking pretty good!
After many days of work, our first windowsill – crafted from locally grown and milled ash donated by the DCR – had its final adjustments and was fit to our Southwest living room window. More windowsills are coming through the production process of templating, cutting, adjusting, and sanding as the rest of the gang are completing the finishing touches to the drywall and exterior siding.
Final LP SmartSide panels of siding have been delivered to the site, and we couldn’t wait any longer to hang them all to completely cover the exposed weather barrier. Along with the final window trim and flashing.
For the final working day of the week, we applied a primer coat to the drywall. The bathroom was the first room to be primed. Testing to see any imperfections and look of the primer. When all looked great, we continued priming the main living, kitchen, and mudroom areas of the house until the entire house was primed. Finishing off with ceiling paint. Needless to say, even we are starting to feel at home with the clean, sharp, and crisp walls!
Pro tip: Wear old clothes and/or proper protection before priming. That stuff does NOT come off easily.
A busy week with drywall install, a visit from Saint-Gobain and a field trip to Rare Forms to see how they construct compressed straw panels (exactly like the ones they donated to our project).
by Brody Parrott
In week three the crew made some great progress on Pedro and Damaris’ home. On Monday we got a visit from John and Marc from SIGA, who showed us their interior vapor and air control system. The ceiling and walls were covered in their Majrex 200 roll product and all the seams in the house got Rissan tape to keep everything sealed. The product managers vapor drive in harsh New England climates by regulating high moisture air from entering homes in the summer, and keeping that same air indoors during the winter. They had lots of tips and tricks for getting difficult areas in the house sealed like corners in the windows and doors. We are very thankful for their time and expertise, we learned a lot about efficient building technology.
On Tuesday the team continued to put up the Majrex, as well as starting on the gable end rain screen that supports the cedar shake siding. The exterior siding on the gable ends is going to overhang the living module to make on-site installation of the roof easier (and allow water to flow off away from the living module below). First vertical 2×4’s were attached to the sheathing, and then 1×4 strapping (ripped in half) was installed horizontally to hang the shakes. The resulting pattern was a very satisfying grid.
On Wednesday all the Majrex seams were taped on the walls, floor and ceiling, finishing off our interior air and vapor barrier. Professor McNally from the UMass BCT program brought a class of local high schoolers to visit. They were learning about the importance of green building and wanted to see the space we’ve put together. We all got a lot out of seeing future architects and construction students learn something from our work.
On Thursday we got another visit, what an exciting week! This time Michael DeSorgher from Yeoman Design Build came to volunteer his time on our straw bale wall. Mike showed us how to mix and apply a natural clay-based plaster to the wall which will allow it to “breath” and not trap moisture in the wall cavity. The plaster was made of local clay, sand, straw, and water and the base-coat applied ~3/4 inch thick. The base coat is currently setting up and when it’s dry a final coat using finer clay will be added for a total thickness of ~1″. The result will provide a partial accent wall with a unique texture along with a locally-sourced ash wood shelf atop it. Additionally the aforementioned cedar shakes were stained and some courses were installed before weather got in the way.
The week ended in the most fun way possible, drywall! Now that the house is sealed, sheet rock can be installed starting with the ceiling. Some trouble arose pretty quickly, the ceiling trusses were bowed up creating a slight vault in the ceiling. While some panicked and declared the whole house to be ruined, our incredible project manager, Ben, reminded us that the ceiling trusses were probably designed with a slight convex shape to combat sagging under load (we essentially have none, other than the insulation and drywall) and that we could shim the strapping to make our ceiling flat once more. We were able to fix the issue and get all the ceiling drywall panels hung on Friday. A great way to end a very productive week
