Construction: Weeks 18-22 (Including move-in!!!!)

Well, this is a much-delayed post.

My cabin got finished (YAAAAY!) and I moved in (YAAAAAAY!) in mid-February (YAAAAAAAY!)

I moved in the midst of an extremely large and demanding work project, which meant that my first several weeks in my home felt like camping. There was no time to get things organized and properly placed (tasks that are not my forte at the best of times and therefore would have consumed a lot of resources that I did not have available) and there was certainly no time for blog posts. But I have hot and cold running water, electricity and Internet, a bar fridge, an induction hot plate, a mattress and my awesome desk and kneeling chair and so I was good to go.

The last weeks of construction and first few weeks of living in my home felt surprisingly fragile to me. The pieces left to do in the last stages were very small, but they felt more overwhelming than many of the bigger elements that had been tackled toward the beginning of the process. I don't know if it was because I was tired, or had less time free from desk work, or felt daunted by the enormity of the transition facing me, or because of my erratic hormones and mood swings (most likely a combination of all of those things), but I felt delicate and teary.

Fortunately, I was able to feel the feelings and do the work and make it into the cabin. I love it and feel very contented and peaceful there. Which is not to say that I don't get tired and cranky and stressed or anything like that, but I feel like I have the space I need to be myself and feel safe in that, and that is an awesome feeling.

Having the floors stained and polished was a gift from my Mom. The floors are one of my favourite things about my house – handsome and easy to clean.

The amazing contractor who stained and polished my floors added a lovely rectangle at each door at my request. I don't know why, but for some reason, these boxes remind me of the department stores I went to as a child: Eaton's and Simpson's. I don't know why that should feel like a good and comforting thing, but it does.

And these beautiful stripes in my bathroom/mechanical room. 

One of my tasks was to sand and stain the material for the wood trim. I should have done it as soon as the trim material arrived, but I didn't and ended up having to rush it at the last minute before the carpentry crew came back in to install it.  

Painting the bathroom door

Forsythia: a gift of spring from a dear friend.

Getting so close! The trim and kitchen cabinetry got installed and only the electrical and plumbing finishing remained.

The bathroom door got hung with awesome hardware made by the blacksmiths at Ross Farm Museum. 

The back of the bathroom door – distressed.

The toilet and shower got installed. The tiling and the bathroom sink are going to have to wait until more money, time and energy are available. The water runs. Some of it is hot. This is more than good enough. (And yes, I do have a shower curtain now, I just don't have a photo of it on hand.) 

Everything including the kitchen sink! Complete with running water.

And the shelving unit on the reverse of the kitchen counter/shelves which serves my office space. Complete with an electrical outlet that was pretty awkward to install. My electricians had to do some super problem solving. They were very gracious about it. 

Move-in day! While I did spend a few nights at my house during the transition, it wasn't really home until Salinger moved in on February 15th. Here he is, settling in for his first night. It didn't take him long at all to adjust; he also seems to love our little home.

I had plenty more help during this transition. Help painting, help moving, listening ears and leaning shoulders.

On the day of my occupancy permit inspection, one of my tender-hearted friends helped me move some furniture from my tiny house and shed into the new cabin. We talked and cried and jumped up and down together. I could have hugged the building inspector when she okayed everything – no, wait, I DID hug her (with her permission). There were no snags and I felt again my deep gratitude to all of the dedicated and professional contractors who built my home as if it were there own, with care, precision and kindness. And I was grateful for the more-or-less successful job I had done impersonating a general contractor – I had acquired and supplied all of the necessary paperwork, we had ticked all of the necessary boxes and done everything we were supposed to do.

The cabin is lovely to live in. It is warm. It is bright. It is airy. It is beautiful. It is simple. Everything works.

There are many finishing touches that need to be added. Now that my very hectic work schedule has slowed up, I need to move in properly. I need to move some pantry shelving and book shelves from my tiny home into the cabin. I need to figure out where things are going to go. I need to find the bag of hardware that will let me put my bed frame together. I need to apply linseed oil and varathane to my kitchen/office cabinets and a few coats of varathane on the window sills, too. I need to set up my turntable and move my records in. I need to make myself fully at home.

Salinger: showing his appreciation for the beautiful, wide windowsills (and not so much for the view of winter outside... )

Eventually, as time and money are available, I will have the shower tiled, the bathroom sink installed, and a deck built. This summer, I will try to do as much as I can to contribute to the healing process for all of the cuts and scars on the land that were caused by the construction.

In good time, I expect that the Crooked Wood, Salinger and I will all find our stride to integrate and grow together.

Construction: Weeks 9, 10, 11 and 12

I have been struggling to write this blog post. It has been postponed from week to week.

