And Then the Kitchen & Garage

Buoyed by the delight of seeing permanent lighting in the great room, I delayed the return to hardwood flooring and got busy with hooking up the kitchen and garage lights – both being areas where the lights were not dependent on the coincident hook-up of receptacles on the same circuit.

After getting the relay for the heat detector wired in (using macro photography inside a wall cavity to determine which wire was which) – as the detectors are to be on a frequently-used circuit, I was pleased to find that the kitchen light switches were already installed. Imagine my surprise, then, when I got the circuit wired into the panel and heard the detectors set, but was unable to get the lights up. Suffice to say, after a period of pondering, puzzling and such, I was able to determine that the three-way switches had been wired up incorrectly. Shortly thereafter, there was light in the kitchen.

With that knowledge in hand, I went out to the garage where I thought I would be able to apply the same solution to the problem of non-working lights out there. After much testing and retesting, no luck. I even tried installing another four-way switch, thinking it might be the culprit. Finally, I checked the Leviton website. Happily, their listing for the 5604 switch also included a wiring diagram. Imagine my surprise when their diagram in no way resembled the one in the Black & Decker guide I've been using as my electrical bible.

Small, but important progress today. Tomorrow, back on my knees.

Hey J&J, what light from yonder windows breaks?

Oftentimes our dear friends and neighbours, Jim & Johanna Rodger, will ask if I've made any of the interior lights operative.

As of this afternoon the answer is, "Yes, folks, I let there be light."
Now, back to flooring in the morning.

I'm Down on my Knees Prayin' "How Long, Lord?"

Today made the fourth day of hardwood flooring installation: I've marked last Tuesday as an orientation day – and not just to make my daily productivity look better!
So far, I'm crawling at between 50% and 33% of the rate of an experienced installer. Greg Martin of Finmac Lumber says a good solo installer will rack (arrange the pieces) and nail 100 - 150 sq. ft. per day. After four days, I've installed about 220 sq. ft. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but 'zat is vot it iss.' Given that we decided to go with mill select (sometimes known as Country Grade) unfinished maple, the colour and grain variation is quite dramatic. Add to that random lengths between 9" and 84", the desirability of randomizing all variables, having every other spike hit a floor joist, generally having 6" of separation between adjacent end-joins... well, you get the picture of what is involved in creating 1,400 sq. ft. of abstract mosaic.
We bought a pneumatic MasterCraft floor nailer which was desperately lacking in useful "how to use this sucker" information. Unfortunately, the 1-800 number so prominently promoted on Canadian Tire's in-store brand provided no more help so, with some careful testing, I divined the inner workings of the nailer and it has delivered fine results.

Meanwhile, Ruth has been spending three-to-four weekend days painting.

And, everyday, the light outdoors continues to inspire as we labour and perspire in what will – some many months down the road – be our dream home.

Off to bed to dream about it (I hope). The waking thoughts of protracted timelines as I roused at 4:23 this morning were definitely not dream-like.


P.S. A few weeks ago I again took a huge trailer of trash to the dump. I noticed this stuffed horse abandoned in the pile next to where I was unloading and, knowing Sadie's of things plush, brought it home. Yesterday, after watching Sadie head downstairs several times a day to visit Horsey, Ruth finally brought it up, where Sadie immediately tried to nurse (we think) from it. Of course, it may just have been typical doggie butt-sniff behaviour.

Second New-Year Post from the Ridge

Happy New Year, blog watchers if, indeed, there are any left.

It's been well over a month since the last post, and the reasons for this lapse are various. Firstly, as a mostly single-man crew these days, the pronoun "I" would be too much used. I really loved telling the story of time and building creativity shared with others. That time is now past.

Secondly, there have been few signs of substantive progress until this past week or so. The old saw, "more fun than watching paint dry," comes to mind. Much time and problem-solving effort has been consumed by issues regarding paint, the nature of which I will spare you.

Lastly, the sum of the above has resulted in a lack of motivation for blogging. That situation, I hope, is now being put behind us.

The foregoing notwithstanding, the time up here on Ruth's Ridge continues to delight the eye and inspire the soul. The profound good fortune of having the sun shine in our kitchen window each morning, watching the awesome march of light and colour throughout the day, and then having the moon rise outside the kitchen window most every night has made every hold-up or setback seem relatively insignificant. Ruth & I continue to marvel at the gift of this magical place. For the first time in a decade or more, I am enjoying winter... even if mostly from the confines of our new home. My friend, Jim, says he hasn't seen me this happy in years. Funny, I have never equated exhaustion and happiness until now.

