"Take It Easy"

I said on publishing my last update on 12 August that I would aim to do another mid to late September once I had made sufficient progress to report.  It is now 29 October, some 11 weeks on.   

The seasons have changed dramatically in that time from the dry high summer heat which was accompanied by a significant smoke haze throughout most of August due to an increased number of BC wildfires.  In late July it was forecast that this year would be BC's fourth or fifth year in terms of the wildfire record set last year, but by the end of August it had become the second. This years were more numerous but generally smaller, and the situation was perhaps only mitigated by an unusually wet June.  Early September saw the temperatures drop and the arrival of sufficient rain to put a littler moisture back into the topsoil, and the smoke haze cleared to once again reveal the mountain panorama. A month later on 2 October, a cold blast funnelled through the mountains from the Alberta prairies, and we had our first thin veil of snow down here at 850 meters to tease us, while the Rockies peaks to my east were blanketed in an unseasonal winter white.  That all went within a day or so, and since then temperatures have varied between  -2 to + 4C early morning, and between 8 and 14C afternoon with just a touch of snow on the peaks.  The larch, beech and birch trees have turned a beautiful shade of yellow, and the sunrise morning mist that now rises off the lake adds another dimension to the views I can enjoy from my main floor and decks.  The photographs below show this in a 135 degree pan from left (North East) to right (South).  

As I reported on the 12 August, just after getting my occupancy approved and moving in, I had been working non stop for the preceding three months, seven days a week, twelve hours a day.  That pace brought me to the point of near exhaustion, and once in I planned to ease back and give myself three days a week off to start doing other things. Despite my intentions, I haven't got out and climbed any of the local mountains, and now that winter is approaching that's unlikely to happen this year, but I have certainly adjusted the building tempo to no more than eight hours a day, four days a week. Not necessarily a case of taking weekends off, although I tend to, but if I wake up one morning mid week and decide that rather than building I am having a "me" day to relax, do some admin or domestic chores, catch up on the phone or email with people, or just get out for the day, I do. I have had one three day weekend away in Calgary and have done a few other things in the great outdoors which I'll show you at the end of this update. Overall taking it easy, as I write this update the lyrics of second verse of The Eagles early 1970's number keep running through my mind, hence today's title:

"Take it easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy"

Why not the first verse?

"Well I'm a-runnin' down the road try'n to loosen my load

I've got seven women on my mind

Four that want to own me, two that want to stone me

One says she's a friend of mine"

Anybody that knows my track record will laugh; seven women on my mind was never even a remote possibility! That aside, the reduced pace of work has done me good, allowed me to think about other things in life, do a little more exercise, and regain just a small fraction of the 17lbs that once again fell off me between end of March and mid August, just as it did last year with all the heavy work until the winter when I took time off and got properly fed and watered back during my travels back to UK and Oman. The build is no longer the all consuming focus it had been since breaking ground in late March 2017, and I now give myself time to appreciate the vision of this house and a few other out here.  But enough of that and back to why most of you are reading this - to see what progress I have made.

At the end of my 12 August update I showed you that work had just started on the stonework facade around the garage and main entrance with photographs of where I had a few weeks before sheeted the remaining exposed white Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) with plywood, followed by my stonemason applying a black waterproofing membrane and then a wire and concrete lathe and angle iron as the load bearing support.  The stone, while real, is a veneer that varies in thickness of between ¾ and 2 inches, but still weighs quite a lot.  My stonemason and his assistant worked steadily for just under two weeks, and were a pleasure to have on sight; amusing, providing polite but good advice, and totally unflustered.  Their work standards met my expectations 100%, and unlike some contractors, no quibbles about time overruns or money at the end.  The following is the end result.  

It still remains a rubble site in front of the garage and front door, and with the four to five inch drop from the garage to ground where the concrete garage aprons will eventually be poured, no sensible means of putting "The Beast" (my truck) away in the garage yet.  Not that, in spite of the garage size, there is any spare room in there due to its current use as a store for all my internal trimming timber , associated bench and chop saws, and as a general work shop.  I'll talk more on the plans for the concrete garage aprons and the patio and front entrance steps later. 

