The torfbær is built from what the site gives. Basalt is laid flat for a footing, driftwood and imported timber make the frame, and stacked peat turf — clamped blocks, plain blocks, long strips, often coursed in herringbone — is fitted around it. The grass on the roof keeps growing, so the house reads as a swelling of the hillside rather than an object on it.

In the burstabær type the only wood you see from outside is the row of painted gable ends and the door. Every piece of ornament the farm allowed itself lives there: an off-white board, a warm yellow frame. This system keeps that ratio — turf everywhere, paint almost nowhere.