I have been busy, doing a lot of manual labour out at the site and a lot of desk work the rest of the time. And these weeks have felt challenging; I have been frequently overwhelmed.

Rather than not writing a blog post about these weeks at all, I am resorting to a classic cheat borrowed from William Goldman's A Princess Bride:

What with one thing and another, four weeks passed:

I had some trouble finding someone willing to dig my well and install my septic system, but fortunately, my plumber was able to recommend someone excellent. We walked the land and he recommended the place for the well, very close to the massive felled maple log that was dropped when my power lines were installed last year. It was going to need to be cut up and moved. So, I boldly set about cutting it into shorter logs with my small chainsaw. At one point, I pinched my saw and had to free it with a hand saw. One of the joys of being a rookie... 

A rare view of the low side of the cabin.

In Week 9, the cabin was wired

Roxul insulation getting stockpiled

Week 10: Excavator, on the job!

The septic tank

The septic field

The septic system covered with fill, seeded with clover and covered with hay.

Guess what got dug up? Rocks! Now placed aesthetically along my driveway

Meanwhile, in the house, the interior walls were being insulated. 

And I drove to Ross Farm museum to pick up the barn door hardware they had made for me.

Here's the hatch for my firewood pass-through.

The excavator, resting after its labours.

I take a time-out to appreciate the beauty of a wee, still-red oak

Over the weekend between Weeks 10 and 11, the house sees its first light dusting of snow

Week 11: The well gets dug.

 They went down about 14 feet and there was so much water that the excavation crew could hardly level the first crock before the water was threatening to come in over their boots. Here is the well after the concrete apron has been poured. (The next day the water rose up over the apron!) I feel like I have won the rural home lottery! 

My awesome plumber comes and installs the well-line and pump

Bright blue well line for the water and rainbow electrical wire for the pump – pretty! 

Next, the trench was dug for the well-line. We hit a snag here, but I don't want to talk about it. Suffice it to say, we got through it. 

Guess what else got dug up? More rocks! Including some really, really big ones.

Meanwhile, I was working on augmenting the insulation around the slab, having fun with an exacto knife and a pickaxe.

And inside, the insulation and vapour barrier were complete and the drywall was delivered and stored ready for the following week.

Week 12 began with the site in a great big mess.

(Trenches can be beautiful, though).

With the trench for the well line dug and filled back in, next was the trench to bring power from my shed to the house. 

The electrical cable and the conduit containing my internet cable had to be seated in sand and inspected before the trench could be filled back in.

Where the electrical service enters the cabin.

In the cabin, the drywall was going up.

Outside, I was unearthing some pretty big rocks in the process of regrading the land around the house to lay insulation out two feet from the slab at an angle of 4 degrees (or more). Some of the rocks were too heavy for me to move. Fortunately, my stellar carpentry crew helped me roll the biggest ones out of the way.

Here's one corner of the insulation around the outside of the slab.

On the last day of the excavation work, my well and septic contractor brought me a load of Class A as a bonus – I will use it to backfill against my house, over the slab insulation. 

While putting together the photo essay portion of this post, I think I have found a few words to say. 

These four weeks felt intense. I was on-site a lot. On the one hand, it was lots of fun to be at the heart of the action. I really like all of the people working on the project, so it was great to hang out and indulge in a little banter.

At the same time, though, I was working hard: digging, digging and more digging. It was good for me, but at the same time exhausting and hard on my joints. (I've started going to see a chiropractor again after a 7-year break and it is rescuing me from immobilization).

While it was physically grueling, it didn't require any particular skills. It was a part of the job that I could do, and I needed to invest all the sweat equity that I could because somewhere in these four weeks, I ran out of money. Which is to say that I ran out of my money, money that I had or had access to on my own responsibility.

This project has been more expensive than I hoped. That is always said of building projects and that's because it's probably always true. There is so much to do, especially so much infrastructure to establish for a rural house.

Fortunately, I have friends and family to help me out and they have encouraged me to keep going. Many have provided moral support and encouragement, some have loaned tools and equipment, others have given their time to help, some have loaned and some have given me money to help make it possible for me to complete this project. I feel very, very lucky and very, very grateful.

And at the same time, I'm pretty stressed. I didn't want to take on this much debt. I foresee some austerity measures and as much desk work as I can get my hands on for the next 3-5 years.

I do feel, though, that it is worth it. I have such a longing for a home of my own. It is starting to feel very real; I am getting to the point where I can visualize living in my home: reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, having dinner parties and summer visitors. Having a place to be myself, to be content, to be free and safe and peaceful.

And what a place it is. The Crooked Wood continues to provide me with a blessed sense of belonging. Each time I arrive there and breathe that first breath of forest air, I feel something sacred fill me: mind, body, heart and soul.