In the family room downstairs in the daylight walkout basement I had originally planned to tile the gas fireplace myself, but with everything else to finish inside, reality was probably not for another six months, in which case I would have continued to have sat staring at this framing surround.

With a 'little' encouragement from my stonemason, I accepted another slight budget overrun and got him to do the fireplace surround in the same stone as outside. I made the mantle and hearth, using a "live-edge" piece of Aspen Cottonwood for the mantel, and some 2"x12" pine off-cuts remaining from my earlier framing lumber for the hearth, staining both in a walnut colour, followed by several coats of a clear gloss lacquer.  Rest assured that as there are no flying embers and the heat that radiates downwards is minimal, a wooden hearth is approved by both the fireplace manufacturer and building code, in much the same way as if I had chosen to place the gas fireplace at floor level with a wood rather than tiled floor. This is the end result. 

Part of my easing back and having time for myself has been to unwrap my TV out of the cardboard and bubble wrap that protected it in the move across Canada and subsequent storage for two years, and then connect it up via my computer and Apple TV so that I can stream from various Internet sources.  Not a TV addict, and long objecting to Canada's obscene charges for cable TV, Internet streaming is the way to go.  Netflix - who needs DVD's or Mr Roger's cable anymore? 

At the back of the house I now have two sets of steps from my kitchen and the concrete deck. I dug out the area for two concrete pads with a pick axe and pre-cut the lumber for the concrete forms. Napoleon Champagne (Crowsnest Concrete) then sent two of his team to build the forms, and with my help, wheel barrow up the hill enough pit-run crushed gravel, mechanically compact that, then pour the concrete.  Bob Damstrom (Damstrom Log & Timber Homes), keen to complete the last piece of his work in my build and thus get his final payment, cut the timbers in his yard which I then stained, and then he built both sets in situ. 

In the photograph below you can see the kitchen steps are partly supported by the concrete slab and the basement rear bedroom window well. They are also supported along the back by a beam and three bolts that were set into my rear concrete ICF wall immediately before the concrete  was poured last year during initial construction.  

In addition to the steps there is also a small deck area providing three foot to the left and a foot to the right of the door for me to put all the various clutter like boots and winter firewood under the dry protection of the loft deck and extended roof above.  

Since taking those photographs I have back filled around the slab and done some initial grading of the slope in order to prevent water percolating and undermining the slabs.  

Moving right, the steps from the concrete deck are a simpler and less costly construct, as with the drop here being only 22 inches building code does not require a guard or handrails on each side.  The gate across the gap and deck level was an addition I asked Bob Damstrom to build (for a small fee).  I'd had a local farmers stray, errant and over inquisitive goat on my deck last spring that I feared would stick his horns through my glass doors, so I decided a gate might be a minor deterrent to him and any other wildlife that might be tempted to climb up and take a peek.

As shown below, Bob also fulfilled the very last part of his contract, re-torquing all the bolting for the post and beam structures that he installed last year.  This was pre-planned at the one year point in order to take up any slack once these wood structures had dried, shrunk and found their final positioning.

Last year during the installation of my metal roof I had decided to see how the building and surrounding ground performed in rain or snow over that first winter without eaves troughs (gutters for my UK readers) and snow-stops.  Our strata council review and approve any house design in order to maintain kerbside appeal and therefore every owners resale value.  While allowed, they prefer us to try and avoid fitting eaves troughs and down pipes for aesthetic reasons.  Last winters snow followed by spring rain demonstrated that I needed to fit eaves troughs to the front and back of the roof that covers the over garage concrete deck. Eaves troughs at the back will take the water away from behind the house through the underground drain that I showed Dale Bryant fitting in my last update, and along the front prevent water splashing my cedar garage doors.  In addition, the snow stops will stop the eaves troughs being ripped off by a snow slide, plus stop snow dumping in front of the garage doors or injuring somebody or damaging a vehicle.  I have no concerns about the additional snow loading as my local building code and my engineers structural plans accounted for this areas maximum predicted snow load.  For the main roof over the actual house, there is no need for eaves troughs or snow stops as that rain or snow can shed on my North east side and drain naturally away down the slope.  