The number of creature comforts continues to slowly improve. From the New Year's Eve first-flush, we have moved on to a tub and sink, clothes washer and dryer, a heat-recovery ventilator and an array of kitchen goodies like a kettle, griddle, coffee maker. Still, the one thing that I will never again take for granted is the flush of a toilet. I now know how much work goes into such a seemingly simple function, but every time I actuate the toilet, I thank my lucky stars that it worked in the first place and continues to work repeatedly.

So, other than wallowing in pigment, what remains to report? In short, the addition of lights, fans, smoke/CO2 alarms, the installation of kitchen cabinets and the immanent installation of hardwood flooring.

Ceiling Fans. A 70 lb. fan now hangs in the great room, thanks almost entirely to the extended use of David Ives' scaffolding. Another fan graces the stairwell, and a third hangs in what is sure to be the 'hot' master bedroom!

Lights. Pot lights in the kitchen and loft, hanging lights in the great room, main entrance, water closet (a huge school classroom globe restored by my father after reclaiming it from the original Plum Coulee Collegiate), and dining room. Ceiling fixtures in the closets, washrooms, mudroom and pantry. Lights and receptacles in the basement.

For the past week, I have been engaged in demystifying the workings of Ikea packaging and kitchen componentry. I have to say that Ruth did an amazing job of designing the kitchen, and I have had the privilege of bringing her conceptualization to life. As of this morning, all of the cabinets (save two, which are in transit) have been assembled, positioned and secured to the walls. What remains is to install the Ikea butcher-block countertops, the oven, the cooktop, the sink, the dishwasher, and to tweak the door and drawer alignment.

Perhaps even more exciting for me, is the start of hardwood flooring tomorrow morning. I have been greatly aided by Greg Martin of Finmac Lumber. He supplied the unfinished 2 1/4" maple and, in addition, has been a font of invaluable information about the installation procedure.

Yesterday, after allowing the hardwood to condition in our home for 12 days, I distributed the 4,500 lbs. of wood to the sides of the great room and lugged 36 bundles up to the loft. Today, after doing some work on the kitchen and enjoying a visit from Jim & Johanna Rodger, I established the starter line for the first course of hardwood in the great room, then stapled down the wax paper, and prepped the equipment for the morning.

It's wonderfully quiet up here on the ridge this evening. Ruth & I had a lovely Valentine's weekend. Ruth was especially Valentine-minded after spending a few days in Winnipeg with our grand-daughter, Kate, and her parents. She discovered the little person growing inside Kate this weekend and, frankly, fell in love. So lovely to see... and Kate is truly a lovable child.

Our family is more dispersed than usual, which makes life even quieter than normal. With Lee in Vancouver for 5 weeks with the Olympics, Jill headed to Arizona for a few weeks with her mother. Cole and his girlfriend, Sarah, flew down to join them for a couple of weeks. Claire and Thomas are immersed in university. Since we're going to adopt Jill's cats, and since our place isn't quite ready to accomodate them, Ruth offered to house-sit Jill & Lee's house while they're gone. Less commuting, more proper bathrooms and mirrors, more comfort for her until our home looks more like one by month's end.

Well, enough for today. I hope to be posting again in the next few days with updates on the progress of our flooring.

'Till then, schritt fuer schritt.

Return of the Someday Blogger

I've finally made some time for this, by now, too infrequent building blog. The intervening three weeks have delivered a number of important milestones, though I still find myself thinking too often of what hasn't yet been achieved.

Gone are the nights of flannel-wrapped sleep in Jim & Johanna's guest room, though Rebus & Sadie shared a snooze on the couch here on Ruth's Ridge the other afternoon. Looking at the picture of R, R 'n S reminds me that we seem to have identified the cause of Rebus' sometimes grouchy demeanor at bedtime; it appears that his ten years may have brought with them some arthritic aches. We began giving him some coated baby aspirin a few days ago, and he seemed almost immediately to become happier, more spry. His getting up on the couch with Sadie happened within 12 hours of getting his first dosage.

We actually did have a bit of a first Christmas on the Ridge on the 25th. Jill, Lee, Claire & Thomas all braved the slick driving conditions that descended on Manitoba for the Yule holiday. They brought snacks of all kinds, which were largely consumed before Ruth served up the slow cooker of beef stew. This feast was topped off with a competitive game of Blokus, which I mostly slept through.

Finally, on the morning of the 29th, Steve Hintz showed up with the satellite dish that had gone missing in UPS's holiday warehouse. By early afternoon Ruth's Ridge had a functioning internet connection.

On the 30th, I began working on the most important room in the house... the water closet. This task was made all the more critical given that I'd finally been hit with the stomach flu Ruth had contracted some days earlier. By Ruth's return from work, I had managed to install the sub-floor, lay the tiles, modify the drain lines, install the toilet flange and mount the toilet. We finally had achieved rudimentary indoor plumbing... using a pail of water as the mode of flushing.

