This is a momentous week for Shauna and me because, after three years of planning, several false starts, and a lot of plodding through the labyrinth of town regulations and government bureaucracies, our site plan was finally approved. Last week, our builder obtained a demolition permit, and our little cottage was knocked down. We were not able to make it up for the demolition – probably for the best – but the builder e-mailed us almost 70 photographs documenting the process, from beginning to end. Looking at those pictures was harder for Shauna than it was for me and, of course, there were tears. Shauna had been going up to that cottage every summer since she was a little girl and, like so many other people, she equated the physical structure with the memories that it embodied. I had mixed emotions, because I’d spent a lot of time fixing the place up. In the past ten years, I’d painted the entire cottage twice, veneered the fireplace mantel, rebuilt the concrete and tile floor around the fireplace, patched other sections of concrete floor, stripped and refinished transom windows, rebuilt screen doors, re-pointed the stone chimney (which we will thankfully reclaim for the new place), rebuilt two of the three beds, replaced screens and window glass, etc. As any cottager will tell you, every dwelling has its idiosyncrasies. Dr. Taylor had mentored me well on how to cope with all the eccentricities of this cottage … things like how to jury-rig the finicky old water pump, how to ream out the pipes in the bathroom when they became clogged with silt, and how to deal with all the quirky electrical problems, etc. There was always something that needed fixing up there. Near the end, I began to feel a little like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. That crazy poltergeist/electrical problem to which I referred in one of my recent reports, was the final straw. Still, it was strange to see the demolition photos. To console Shauna, I reminded her that many people who experience a fire or a natural disaster do not have the luxury of controlling the change to their living situation. We were able to salvage much of what we wanted to save from the old place, before it was knocked down, and we have all the furniture and mementoes safely stored away to put in the new place. In our hearts we know that this change will be a good thing, but we embark on this journey with just a hint of apprehension.
It is somewhat traumatic to see the vacant lot … an empty canvas, if you will. We’ve spent well over 18 months designing the new home and, with the aid of the log home company and our builder, I think we’ve created (on paper, at least) an amazing new home, custom designed to meet our special needs. That said, in so many ways our design is unlike any other log home, and we won’t really know if we got it right until it is up. While we have seen elevation drawings, we really don’t have a clear picture of what it will look like in 3D. It’s much bigger than the cottage it will replace. Eventually, we intend to spend most of our time living up there, so we feel considerable pressure to create exactly what we want. There will be no one else to blame but ourselves if we don’t get it right. Log home design is very unforgiving; get it wrong and it cannot be modified once the logs are cut. It has been almost a year of designing, researching and interviewing door manufacturers, window companies, hardwood floor providers, lighting specialists, HVAC options, stain companies, etc..
There have been countless hours on the phone with our guardian angel, Dave Schemenauer, our representative from Neville Log Homes out in British Columbia. With Dave and our fantastic builders, The Thornton Group, we’ve spent hours in meetings and on the phone, hashing out such issues as window placement, log size, roof profile, placement of decorative stone, and what turned out to be the extremely challenging task of determining where to place the stairs.
Our builder predicts that this project will take about 8 months to complete, if everything goes as planned. Of course, that never happens, and I’m sure there will be plenty of obstacles along the way. As soon as our builder began to dig out the basement he came upon two huge boulders which were too big to move with an excavator. Their removal will likely be the subject of another report, and I’m sure that future reports this summer will be filled with references to this building project. To quote an oft-repeated redundancy, this is our “new beginning.” It’s been a long time coming, but our new log home is finally underway. Yahoo!