You may pick out in the photograph above on the left that I have not had conventional down pipes installed, but instead rain chains (www.rainchains.com).  Two reasons.  First, with my 3 foot roof overhangs and my post and beam structure, a down pipe displaced from the building structure and then tailing back to the timber posts would look somewhat out of place.  Secondly, my experience when living in Ottawa was that with a slow roof melt on sunny days, the water then tends to refreeze in the down pipes, first blocking, then fracturing them, leading not only enormous ice accumulation on the outside of the down pipe and building structure with potential associated problems, but also the expense of replacement.  I had to do this two years running in Ottawa, and ultimately added in an electrical heat loop to stop this freezing.  Seeking a look that fits the building, rain chains were the answer.  As one neighbour put it, rain chains are a mountain theme; I rather suspect the idea originates from Japan. Below is a still photograph, and if your computer will play it, a 33 second video of the rain chain in action. 

Rather fun, isn't it?   

With Chris Walch's assistance just before he went away on his six week trip to catch up with family and friends in UK and a cycling trip through France, we hung several internal doors downstairs in the walkout basement family room entrance, bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets (wardrobes), and on the main floor to the pantry and small powder room.  I have yet to hang the doors for the entrance lobby closets and adjacent under stairs toilet, or the three in the loft master suite. 

Below is the entrance door from the lobby to the family room in the walk out basement.  A transom window is being prepared to go in above it, with a stencil of an Elk as a BC mountain theme. 

Next is looking from the walk out basement family room to the bedroom I am currently using ...

... and inside the bedroom, the doors to the en suite and the closet (wardrobe).

While offering some privacy, particularly to a female visitor wishing to use a bathroom, the job is only half done, as with the exception of the main floor pantry door (I provide a photograph later) I have not yet got round to staining the others, fitting handles, or wood trimming the surround.  Achieving a quality stained finish requires time, a steady hand and patience.  Neither of the latter two come naturally to me, so staining doors and the internal Fir window frames will be something that I undertake one per day and only on those days when I am in the right frame of mind.

On the open plan main floor there has been some good progress, although work is by no means complete.  

Of all the work to be done up there, the initial task of trimming out the front prow wall with all those angled windows, the front structural timber column, and where the drywall joins the vaulted pine tongue and groove ceiling was beyond my practical skill confidence, let alone my gibbering fear of potentially working on a scaffold at anything up to 24 feet.  So I contracted Dwight Hulbert to do this work (readers may recall I was exceptionally pleased with the quality of his work last winter when he did my external cedar siding/cladding, roof fascia and window trims).  Once Dwight's two days of work was completed, I still had to spend some hours on the scaffold staining the inside of the trapezoid and transom Fir window frames. Rest assured, I did not go up there unless somebody else was on site, just in case I did fall - not that it would have saved me but at least there would have been somebody around to put me in an ambulance. 

Below are two photographs showing the final result.  I still have to stain the interior Fir frames of the main sliding 12 ft wide doors, and will do this next spring when the weather is warm enough to leave them open and dry the joining edges.   

Much more within my capability, I took on the task of fitting the window jamb extensions and wall trims in this open plan space. Here is the 6ft by 6ft picture window on the North-East wall.

Next, the rear wall in the dining area where my wine and beverage fridges will eventually go.

Then, to the right, the rear kitchen window.

Slightly round from that the pantry door - as I mentioned earlier this is the only one I have so far stained, fitted a door handle to, and trimmed out the wall edges.

On the North-East wall of the kitchen I built a stone tiled splash back and windows sill, but otherwise the window jamb extension and wall trim are the same as on the other windows. 

