Day 23.

Perhaps my hammering skills still need some work.

- Geoff

Day 18 - The Curse of the Sleepless Architect

Most nights now my sleep is broken by bad dreams or half-formed panicked thoughts about some mistake in the design. Last night I lied awake for about an hour trying to stop myself from wondering if there will be enough operable windows in the studio. To reduce the window costs, a few weeks ago when placing the order, I switched some operators with fixed units. At 3:30 this morning, it suddenly seemed obvious that in hot weather the interior is going to be stuffy and overheated. To ease my mind, I emailed the window supplier this morning with some revisions that, at this late stage, might not come cheap. I can never stop second-guessing myself. Being a perfectionist is both exhausting and costly.

Carla’s dad, John Robert, who’s been helping since last week, is equally obsessive. As a carpenter by trade who built his own cottage (where we’re staying) almost completely by himself, he looks at building from a pragmatic point of view. My approach to detailing, on the other hand, comes out of a minimalist aesthetic where the final goal is to create very precise alignments between finished surfaces. This often requires some counterintuitive detailing of structural elements. In one instance, I need a carrying beam for the second floor cantilever to be suspended above a window, exactly where it should logically never go. Luckily John Robert is very accepting, even when I can’t explain myself in clear terms and resort to saying simply, ‘I just want it to look a certain way’, or ‘It’ll all make sense later on’. But working side by side every day, the difference in mindset between the Architect and the Builder has never been clearer to me.

- Geoff

Butt.

Geoff and I are totally picking up Cape Breton accents. And he's acquired carpenter's butt. Who woulda thunk it?

- Carla

Friends at Work

This was a great week! Mom and Dad came down on Tuesday afternoon and immediately started helping out at the site (Dad) and in the kitchen (Mom). Mom and I picked a strainer full of blueberries from the fields out back. That night, they headed to a dance in Brook Village while Geoff and I anxiously awaited Matt's and Lucas' arrival. We killed time by watching Extras. The one with Chris Martin is soooo good. Matt and Lucas had some trouble finding the driveway, and ended up traveling a ways down the dirt road that runs alongside the cottage. But in the end, they found the place and settled in for the night.

We spent Wednesday heaving shovelfuls of gravel into the bed of my once-pristine and recently-purchased white Ford Ranger. I had to keep reminding myself that it is, first and foremost, a work truck. Besides, all the dirt and bugs washed out pretty nicely with a high-powered hose. But then the next day, we did the same thing all over again. Two more times! But again, the truck washed clean. Mostly. Lucas and Dad were a huge help during these gravel sessions. The sun was insanely hot and the black flies were out in full force, so having two more people made the job run much faster.

That night, I think I made some Kraft pizzas. Or maybe we had a BBQ. Then Geoff, Matt, Lucas and I went attempted to watch the sun set at the Mabou Coal Mines beach, but a detour to an ice cream barn prevented that from happening. Hey, sometimes Tiger ice cream is just worth it, you know? We went to the beach anyway but dusk was coming on fast. I found a cave that struck me as the perfect place to sleep if I ever found myself stuck outside for the night. But then a whole bunch of screaming black bats flew out of it and I changed my mind. We sat on some rocks and took pictures and watched the dull glow of a lantern creep down the side of the mountain across the way. Then it started raining. Then the lantern got closer. Then I got scared. Then we realized it was some campers looking for a place to pitch a tent. I wanted to suggest the bat cave, but decided against it.

After that, it pretty much rained all the time. It stopped now and then, allowing the boys to continue with the platform. (I was holed up in the basement, trying to revise my thesis.) Mom picked a million blueberries. And we all went to the dance in Glencoe on Thursday night. The fiddler was about ten years old, and really amazing. I danced with Geoff, Dad, Matt, Lucas and a messed-up man with Afghanistan written across his shirt. He'd just returned from a tour of duty, where he had "seen things." Then he said, "But you try not to look, eh?" Matt danced with my mom. Lucas danced with a really hot blond girl from Ohio. Go Lucas.

All in all, a fantastic time. Thanks Matt and Lucas!!

- Carla

Day 11 - Platform

When I'm building a piece of furniture or an architectural model, the most satisfying part isn't seeing the finished product, but rather reaching a certain point, different every time, when the most basic structure of the thing is visible and I can picture the finished product in its perfect state. As the work continues, imperfections begin to pile up and I can no longer fool myself into believing the object will ever be exactly as I imagined it.

