Sashmen

When we started dreaming about building our own house, we talked a lot about using local resources and recycling as much as possible. Now that we're in the crunch time of getting our house built within the relatively short building season out here in Ottawa, we see how complicated that can be. It's hard to know where all of the resources are, especially since we are fairly new to the area. And it takes a lot more time and energy to not only source the materials, but also to contact the people, negotiate the price, figure out delivery, and move the product here, there and everywhere (as witnessed by the insulation - and you heard of only one delivery, the other load involved renting two U-Hauls, and taking an entire day for Jamie and Ian to both load and unload them) We are willing to invest the time and energy when we can, as we strongly believe that re-using materials as much as possible is great for the environment, and also happens to be great on the pocket book, but there are times when we're close to just bringing our credit card to the local big box store!

We've sourced reused insulation, reused steel roofing, reused wood beams and crushed rock from a quarry down the road. When we needed to buy new wood, we opted to use a mill down the road in Balderson rather than place an order into H. D. We may have spent more, but the wood is fabulous quality, it looks beautiful freshly milled, we've helped to keep a bunch of local guys in business and we've formed a personal relationship with one of the main guys. As a result, he even brought his truck to our property in order to pick up some huge pines we knocked down in order to mill them up for us to use in our house - that's service we couldn't hope for from a big box store.

However, there are inevitably materials that we need to buy new, or that are not made locally. such as metal screws and plates, pvc piping and various glues for the plumbing, electrical cords, etc. We were beginning to think we'd also have to look further afield for windows, but then somebody happened to mention a local guy in Perth who handcrafts windows. At first we dismissed it as an option, thinking there's no way his prices would be comparable, and that there would be no way that he could finish up our large order on time. But then Jamie revisited our goal to be as local as possible, and decided that no harm would come from an early morning visit to their shop. And are we ever glad he went - turns out that the windows are beautifully crafted, they'll likely use fir instead of pine, there's no problem with getting them done when we need them by (and even if they're not all done, we'd be happy enough to live with plywood for the interem) and the price was completely competitive with the lowest prices we'd gotten back from big companies! WOW! It's amazing what can happen when you set aside your own various obstacles to a goal for a few minutes, I can't wait to see our finished windows!

The Story of Our Insulation........

So, Jamie had a lead on some more used insulation and although it is such a pain in the butt to move large quantities (read 1000 plus sheets of three inch rigid insulation), it is well worth it for the price of $6 a sheet - we end up saving tens of thousands of dollars by going this route, not to mention saving tonnes of it from going to landfills. He had arranged with the guy that Wed and Fri would be great days to deliver it, since he would be at the property on those days, but Thurs he had to be at work in the city. So, OF COURSE, it was Thursday morning that the guy called to say that day was the only day he could get a truck and that he would be dropping by later that day. So Jamie finally got ahold of Steph and I (Steph and her kids are visiting for the last two weeks of Aug) and although the kids were already packed up in the van and ready to go to Perth for the day, we told them we would be a little delayed as we were waiting to meet up with the guy, give him the cash and show him where on the property he could dump the insulation. Ha ha ha ha.

So then this MASSIVE truck shows up, unable to turn into our driveway. He tries numerous times, both forwards and backwards and with Steph stopping traffic on the highway while I stop traffic on the roadway, only to finally determine that there's no way he's going to be able to make the turn. So then we make the decision to dump it at the beginning of our driveway, which inevitably spills onto the road - more than a thousand sheets of dirty, dusty insulation. Great. Now, as much as I was very tempted to just leave it there for Jamie to deal with when he got home from work, I knew I'd make enemies from our neighbours for blocking the roadway like this, and well, we couldn't get our van out either. So we started throwing insulation off the road, then thankfully Meg and Ian arrived, and we proceeded to spend the next 2-3 hours moving all of the insulation from point A to point B and C. Ugh. The kids were mildly amused with helping us for a good 10 minutes or so (except Kea, who held on for the long haul and really helped stacking and organizing for a long time!) and then they ran off, only occasionally whining about WHEN we were going to get going. Then the thunder, lightening and torrential rain pour arrived, and that was a lot of fun. At first it was refreshing to feel the dust and grime get rinsed off, but then it all began to get muddy and even more grimy. Yuck. But then FINALLY we were done, we have two massive piles of insulation to keep our toes and foundations and rooftops toasty warm! And then we turned our attention to Tiegan who had discovered the joys of a wet slab after concrete has been freshly poured - it's like a skating rink! So much fun, and the thin layer of water provided a bit of a rinse off. So important for us people living without water!!!! It was too late to head into Perth, but Jamie arrived home shortly after we were done (of course!), in time to take us all out to dinner in Almonte. And now Steph, Emma and Ollie can say they have participated in the building of our house - willing participants or not!