Readers may notice the view from my main floor windows is much clearer.  Long overdue, I have at last removed all the protective plastic film and Lux Windows advertising stickers from these windows, except for in the powder room and stair landing, as with work still to do in these two areas it is prudent to leave the protection in place.  Likewise downstairs, the daylight walkout basement windows remain covered for the same reason.  Previously making the outside look opaque, the sudden change in light and views on the main floor was phenomenal. 

Also as of four weeks ago I now have my engineered hickory wooden floor fitted on the open plan main floor.  Why engineered (essentially a solid top with ply layers below)?  Engineered wood is far more stable than solid wood when using underfloor heating. But preparing for this was not without a lot of remedial work on the concrete substrate that encases the hydronic heating pipes. Last November, Napoleon Champagne (Crowsnest Concrete) had recommended to me that rather than a normal concrete pour with his team flat finishing the surface, he pour a lighter free running (minimal aggregate) self levelling concrete, reducing my costs by $1,500.  Hindsight is useful but this was poor advice and I would not recommend anybody to go that way. There was significant cracking in the concrete, which in itself did not matter as it is neither structural (merely an in floor heat mass) nor visual.  But it was not level at all.  So it had to be mechanically ground where high and filled in with a free flowing liquid compound where too low. This additional cost, while not quite the $1,500 I had supposedly saved, involved a day of work between my flooring contractor, his assistant and me, plus another two days of my cleaning up the concrete dust - especially as the vacuum filter broke and pumped out a huge plume of dust which I only realised once I started choking.   

While maybe stating the obvious to some readers, you cannot nail wood flooring into an underfloor hydronic heating system otherwise you might puncture the heating pipes.  My original plan had been to fit it as a floating floor, but even with the aforementioned remedial work, tolerances were unlikely to lead to a satisfactory end result. So it had to be glued down, expensive in both materials (glue cost $CAN1,200) and additional labour.  My floor fitter has done a nice job, but in spite of having been advised to allow for a 5% overage margin, we ran out, leaving an unfinished area 2 foot by 8 foot where you walk from the stair landing out onto the covered concrete deck.  I now have an extra box and am hoping my fitter will be back in the next week to finish.  Meanwhile, here is a quick look (you may also see that I extended the wood stoves tiled hearth by an extra foot either side).

Before anyone asks, those circular things you see in the photograph immediately above are where floor plugs will be fitted by my electrician for my sofa's side table lamps.  

The fly in the ointment remains my kitchen's double oven.  I elaborated in my last update on some of the issues that delayed installation of certain cabinets, largely because the Home Depot saleswoman failed to understand the cabinet construct and advise her customer.  I also wrote about Whirlpool supplying a dented double oven which I refused, losing its replacement, and then keeping me waiting several weeks for a third, only to find the second had been with their long distance haulier (Overland) all the time.  So much for a credible tracking system Whirlpool, plus an incredible amount of bull-shitting bluster.  For all this the manager of Home Depot in Cranbrook rather magnanimously compensated me with a free outdoor seating chat set.  Mid August, with a double oven finally on site, I thought all I needed to do was get my electrician back to fit it.  But on the 21 August on looking closely I got a bad feeling and got out my tape measure.  I found the main body of the oven was ½ an inch too tall to fit the cavity, and the front instrument panel would also obstruct the cupboard doors above by 2 inches. Further, on reading the installation manual I found that my oven was designed to fit a 30 inch wide cabinet but the cabinet was 33 inches wide.  As background, a year before when ordering the kitchen, the Home Depot saleswoman had insisted the cabinet for a double oven needed to be 33" wide rather than 30" - I have since looked on line at most double ovens sold on this continent, and have found she is incorrect.  When ordering the oven this Spring I had very clearly asked her to confirm she was sure this oven would fit the cabinet she had supplied.   The answer was "yes" and my subtle prompt to do a computer cross check of cabinet and oven dimensions was ignored.  Own goal to Home Hardware! 

