A Cupola in Transition
This week I want to tell you about a project. I have called this a project 2 1/2 years in the making, but really it is the forgotten project. The work started in the fall of 2021 and ended the following autumn, in 2022 and has been waiting to be installed. It was a project that made good memories but I had forgotten them when we finally decided to complete it.
I like cupolas, these are the little domes on top of barns used to ventilate the structure. A lot of people use them as yard art now but I like to see them restored to the highest perch on the farm. There are two cupolas on our outbuildings, one I restored and one I built.
We have always needed something to visually anchor the south side of our yard. I thought nothing would fulfill this need both structurally and emotionally like a new cupola on an old shed.
This is a big cupola, about the size of a small garden shed. I set the scale of the cupola by looking at the shed then imagined what scale would look nice. I focused on the points on the shed that had been marked by my imagination. I walked up to the shed and measured out the points and transferred them to my plans.
I built the cupola in three different pieces to make installation easier. The base had to match the roof pitch and needed to fit over the ribs of the current steel roof. The top portion of the cupola had the most detail and I had to wire it for lighting. The middle section was just a riser to make the cupola match the scale I had planned. I wanted to make sure the current roof was solid enough to hold everything so I built a structure inside the shed which was a pretty big project in itself.
This project was built in our shop which was very crowded at the time, mostly due to the scale of this project. It is such a cozy feeling to work on a cold Saturday afternoon on a project you will finish the following summer, or even a few summers later. Cody Johnson’s “Til You Can’t” was playing a lot on the radio at that time and it was kind of my anthem. I had important plans and I needed the inspiration of this song, which it delivered. Building the cupola helped me focus my thoughts and was almost a manifestation of the hopes and aspirations that drove me at the time.
Recently, I had the good fortune that Walseth Construction had time to assemble all three pieces of the cupola into place on the roof of the shed. The fact it fit so nicely was an even greater fortune. It looks so good. The simple farm light at the peak of the roof gives out a little light that seems to be just hopeful to tell the story of what I was going through while I built it.
A project like this satisfies during the build and again after it sits in place. It also helped me through a time which I will always remember was one of transition. A time during which I made the cupola and was glad for the challenge that drove me to take steps to a happier life.
