Today is my dad’s 97th birthday and I will start this report by wishing him a happy, healthy birthday. My dad has a disarming sense of humor, and that humor hasn’t failed him well into his nineties. We took him out for dinner to a fancy wood oven pizza place last year for his 96th, and he ordered a pizza with fresh basil as one of the toppings. When the pizza came, it was piled high with fresh green basil, and he said to the waitress who served him, with his typical dry sense of humor, “I ordered a pizza, not a G-D salad!” He’s slowing down a bit, but he’s still pretty sharp, and he can still make me laugh.
On the log home front, we have had a few minor setbacks. There was a potentially serious, (but luckily not serious) mishap off-loading the second shipment of logs, we noticed some mysterious black marks on some of the logs (traced back to a Bobcat loader in B.C.) which will need to be removed, and a downed telephone line, caused by a piece of construction equipment, cut off service to our next door neighbor for about a day. Hopefully, last week was just a speed bump, but I’m guessing there will be many more surprises in store for us. Building a custom log home is not for the faint of heart, and Shauna and I have had to make some quick and irreversible decisions. We spent a good deal of our anniversary last week on the first floor of our new home, with the builder’s designer, in the hot sun, resizing many of the first floor windows. What looked adequate on the plans needed adjustment once we saw the house going up. Log homes require much larger cuts, or “rough openings”, for windows than do stick frame homes, and therein lies the problem. We thought we were being clear about how large we wanted our windows to be, but something got lost in the translation. Our builder would likely have avoided this problem, had he known about it before we finished designing the home. Unfortunately, we hired him after the house was designed, and after our first builder dropped the ball. Another complication in log home construction is that all electrical outlets and switches need to be pre-drilled for wire. Once the logs are stacked, there is no turning back. As of this week, the first floor logs are almost completely stacked, and some of the vertical logs will begin to go up soon… that is, if weather permits. As I write this, our jobsite is a quagmire of sand and mud, and at present, the temperature is hovering around 40 degrees F. The temperature dropped almost 50 degrees in one night and there have been frost warnings for Southern Ontario.
About our trailer … It includes most of the comforts of home, and we have our builder to thank for allowing us to remain on site for much of the construction process. We are still on generator power, and our water supply is a stream near the trailer, from which we pump water into a holding tank. That needs to be filled every three or four days. As well, we are beginning to become accustomed to the periodic stench which occurs whenever our sewage holding tank is pumped out. The first time this happened was a rude awakening. Now, whenever the pump truck shows up, Shauna and I scamper out of the trailer like a couple of roaches avoiding Raid. Living here is decidedly more taxing on Shauna than it is on me, but the trade off is well worth it – we are able to watch our new home take shape.
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
On the log home front, we have had a few minor setbacks. There was a potentially serious, (but luckily not serious) mishap off-loading the second shipment of logs, we noticed some mysterious black marks on some of the logs (traced back to a Bobcat loader in B.C.) which will need to be removed, and a downed telephone line, caused by a piece of construction equipment, cut off service to our next door neighbor for about a day. Hopefully, last week was just a speed bump, but I’m guessing there will be many more surprises in store for us. Building a custom log home is not for the faint of heart, and Shauna and I have had to make some quick and irreversible decisions. We spent a good deal of our anniversary last week on the first floor of our new home, with the builder’s designer, in the hot sun, resizing many of the first floor windows. What looked adequate on the plans needed adjustment once we saw the house going up. Log homes require much larger cuts, or “rough openings”, for windows than do stick frame homes, and therein lies the problem. We thought we were being clear about how large we wanted our windows to be, but something got lost in the translation. Our builder would likely have avoided this problem, had he known about it before we finished designing the home. Unfortunately, we hired him after the house was designed, and after our first builder dropped the ball. Another complication in log home construction is that all electrical outlets and switches need to be pre-drilled for wire. Once the logs are stacked, there is no turning back. As of this week, the first floor logs are almost completely stacked, and some of the vertical logs will begin to go up soon… that is, if weather permits. As I write this, our jobsite is a quagmire of sand and mud, and at present, the temperature is hovering around 40 degrees F. The temperature dropped almost 50 degrees in one night and there have been frost warnings for Southern Ontario.
About our trailer … It includes most of the comforts of home, and we have our builder to thank for allowing us to remain on site for much of the construction process. We are still on generator power, and our water supply is a stream near the trailer, from which we pump water into a holding tank. That needs to be filled every three or four days. As well, we are beginning to become accustomed to the periodic stench which occurs whenever our sewage holding tank is pumped out. The first time this happened was a rude awakening. Now, whenever the pump truck shows up, Shauna and I scamper out of the trailer like a couple of roaches avoiding Raid. Living here is decidedly more taxing on Shauna than it is on me, but the trade off is well worth it – we are able to watch our new home take shape.
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
2 comments:
Hi Guys,
look at the flip side, you could be staying at the DFR with no friends around except Pierre, and Dale in the middle of the night, and risk running into Mr. Fabri (evil hotel manager)in the hallways.
Trust me I think a trailer in the woods is way better.
Think of it as reducing your carbon footprint...The log house looks great!
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