The thought of being able to live in my own home, cozily, year round, is worth the debts and the stresses and the challenges of this process.

It's simply where I feel I'm meant to be.

Construction: Weeks 4 and 5

BIG Weeks!

Weeks 4 and 5 were two major weeks. I was too overwhelmed and busy during and between them to write a blog post, so am putting both weeks together in one post now (at the beginning of Week 6). 

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Salinger and I reluctantly moved house, back into our winter digs in Lunenburg. While we are incredibly lucky to have these friendly and comfortable accommodations available to us for the third winter in a row, it was still a bad wrench to leave The Crooked Woods. But my little tiny house was getting chilly and starting to have problems with moisture and condensation and it was time to head for central heating.

Week 4

Week 4 was SLAB WEEK! This was one of the most nerve-wracking stages of the build so far. Pouring concrete is something you want to get right the first time. Second chances at a pour are virtually impossible. Also, if the cement truck can't access the site, there's a big financial penalty and then more work to do to make the site accessible. 

Fortunately, the cement truck was able to get back to the form on its first attempt, thanks to my amazing friend who widened out the driveway and cut a low limb off the big maple during Week 1.

Distributing the cement to the rear section of the form is heavy work, done by wheelbarrow. The work speeds up once the concrete can be poured directly from the truck's chute into the form.

All poured, partly trowelled

Power-trowelling!

The finished slab. I love the marbled look it has. 

The slab needed to be kept wet for three days to discourage cracks from forming. My rain barrel, a bunch of bed sheets and a big tarp helped with this task. Salinger putting his fluffy backside on the wet sheets was probably counter-productive, but very, very cute.

The ever-deepening chill was a big factor in deciding that it was time to move out to my friend's house in Lunenburg. Here is the radiant heater running full blast in the tiny house while I tried to get some desk work done in the early morning on one of my last days living on site...

The sub-contractors who worked on the slab were fantastic to have on site, continuing my lucky streak of skilled and friendly people working on this project.

Week 5

With the slab poured and set and inspected, the framing could begin. There was a risk of rain on Monday, so the work began on Tuesday, and holy cats, did it ever go quickly with four people on the crew and four days of gorgeous fall weather!!! 

Day 1 of framing

Detail, Day 2

End of day 2!

I was stuck in Lunenburg doing desk work on Day 1, but managed to get to the site to spend the morning on Day 2 and then stopped in for quick visits on Day 3 and again on Day 4. 

I was delighted on Day 2 to watch how the four-person crew functions as a well-oiled machine. Everyone had their tasks to meet the inter-locking requirements of the build. Boards needed to be selected and cut and placed and secured and I found it a graceful, intricate dance to watch. And I love the energy with which the crew works – music on the radio, banter back and forth, questions and answers – it all seems to flow with ease and enthusiasm. 

The best contribution I could make was to stay out of the way! So, I turned my hand to sorting out a bunch of paperwork to do with the build and making sure that all of the permits and plans would be readily accessible when I wasn't there. 

I had an unsettling feeling on Day 2. I walked around inside the framed space and was filled with a sense of panic – "It is TOO small!" I thought. "What have I done? What am I doing? I'm having something built that I'm going to HATE living in. Oh NO!!!!!"

Day 2, side view

But then, weirdly, when I came back at the end of Day 3 and two of the walls were sheathed with OSB, enclosing the building somewhat, it felt larger, rather than smaller. I felt perfectly comfortable, and thought "Oh, yes, this is exactly what I thought it would be like; this is plenty of room!"

And when I came back on Day 4, when all four walls were closed in to a height of 8 feet, the space felt even bigger and more comfortable. 

I can't decide if my brain just needed to adjust from my imagination to reality, from 2-dimensional plans to 3-dimensional space, or if there was some kind of cognitive block in my brain that meant I couldn't accurately gauge the volume of space when it was outlined without being enclosed. In either case, it was strange and unsettling, and I'm glad it passed. This project is way too major to have to live with discontent or disappointment about it!

Of course, I am curious to see how it feels once the walls are closed all the way in and the roof is on, as that will make a change yet again, I'm sure. 

Day 4

I got more chances to spend time on the building site over the weekend, because some friends invited me to stay in their nearby house while they were away camping.

Interior space taking shape – I love that high window. The small opening lower down on the left is for my firewood pass-through. 

Light and shadow at my back doorway.

The view from my back door. 

I had a moment, sitting in the back doorway when I could feel what it's going to be like to live in my house, with a deck or even a little screened-in porch to the south, and maybe even a deck on the east side, as well. I foresee a lot of coziness and peace and quiet, safety and comfort, protected and blessed by these trees.

I have been yearning for a home of my own for a long time. I feel very lucky and humbled and I am deeply, deeply grateful to all of the people and circumstances that are making this possible.