I have since told both the manager and his deputy of my local Home Depot that as I have no confidence in the saleswoman I will only deal with them while this mess is fixed. From there, we initially examined the option of getting their own kitchen fitter to do a remodel/rebuild of the cabinet, but on sending him out to look at the task, he said that the extra 3" width on the cabinet would need fillers and would always look wrong - a "botch job".  So we were into a replacement, which Thomasville Nouveau initially said would take 3 weeks to provide, only to then find in my chosen kitchen range they don't have a cabinet sized for that double oven.  So it became a bespoke build with delivery forecast as 17 October. The week of 17 October came, to be informed production had been delayed - an internal company comms failure.  Delivery is now forecast for 5 November, but as I used to say in Oman, "possibly, maybe, inshallah!" If that forecast sticks, it will probably be another week before Home Depot can get their own fitter to be on site as I am not going through that work again, and then I have to wait for my electricians availability.  So maybe mid to late November for completing my kitchen - 5+ months! 

Not impressed. While I have absolute patience with the efforts of the manager and his deputy at Home Hardware in Cranbrook as they try to correct the mistakes made by their own sales team and their incompetent bull-shitting suppliers, not surprisingly I would find it rather hard (even dishonest) to recommend to any prospective home builder or renovator sourcing their kitchen via Home Depot, Thomasville Nouveau or an oven from Whirlpool.  

Otherwise good progress on the main floor.  There remains more work for me to do in terms of trimming out the big beams and posts where they join to drywall walls or ceilings, fitting baseboards (skirting boards to UK readers), planning and fitting out the office area on the main landing, and finishing off the laundry and adjacent powder room.    

  

Outside I have probably spent the best part of 8-10 days moving, cutting and splitting logs ready for use in my Hearthstone Mansfield wood burning stove, plus sorting through the inordinate amount of building lumber off-cuts that were dumped in various piles around the build site to weed out that which is paint and glue free (and therefore safe to burn in the stove), cutting it to size when necessary, then stacking.  Most of this is now in various strategic locations at the back of the house, some under the over-hanging eaves, some in the open on pallets close enough to the kitchen door that I won't  have to dig a path too far through the snow come winter ... 

... and some in smaller loads in various areas of my covered deck perimeter, just for those really inclement winter days when I don't want to venture from cover.  

The wood burner will not be my main source of heat, partly as under my buildings insurance I am limited to burning no more than 3 chords a season (a chord being a North American measurement for a well stacked pile of cut and split logs measuring 8ft wide by 4ft deep by 4ft high), but it will certainly supplement the under floor heating and boost the temperature when just sitting around over those lazy winter afternoons and evenings.  Some of the logs I have split, as opposed to building lumber and timber off-cuts, comes from about 40% of the trees I felled in September 2016 when clearing the site for the house build.  Another 60% of those remain stacked higher up the hill behind the house as shown below. I will decide next year if I will use them in various landscaping ideas I have, or if I cut and split them to provide about 50% of my winter wood burning fuel next winter.

The wood burner itself had to go through a gradual five burn break-in procedure so that the soapstone tiles did not crack.  That procedure is now complete.  As of yet I am not yet heating the main floor with the under floor heating, as other than making my early morning tea and cooking up there, I live downstairs in the walkout basement. But I light the wood burner roughly every other day late afternoon for about 6-8 hours to warm things up.  It provides plenty of heat and with the higher than building code level of insulation I have used, so far I am pleased to find how comfortable the main floor stays for two days - noting our current temperatures are typical of a normal UK winter but still a long way to drop yet for a full Canadian winter.

The other enormous task I have set myself is outside.  My aim was to build a stone wall around the raised ground where the concrete patio and main entrance steps will go, fit forms for the steps and garage aprons, then do the concrete pour, all before the winter snow arrives and stays.  That will allow me and guests to come in via the front door rather than through the garage. 

I had a received a quote of $10K for just building the wall - no step or garage apron forms!  I worked out I could probably do it all myself for less than $2K in materials but with an enormous amount of my own physical labour.  In searching for rock I'd identified a good rock with straight edges and an even rectangular shape in a quarry about 70 km away (Golden Rock Products), but subsequently came to an arrangement with a quarry about 20 km away for me to hand pick and load my own trailer at about half the price and much less towing distance.  