Frogs, Fungi and Funky Trees!

We went for a walk in the back of our property the other day, and found a variety of fun frogs and fungi. There's a pond in the woods behind our property that is a lot of fun to explore, and check out the camoflage on the frog in the third photo - it looked just like a brown leaf! We also fell in love with this funky tree on the last photo, and were trying to think of a way to incorporate it into the design of the house, but in the end decided it would be best left where it is to enjoy for the years to come!!!!!!!

Our Floor -

Here's a few photos of the process of pouring the concrete, it was a rather fascinating process. I can't believe that people work at this job day in, day out - it looks so hard on the back, and so laborious/monotonous that I was glad that we were able to hire out this part of the job. The first photo shows a bunch of the tubing in place for our radiant heat. The tubes are not where the kitchen cupboards are going in, or in the pantry - and then all the tubes sticking out of the concrete are where the manifold is going to be, in the mechanical room. It's amazing how smooth and beautiful the concrete turned out in the end, and it was really neat to be able to carve in spirals in certain corners:-)

These guys are our wonderful timber framers. They work for Dwellings and create beautiful buildings out of wood. Although it wasn't originally our plan to do traditional timber framing, once we found these guys, who also work in straw bale, we knew we had to incorporate it into our design. So on the outside perimeter of our house, where all of the wood is hidden in behind the plastered walls, we'll use pine wood milled locally, and steel brackets. But along the centre corridor of the house, we'll showcase various salvaged pieces of wood and the beautiful artistry of these guys! Should be very interesting to see it all come together - much of it has been cut at their shop and so we haven't even seen it yet, but the stuff we've had glimpses of sure looks beautiful. This week, we're told, the frame is going up!!!

Rocks, rocks and more rocks

So it turns out that our foundations were poured, our pipes were laid out but before we could pour the concrete for the slab we had to bring the level of the ground up a bit. Which meant that Jamie ordered a dump truck full of crushed rock to entertain us for a morning. THANK YOU! I woke up to the sounds of a huge truck rolling along our driveway, and then saw him dump the rocks JUST outside our foundation walls. Ugh. I guess he couldn't get any closer, but what a pain in the buttocks (or more accurately, back and forearms) as we had to shovel wheelbarrow load after load after load of crushed concrete and spread it around. Thank goodness Ian was free for the good times, and between the three of us, we got most of the rocks in place. And of course, the kids were a big hand too, for the first 20 minutes or so:-)







Then over the next couple of days, Jamie and I spent our time laying out rigid insulation. This is all still the same insulation that Ian and Jamie picked up from a roofing guy, we've been slowly depleting the stash to fill in our foundation (but luckily, have just recently replenished said stack, but more on that to come in a later blog post!). The areas without any pipes was really easy to fill in, but once we had to start cutting and filling in holes, it became really finicky and frustrating. Then the torrential rain fall arrived and we spent a couple of hours getting completely soaked but powered on - until the lightning and thunder started to really worry us, so we called it quits until the next morning. However, just check out the sea of blue in this last photo, so beautiful - and I'm sure come the winter when our feet are toasty and warm, we'll REALLY appreciate all of this time and effort!!!!!! Next step to come is the tubing for the radiant heating, which will sit right on top of the insulation, and then rebar will be added and concrete poured - and then we will have a slab! Which will be acid etched (most likely dark brown) and will become our floor. Very exciting!

Camping at Murphy's Point

Jamie had to travel to Newfoundland for a few days of work a couple of weeks ago, and so I decided to pack up our car and take the kids camping. Some people teased me about needing to make my life even more difficult while single parenting, but in actuality it was a real treat. First of all, I love to camp and I love the idea of my kids growing up with many summer memories of camping. And by camping, I mean specifically sleeping in a tent - somehow living full time in the Barth on our property does not count as a summer of camping! Second of all, the campground has hot showers, running water in the bathrooms (with flush toilets!!!!!!!!!), coin laundry services, a little store within walking distance and a pay phone with which I could contact Jamie daily - pure luxury living it was!!! AND finally, the kids were constantly entertained, either with swimming, playing with other kids at the campground, touring the Silver Queen Mine to see where they mined mica, discovering frogs and bugs and snakes, and exploring the woods. Not to mention the fact that the local store sold children's ice cream cones for $1 that towered two or three scoops high - the kids were in HEAVEN!!!!!!!