New Year's Eve was a momentous day for Ruth & I. Though we were both still suffering with a bout of stomach flu, we soldiered on with what tasks we could. Happily, we'd been able to get a well water sample in for analysis just before Christmas. We got the results by email shortly after lunch on the 30th. I called Filtrex, a water conditioning supplier in Winnipeg, with the analysis. Doug called me back 30 minutes later with a cost, which we accepted, and then promised to have our unit ready for pick-up the following morning.

I returned to the Ridge with the water conditioner and a number of other items by mid-morning. It had occurred to me that a working toilet would mean starting to load the septic tank, so I first got the pump wired into the panel and confirmed that it was fully functional. Then I plumbed in the conditioner, the hot water tank and the toilet water supply, then wired up the hot water tank and the conditioner.

Our New Year's celebration on Ruth's Ridge consisted of Ruth executing the first official flush in the throne room at 9 p.m. That done, we were ready for bed.




Another advance in creature comfort occurred this past Thursday. We managed to find many high-end plumbing pieces and appliances at ridiculous prices on Kijiji prior to and during the build. One such purchase was a Kohler bathroom suite with Price Pfister fittings. In an ideal world, our loft bathroom would have housed this suite except for a small, but major oversight on my part. The first oversight was not checking the dimensions of the jet tub prior to the walls being erected. The second oversight was not checking those same dimensions prior to my roughing in the main vent stack. Long story short, the space for the tub was too short.


Short addendum to long story short, I installed the Price Pfister tub fittings on a new tub after some considerable modification and cobbling. Once again, around 9 p.m. we had added another basic household function to Ruth's Ridge. No more snow baths or outhouses. It's astounding how much one appreciates these common conveniences when faced with the amount of work required to bring each of them to completion.

Today, after many time-saving hours of using Dave & Carmen Matthews' airless paint sprayer, Ruth & I began the task of applying the supposedly final coat of ceiling paint to the kitchen, dining room and great room. While I had learned how to run the sprayer quite well, we came to the realization that the finish we desired would require going the slower route of rolling the paint on and well as out.

Suffice to say, by mid-afternoon, Ruth & I both had seriously cramped necks after painting said three ceilings, nominally 800 sq.ft., with 2.5 gallons of paint. It was time for a short walk off a long driveway with our two lovely pooches. The light was, as always, breathtaking. So was Ruth and the dogs.

Perhaps I'll post again soon. Off tomorrow for a long-overdue visit with my parents down in Winkler.

Okay, So I've Become a Bumbling Blogger

Thomas is sitting at Jill & Lee's diningroom table with Pete, Jill & Lee. He just asked if I'd updated the blog recently. Yep, six days ago.

We've congregated here for Christmas because Ruth's Ridge isn't ready for family gatherings yet. Claire, Cole and his girlfriend, Sara, should be here soon. The turkey is in the oven, the pumpkin pies are on the sideboard, the sweet potatoes are cooked, and now the younglings are heading out for a bit of iceskating on the community centre a block away.

Back up on Ruth's Ridge, the drywall – all 6,500 square feet of it – is now undercoated with a Level 5 surfacer, the paint equivalent of a skim or scratch coat. Ruth & I managed to get the job done in 5 relatively short days. The finish is amazing and should go a long way to ensuring that the top-coats of paint create a lovely finish for the interior.

Pictures to follow with the next blog.

The biggest challenge for the past three weeks has been humidity. Ruth picked up a humidistat which, upon setting it up, went to 78%. No wonder we had moisture dripping from every window and door. At any rate, the dehumidifier Jim & Johanna lent us has been crunching away since David & Dale showed up and, with the help of opened windows, we managed to get relative humidity down to 67% before we left Friday noon.

Speaking of Jim & Johanna, it was a very unusual experience to depart their place on Friday morning. Jim was on the front porch waving good-bye as Ruth & I, the dogs, and the last of my possessions headed down the driveway after just over two months of having Chez Argyle as the homebase for this DP (displaced person). Their extreme kindness in offering their hospitality to me/us is matched only by that of Audrey & Allan McPhaden, where Ruth stayed until this weekend. This demonstration of friendship has been greatly humbling for both of us, and we feel a debt of love to both sets of friends which we will be most pleased to work at repaying for decades to come.

Next week, we get busy with setting up the loft bathroom before we continue with ceiling painting and the application of the first top-coat.

We pulled away from Ruth's Ridge about noon yesterday with the car laden with gifts, food stuffs and a water sample for getting nutrient levels measured in anticipation of ordering a water softener. The most important stop for me was for a haircut; the uncut locks were becoming a working safety hazard, I confess.