The studio is somewhere near that highly satisfying point right now. We have a platform, off the ground, perfectly level, proof that the building is actually coming into existence but so far free of compromise. When it's all finished I'll only be able to see the mistakes and think of what could have been. Are all architects like this?

- Geoff

Finally, some real progress.

The backhoe showed up at 8:30 Saturday morning and, save for a few short rain delays, construction has been nonstop since then. The foundation trenches were dug by 10:30 am. There were three trenches, each two feet wide by twenty feet long by four feet deep. Carla and I spent the rest of Saturday erecting batter boards to align the foundations and getting the hollow plastic sonotubes set in place by nightfall.

Naively thinking we could, all alone, shovel about 18 cubic yards of earth back into the ground on Sunday, we started out early but gave up by lunch time, our lower backs throbbing and our scorched skin covered in fly bites. (Tommy, who dug the holes, told us that rubbing a sheet of Bounce over our skin would keep the flies away. And it did, but only temporarily.) Then we went up to Carla’s aunt Carol’s and called another backhoe guy to see if he could come down and refill the ditches. This time, we called a guy named Finley Campbell who lives in Mabou. He’s a rather strange man, reticent and extremely hard to read -- my phone conversation with him Sunday afternoon went something like this:

Me: Hi there, is this Finley?

[silence]

Me: Uh… I called a few weeks ago and we discussed some digging I wanted done down at John Robert Gillis’ place. Well, we’re looking for someone again, this time to do some backfilling. Are you available?

[silence. I start to think he might have hung up]

Finley: Well, I suppose you’re looking for it done right away…

Me: Well, as soon as possible, yeah.

Finley: [inaudible comment]

Me: Sorry?… Hello?

Finley: I suppose I could come at dinnertime.

Me: Great… so around five or six o’clock?

Finley: Mmm. [hangs up]

That ‘mmm’ sounded suspiciously noncommittal, but in the end he arrived on time (people here are generally very punctual, which has been the opposite of my expectation for such a small rural community), and when I offered a handshake he looked at my palm as though I was about to poke him with a stick.

Monday morning we had the concrete poured by a cheery, sloppy man named Sonny. He left me the gift of a two foot-high mound of concrete on the ground next to the site, saying ‘lots of times people need some extra’, but really meaning ‘I’ve got some leftover concrete sitting in the chute here, and I’m not about to push it back in the mixer so you’ll have to spend the next hour shoveling it off your lawn. You’re welcome.'

That afternoon Carla’s parents showed up to help, and then Matt and Lucas arrived later that night. I cannot express how thankful we are that there are friends and family willing to spend their summer vacations doing construction work on someone else’s project. For free. Well, I suppose I can express it. We’re very thankful.

We’re almost out of the ground! A thunderstorm prevented us from finishing the regrading of the soil yesterday but we’ll get that done today. Framing starts today too. Things are shaping up…

- Geoff

Directions, Part II

Upon arriving in CB we realized our post last week offering directions to the site was a bit inaccurate and might get some people lost.

It turns out the cottage is a bit further along the highway than we remembered, so for those of you on your way down (no one here says up, as you might assume from looking at a map): Once you reach the Mabou bridge you should continue along for almost exactly 4 km to reach the site. A few hundred meters before you find us, you'll pass an old farm on the left called Hawley's Hill. We're on the right, address 12266. The marker is hard to see, so go slow and try to arrive before dark.

See you soon!

Day 3

Cape Breton is a beautiful and frustrating place.

We arrived late Tuesday night at our idyllic patch of land, rested after a week in Halifax and ready to start building. After almost three days there's not much to see except some stakes in the ground, but when you spend those days trying in vain to find cell phone reception (screw you, Rogers), then using Carla's aunt's phone instead to call every friggin' backhoe owner on the island, finding one who's got a few free hours to dig a hole only to have him cancel due to the rainstorm of the year, then having to phone all those same people again to find another machine, and meanwhile the building inspector tells you he needs the owner's signature on the building permit application but the owner just drove back to Halifax and you have no idea where to find a fax machine, and once that's dealt with you have nothing to do but stare at the empty site and wait -- well, you can still get stressed out. Things move at a different pace here and I'm just now starting to sync up.

Despite these rather petty complaints there is a lot to be happy about. We should have the hole dug by tomorrow morning, the foundations poured by Monday, and framing started by mid-week. All-told we're still more or less on schedule. Costs have generally been under my projections so far. I'm not in an office all day. And last night we drove over to Inverness to see our friend Joel Plaskett play a sold-out solo acoustic show at the Arts Centre. Every time I see Joel play the crowd is a bit more devoted than last time, and this was no exception. A cluster of Irish hooligan-ettes in the front row were extremely drunk and smitten. Joel seemed a bit put off when they insisted on singing and clapping along to even the morose ballads.