Author Kurt Vonnegut died last week at the age of 84. Most people know him for his most famous book “Slaughterhouse 5” but did you know he penned the lyrics to that Ambrosia hit “Nice, Nice, Very Nice”? Shock jock Don Imus can kiss his broadcasting career goodbye after his disparaging and racist remarks about the championship-winning Rutgers University women’s basketball team landed him in hot water with just about everyone in America but the KKK. I find it somewhat ironic to see and hear some of the media hyenas passing judgment on his blunder. And I know I have said this before … we know we’re in trouble when Al Sharpton is deemed to be the voice of reason. Clearly what Imus said was wrong and inexcusable, but anybody who has listened to the guy over the years (I’ve caught a few minutes here and there), will see that he is overtly offensive on a regular basis, and he is an equal opportunity offender. I am somewhat encouraged about any controversy which can spark a debate about racism in America, but let he (or she) who is without sin cast the first stone… I won’t be casting any stones. This latest controversy brings to mind that Tom Wolf novel “Bonfire of the Vanities”, and I think there is a character to mimic Reverend Sharpton in there somewhere. After the recent racial slurs spewed by comedian Michael Richards (a.k.a. Kramer from Seinfeld), it is clear that some of us have rage and hatred in our hearts. The good thing about the Imus and Richards controversies is that they out that rage, and their words have caused me to look within myself to review and assess my own prejudices.
“We have seen the enemy and he is us.”
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
It is somewhat traumatic to see the vacant lot … an empty canvas, if you will. We’ve spent well over 18 months designing the new home and, with the aid of the log home company and our builder, I think we’ve created (on paper, at least) an amazing new home, custom designed to meet our special needs. That said, in so many ways our design is unlike any other log home, and we won’t really know if we got it right until it is up. While we have seen elevation drawings, we really don’t have a clear picture of what it will look like in 3D. It’s much bigger than the cottage it will replace. Eventually, we intend to spend most of our time living up there, so we feel considerable pressure to create exactly what we want. There will be no one else to blame but ourselves if we don’t get it right. Log home design is very unforgiving; get it wrong and it cannot be modified once the logs are cut. It has been almost a year of designing, researching and interviewing door manufacturers, window companies, hardwood floor providers, lighting specialists, HVAC options, stain companies, etc..
There have been countless hours on the phone with our guardian angel, Dave Schemenauer, our representative from Neville Log Homes out in British Columbia. With Dave and our fantastic builders, The Thornton Group, we’ve spent hours in meetings and on the phone, hashing out such issues as window placement, log size, roof profile, placement of decorative stone, and what turned out to be the extremely challenging task of determining where to place the stairs.
Our builder predicts that this project will take about 8 months to complete, if everything goes as planned. Of course, that never happens, and I’m sure there will be plenty of obstacles along the way. As soon as our builder began to dig out the basement he came upon two huge boulders which were too big to move with an excavator. Their removal will likely be the subject of another report, and I’m sure that future reports this summer will be filled with references to this building project. To quote an oft-repeated redundancy, this is our “new beginning.” It’s been a long time coming, but our new log home is finally underway. Yahoo!
Author Kurt Vonnegut died last week at the age of 84. Most people know him for his most famous book “Slaughterhouse 5” but did you know he penned the lyrics to that Ambrosia hit “Nice, Nice, Very Nice”? Shock jock Don Imus can kiss his broadcasting career goodbye after his disparaging and racist remarks about the championship-winning Rutgers University women’s basketball team landed him in hot water with just about everyone in America but the KKK. I find it somewhat ironic to see and hear some of the media hyenas passing judgment on his blunder. And I know I have said this before … we know we’re in trouble when Al Sharpton is deemed to be the voice of reason. Clearly what Imus said was wrong and inexcusable, but anybody who has listened to the guy over the years (I’ve caught a few minutes here and there), will see that he is overtly offensive on a regular basis, and he is an equal opportunity offender. I am somewhat encouraged about any controversy which can spark a debate about racism in America, but let he (or she) who is without sin cast the first stone… I won’t be casting any stones. This latest controversy brings to mind that Tom Wolf novel “Bonfire of the Vanities”, and I think there is a character to mimic Reverend Sharpton in there somewhere. After the recent racial slurs spewed by comedian Michael Richards (a.k.a. Kramer from Seinfeld), it is clear that some of us have rage and hatred in our hearts. The good thing about the Imus and Richards controversies is that they out that rage, and their words have caused me to look within myself to review and assess my own prejudices.
“We have seen the enemy and he is us.”
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2007 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
1 comment:
Glad to hear the new cabin is on it's way I'm sure you'll love every bit of it:)
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