Other than for Ruth's time off around the holidays, I will now be a work crew of one – attended by the two dogs and a burgeoning population of cats over the next month or so.

On other fronts, we will be hooked up to the www on Tuesday or so. Unfortunately, because MTS didn't inform me that rural hook-ups only happen during "the summer construction season," we'll be cell phone-accessible only for the winter. Ruth continues to be adamant that TV is not a part of our future on the ridge. Hallelujah.

Just as we were pulling up to Jill's yesterday, my cell rang and I answered it to find my motorcycling mentor, Chas Peters (no relation) on the line. I was immediately certain that his call would be to inform me that his wife, Viola, had finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer. She passed away this past Wednesday, and Chas phoned to invite me to a private ceremony tomorrow and/or the funeral Monday afternoon. He added that she had complained once throughout the grueling course that this particular cancer inflicts. Vi was not much older than I, and I am reminded again how important it is to take great comfort and joy in whatever life offers up in the day-to-day.

Ruth & I wish Chas, his daughters and their families much comfort in the face of such a loss during the Advent season.

We remember, too, Muriel and her family as they celebrate this Advent without Orville. It was our great blessing to be Muriel's "Advent Angels" last year.

I Think That We're Alone Now (Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: A Nod's as Good a Drink to a....

It's December 11th. Well, I done chased ever-body off'n my propty. Now, 'cept fo ma 'lil lady hangin' aroun' fo a few days 'o paintin' the walls white, I done sceered off all the hep I could find.

It's now a few days shy of five months since Davis 'n Delaeno first showed up on Ruth's Ridge to plot out and direct the commencement of this place we will soon call home. Today, David 'n Dale finished the drywall taping & plastering job, packed up and left me to ready the the space for the commencement of painting tomorrow. Shortly after they pulled away, Dave Matthews, another fine neighbour, showed up with a commercial airless paint sprayer.

Here are David 'n Dale (then Dale 'n David) doing a dust-up of air guitar and American Gothic.

Ross, my dear bro-in-law, you said you'd ask if I would recommend this type of project to others once I'd completed Ruth's Ridge. I'm not going to wait that long to say, yes, I'd encourage others to consider this type of project. There are, however, a number of important caveats and considerations I'd throw in free of charge.

Firstly, if you're going to general-contract your own house build, DO make it a full-time time job. Hire people you care about. Work with them to ensure they and you find the building process rewarding in virtually every way. DO implement the 20% rule: DO your best planning, then add 20% to your best cost estimate and time estimate.... minimum. DO give yourself at least a year before groundbreaking to noodle on your ideas, research options, select fits/finishes/details. DO work with – and consider them allies – the inspectors who will vet the work of your crew for code compliance. DO plan to have the post-drywall phase to be more exhausting than the intense physical effort of the preceding months – because those preceding months will already have tapped most of your physical, intellectual and task-focused capacities. DO count on the experience of the people you hire to inform not only their tasks, but to provide a wealth of insight into other aspects of homebuilding – because most of them are practiced in many facets of construction and finishing. DO pay careful attention to retrospective insights that you or others have regarding the homebuilding process, because those insights may save others some head-scratching.

With regard to the last point, the cold of winter descended just as David 'n Dale began the taping and plastering. We found we have a six spots that tend to stay moist, namely the six inside corners on the ceiling that were not 90 degrees: on either side of the kitchen, and the four points at the front of the great-room. At each of these points, at least three roof trusses meet, creating a number of opportunities for cold air incursion past insulation and to the back of the drywall. In addition, the wood trusses do a fairly good job of transmitting cold in toward the ceiling. Hint to future builders of homes having this type of construction: caulk the joins between individual studs or plates AND spray-foam any such complicated wood joints in advance of closing in the area or moving to insulate and/or cover the area. A couple of dollars and ten minutes will save lots of anxiety and inadequate remedies. (Happily, we seem to have solved our six problem areas.)

David 'n Dale say many expensive homes by top-name builders do not address these kinds of issues despite repeated occurrences of such problems. I'm totally confident in saying that I won't build another house without doing this little big-value preemptive strike. Oh, right; I'm not going to build another house.

It's December 13th. Yesterday, after another fabulous breakfast at the hands of Jim 'n Johanna, Ruth & I headed up to the Ridge. While I tidied up, got the basement set up for painting and got acquainted with the paint sprayer, Ruth mused on colour palettes. By about 10:30, the level 5 primer was hitting the walls and, about 3 1/2 hours later, the contents of the first 5-gallon pail coated 80% of basement's perimeter walls.

So, we're less than 2 weeks to Christmas. This coming Friday Steve Hintz will hook up our Xplornet internet equipment. By then, we hope to be close to having one bathroom set up, at which point I hope to carry my bride across the threshold into our new home to stay.