Doors!

Doors! After windows, getting the exterior doors installed is a major milestone on the road to that magical state called "lock up". Last Friday I drove down to Victoria to pick up our doors from the company there that has been making them. When I got there they told me they'd had a problem and the doors would not be ready until Tuesday afternoon.  Sooo... I decided to stay with my friends Dan and Naoko that night and head over to Vancouver for a couple of days on Saturday. It all worked out fine and yesterday I picked up the doors around 5pm, drove to Campbell River (3.5 hrs) and caught a late ferry to Quadra Island. I knew it was too late to get to ferry to Cortes but decided to stay at the Heriot Bay Inn and catch the first ferry in the morning. All went according to plan and I arrived home at May's Garden mid morning. Mike showed up soon after and together we installed three of the four door, saving the big french doors for tomorrow.
In the pictures you can see the upstairs deck door, the cute little bedroom door, and the main entry door -- yes we still need to build  deck for the main entry.

Still Siding - 2

With day after day of clear sunny skies the siding work is proceeding at a good pace. Not without a few hiccups though as we resolve the challenges of getting the corners to line up etc.
The two top pix are looking at the living room and bedroom walls on the ground floor and the west wall of the upstairs. The gable ends will remain with their tyvek covers until next spring when we'll finish them with cedar shingles.
At this point we have one more wall to do upstairs and one and a bit downstairs. So one more good day will see it finished!
Meanwhile, I had Robbie come back and dig a ditch for the generator electric feed to the house. The generator will be located at the workshop where we will have the freezer. The feed to the house is mainly for the fridge and for lighting etc.
Tomorrow, I'm heading for Victoria to pick up the exterior doors. There's rain in the forecast so it looks like a good time to go....
I feel a need to add a note here about what a joy it has been working here for the past week or so. The fall colours are spectacular and the sun has been warm enough during the day to work in just a T shirt.  I feel blessed!

Still siding

Siding is pretty much my full time occupation these days. We have a pretty good set up for cutting and installing the cement boards and it's going quite smoothly. I'm very pleased with the choice of pre-painted siding because the weather is marginal for painting and getting cooler by the day.

 

I did find time on the weekend to help David smoke some salmon in his newly built smoker. It's designed for cold smoking, so the fish gets smoked but not cooked.  We used a combination of apple wood, from the pruning I did last year, and cherry. Last night we vacuum packed about 50 bags of delicious smoked salmon!

Siding start...

Today we started installing the cement fibre board siding and this the first wall. We started at the back recognizing that there would be a learning curve in cutting and nailing the stuff. It is made from cement, fly ash and other stuff and comes in 12ft x 8 1/4" "planks". The planks are only 5/16" thick and quite heavy so a lot of care is needed in handling them or they will break. Cutting them is also tricky although Mike has a guillotine gadget that makes a nice clean cross cut. Ripping (cutting lengthwise) requires a table saw or skilsaw and generates lots of nasty dust that you really don't want to breathe. A good dust mask is essential.
But for all its "issues" the end result is very nice. We opted for the pre-painted version and chose this olive green colour. The vertical corner pieces will get painted the same colour as the siding. So a start has been made. Mike estimates about another 12 days to get the siding finished. With winter approaching, the push is definitely on...

Thanksgiving windows...

Thanksgiving weekend and Danielle comes to visit...  luckily we had one gorgeous sunny day that allowed us to get the window trim primed and painted. By choosing to paint it white we have minimized the less than elegant white vinyl windows.
Once we install the olive green siding, it should all look quite pretty.

For thanksgiving dinner we cooked a salmon and shared it with Julie and Eric, a couple we met on the ferry on Saturday. They are both school teachers in the Cowichan Valley and also musicians. So after dinner, the four of us played music together, Eric proving himself to be an excellent guitarist and Julie blessed with a beautiful voice. We felt like we had known these folks for a long time, and hope that we will!

The swamp monster of Kwas Park

It's Sunday. It's not hot. It's not cold. It's neither sunny nor raining. And it's very still...
I took an afternoon walk down to Kwas Park and took my camera along...
The swamp seemed to ask to be shot in both black and white and colour.






And then... I met the SWAMP MONSTER. With his big horn, wild grin and overly confident demeanour... I retreated.

Anyway, it started to rain.














On my way home I caught this view of a very nice house. The locals say the old guy who is building it is a nice guy but a bit strange;)

October 1st

Oh boy, September flew by and October is upon us. Luckily we had some nice dry days this week -- after the big storm --and managed to make good progress. Izaak has started work on the electrical wiring. Mike has been focusing on trimming out the windows with local cedar 2 x 4s and I've been working on soffits and the ceiling over the kitchen deck. We are using tongue and groove pine for the soffits, with a protective coat of Penofin oil on it. It looks fantastic!
At the end of the day Friday it was time to relax with a beer and survey the scene from my messy front porch. Just to put you in the picture... the blue plastic container is my drinking water. (I have running water from the lake system for washing but get my drinking water from David's well). In the basket you can see a few unhulled walnuts and in the jar behind some hulled ones. The plates are there because I forgot to put them in the sink to be washed after my lunch;) And the teak table is the same one we had had our house in Vancouver. I love it!

And finally... we have a decision on the colour of the siding. It will be a lovely shade of  olive green that will blend well with the exposed wood as well as the grey roof. It will also provide a nice contrast with the white windows and trim. Well done team for helping me make the decision!