More next week.

- Geoff

Plans

Some people have been asking, understandably, to see plans of the studio. Here they are, along with the south elevation (sorry if the resolution is a bit poor):

Calendar.

Scroll down to the June 5th posting for updates to the Google calendar. The list of helpers and work timeline is constantly changing. We need lots of help for September. Let us know if you can lend a hand!

Goodbye White Shark...

Hello White Whale.

Directions to Mabou

I just copied these from MapQuest (search Halifax, NS to Mabou, NS):

1. Get on the MacDonald Bridge towards Dartmouth.
2. ANGUS L MACDONALD BRIDGE becomes NANTUCKET AVE. 0.2 miles
3. Turn LEFT onto VICTORIA RD / HWY-322. 0.3 miles
4. Turn RIGHT onto WOODLAND AVE / PROVINCIAL ROUTE 118 N. Continue to follow PROVINCIAL ROUTE 118 N. 9.9 miles
5. Take the HWY-102 N exit toward AIRPORT. 0.1 miles
6. Merge onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 102 N. 46.2 miles
7. Merge onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 104 E / TRANS CANADA HWY E toward CAPE BRETON. 104.7 miles
8. Enter next roundabout and take 2nd exit onto PROVINCIAL SECONDARY ROUTE 19 N. 27.6 miles
9. Go STRAIGHT. 0.5 miles
10. Stay STRAIGHT to go onto PROVINCIAL SECONDARY ROUTE 19. 8.1 miles
11. End at Mabou, NS CA

Now, the hard part. Stay on Highway 19. You have to drive all the way through Mabou, towards Inverness. You will pass the Shrine on the right side, drive over a small bridge, go up a long hill, pass the Red Shoe, drive for 2 or 3 more minutes. The highway levels off and curves to the left. Go slow! You'll see a blue cottage on the right, which is my parents' place (see pic). Turn right down the dirt road.

If you reach Glenora Falls, you've gone too far. Geoff's cell number is 902.951.0339 in case you get lost. We'll try to erect a proper marker once we get down there.

xo Carla.

One Giant Leap

Geoff here -- after a long and shameful absence from this blog, here's my debut. I'll try to post regularly now, since we're making real progress, finally, towards starting construction.

The big move from Vancouver to Halifax on Monday was, to say the least, arduous - not to mention the lead-up. Two nonstop weeks of preparation, every workday lunch hour devoted to buying moving supplies (the day I tried to carry nine very large collapsed cardboard boxes four blocks through Yaletown was particularly embarrassing, looking as it did like a poorly executed Buster Keaton routine), or cancelling some insurance policy, or trying to make it to Memphis Blues BBQ so I could finally sample their famous pulled-pork sandwich before leaving the west coast (I finally did, only when passing by the place by pure chance about four hours before our flight). Still, we saved our most focused worrying for the cat, a nervous homebody who had to spend 8 hours in two consecutive cargo holds. Happily she's adjusting well to her home in Carla's parents' condo -- after an initial 24 hours under the bed she's getting back to her usual curtain-climbing and forearm-clawing regimen.

Carla and I have begun looking for a truck - not much construction can happen until some transportation is acquired to move all the supplies around. If we can sort this out by this weekend and head to the island right away, we might have foundations poured by the following Saturday. A little behind, but who needs schedules? (anyone who knows me well can see this is a total bluff - I really, really love schedules.)

We received the site survey and a copy of the application for subdivision of the property (submitted by the surveyor to the county) today... accompanied, of course, by a pretty hefty invoice. I should explain that we're splitting off a piece of land from Carla's parents property in Carla's name, so that we can put a mortgage on the building at the end of construction. Anyway. I suddenly realized, looking at the money we already owe without having erected anything, that our operating budget may not be as airtight as I'd assumed. Surveys, legal fees, and much of the site work such as a septic tank and field - we never gave much thought to those things. Frantically I've begun adding them in. All the spending finally seems real... and terrifying. To stay within our budget for this year we'll have to phase the building as much as possible; insulation, plumbing and the wood stove will definitely have to happen in 2008. Which may not be a big deal since we probably won't have time to get to those anyhow. Still, that means no Christmas by the fire in Cape Breton as I've secretly imagined...