I have to admit it has been a challenge physically (hard graft picking up some of those rocks and loading 4,000 to 5,000 lbs to my trailer) and in terms of finding straight sides and flat tops and bottoms.  So be it hauling from the local quarry or actually building the wall, I have only spent a few hours on this task two to three days a week.  Unfortunately the end result, as can be seen from below, is not satisfactory - the wall is all over the place and has many gaps through which the concrete pour will simply slump. 

Struggling on, I eventually accepted middle of this last week that I'd probably wasted six or so full working days in an attempt to save money.  Regroup and re plan.  I unloaded the last trailer load of rock, carrying the rocks to two dumping sites around the house, rather than returning it, as I shall find a use for it in various landscaping features next year.  Then a trip up to Golden Rock Products to order something rather more user friendly. Last Thursday late afternoon they delivered 9,000 lbs of rock, which as you can see from below, is much more regular in shape and should be easier to work with.  

I shall now have to spend considerable effort over a couple of days (in-between the rain forecast for this next week) tearing down my previous work and piling that rock up at the side of the house for other uses next year, then restart the wall build with the better rock.  I'll put that down to experience - good physical exercise though!!!!!!  But having wasted time, what is now in doubt is whether I will get all this work done, plus the forms for my entrance steps and the garage aprons before it is too cold to pour concrete, or the snow comes and stays and leaves me with no chance to get a concrete truck up my steep drive this winter.  It is what it is, and I may just have to delay the concrete work until next spring if the weather turns against me.    

So that's the progress report for the last 11 weeks.  My near objectives, other than trying to beat the snow on the work I have just described, are to then be to turn back to the main floor finish trimming and the build my office area on the main landing. Thereafter, while no certainty if this side or other of  Christmas, I will switch for a couple of months to the loft suite in order to turn it from its current bare shell to a finished product so that I can then move my bedroom up there and enjoy living on the main floor and loft, and thereafter finish trimming out the basement windows and baseboards.  

Aside from building, what of my opening mention of time now being available for me to actually enjoy why I moved to BC.  

Sunday 14 October, waking up and aching far too much from moving heavy rocks the day before, I took a day off, and with bear spray can in hand, took a climb up the steep hill behind my land to the its rock bluff cap and enjoyed these views of the lake and the seasonal colours.  The lake (in fact a reservoir dammed down at Libby in Montana ) is now gradually dropping, and in the next couple of months will be lowered by 70 to 100 feet (depending on snow pack predictions) as part of the Columbia basin flood control ahead of the spring melt. For the winter the top end of the lake up where I am will revert to the narrow Kootenay River.

Later in the day I went for a drive up the Bull River Forestry Road to enjoy these views.

Monday 15 October was another physical day picking out rocks and loading my trailer for that stone wall, and unsurprisingly, next morning I was sore.  I wimped out, drove up to Kimberley, a picturesque and bohemian little town with a small ski resort about 65 km away, had brunch and then drove on to Lussier Hot Springs for a long hot soak.

Very relaxing and so I was ready for more heavy lifting next day.

I also mentioned in my last update and again in this one that the manager of Home Depot in Cranbrook had gifted me an outdoor seating set for all the aggravation I had endured over my kitchen (that was before the latest oven cabinet nightmare).  This set has sat in its box for two months waiting for me to clear the concrete deck which has been serving long term as a covered outdoor working site.  It's going to remain that for much of the winter now.  But middle of last week, needing a change of focus, I unpacked it and assembled it on my front deck and then mid afternoon sat down to enjoy the warming early winter sun, views and ever true to my English origins, a pot of Assam tea. Bliss! 

So, now that I am in the house I have kept my promise to myself to ease back on the pace and consequently have time to start appreciating other things out here in the interior of BC.  Some inevitable frustrations, but then if it was easy to build a house yourself everybody would do it, but overall the main floor is beginning to take on its future finished look and there is progress elsewhere.  

I will write my next update just prior to Christmas.  In the meantime, Toodle Pip.