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Gaffney House Dining Room

For their weekend home in Sharon, Connecticut, architect Lynn Gaffney and her husband, Bill Backus, filled their natural wood "shack" with eBay finds and classic modern design pieces.

bog house dining room square make it yours

It’s not unusual for New Yorkers to have problems with their neighbors; after all, many a co-op brawl has started over a little late-night noise. But it is rare for the downtown crowd to have a beef with a pack of rowdy beavers—which is exactly the situation in which architect Lynn Gaffney and her husband, financial portfolio manager Bill Backus, found themselves recently at their weekend home in the tiny town of Sharon, Connecticut (population: 2,968). The beavers, who reside in the swamp behind Backus and Gaffney’s house, generally keep a low profile, but every so often let loose with a torrent of logs and sticks that block all the nearby drainage pipes, making a watery mess of local roads and forcing residents to haul away the detritus.

It’s rather comical to imagine a pair of self-described intrepid Manhattanites battling beavers, but such was the couple’s intent when they decided to build in Sharon. Disgusted with the high price of property and the politics of the co-op market, Gaffney and Backus opted to remain urban renters and spend their money building a 2,000-square-foot house outside the city, in an area so rural “it didn’t even have the remotest feel of suburbia,” Gaffney says. They settled on an eight-and-a-half-acre plot that backs up against wetlands, a two-hour drive from their apartment.

Gaffney, principal of New York–based firm Lynn Gaffney Architect (lga), prefers to design in an agricultural vernacular merged with sustainable elements, when given a chance. “I like the simplicity of shed-like buildings, the way they’re stripped down to bare necessities,” explains Gaffney. “I’m also intrigued by barns and their sense of functionality combined with the layers of vertical storage spaces.” The combination of a rural location with compliant clients (Backus’s only design request of his wife was that the house have a washer and dryer) seemed like the perfect such opportunity.

In order to stay within her desired aesthetic and also be green, Gaffney chose to build with structural insulated panels, or SIPs, as they’re commonly known. The panels are essentially pieces of dense foam insulation sandwiched between two thin layers of engineered wood, and they’re used in place of traditional stud and frame construction. The handy thing about SIPs, and the reason they’re so popular with sustainable proponents, is that they’re prefabricated off-site, manufactured with a minimum of waste since they’re cut to order, and then quickly assembled on-site.

 

Read the whole story, published in July/August 2007. To see more images of the project, visit our slideshow.

concrete floor texture square
Tip Daylight, and a Concrete Floor
Lynn Gaffney: A concrete floor with radiant heat is a very comfortable and energy-efficient way to heat a home, and doesn’t use up wood or…
sugar barrel antiques table square
Tip Sourcing Mid-Century Finds on eBay
Bill Backus: I spent months online looking for the right pieces. It was fun sourcing the furniture myself. We visited several different antique…
Smart Side Table cb2
Product Smart Side Table

Lynn Gaffney: We wanted to add a splash of color to the room. Plus, it was inexpensive. Unfortunately it's no longer available in bright orange.

random pendant moooi white square
Product Random Pendant by Moooi

Lynn Gaffney: There's a walkway that overlooks the dining area, so I knew I needed a piece that I could see from all directions. The texture of the Random Light is so gorgeous; it's always a major conversation piece whenever we have guests.
 

arco floor lamp square
Product Arco Floor Lamp

Lynn Gaffney: I bought my Arco floor lamp when I was single and probably couldn't afford it. I splurged, but it went straight into my 450-square-foot studio. When I moved, I took it apart and it came with me. It travels pretty well, considering how heavy it is.

harvey night table cb2 square
Product Harvey Nightstand

Dwell: Since CB2's Smart Table is no longer available in bright orange, we thought this little guy might serve as a consolation prize. It sports the same spare lines, with an added X-shape support system, and the same lithe and open form—not to mention a raucous hue.

  • Published: October 9, 2009

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