The Exodus Is Here

Well, the time has come. Phase One still needs a few final touches to be fully ready to live in, but for efficiency's sake, we're moving things over just as fast as we can. The Shack feels cluttered, yet empty in its current limbo state. My room is pretty much down to the bare essentials... the majority of my clothes have even found their way over to the new place (I had to go in there to find a belt this morning!).

Life is pretty nuts right now, starting school at the same time as moving and all. However, it's also very exciting. I can hardly wait to sleep in my new room (which looks pretty great - I picked decent colours if I do say so myself).

So far the only mishap has been caused by me. As I was carrying a "Joy of Origami" puzzle that has been in a frame and up in our various houses for a long time, I tripped on one of the many tricky spots around here. I fell forward, with the frame landing directly on the top corner of our temporary staircase leading into the new house. The puzzle, remarkably, was unharmed (as was I). The frame was not so lucky - it broke in a fantastic crash/shattering that I sort of wished had been captured on video.

Other than that, things just keep on being ferried over. I have already dealt with our stereo system and TV - those two things are being combined as a space saving measure, which I think could turn out pretty well. My next duty is the precise reason I chose to write this entry at this moment. I will be dismantling our computer system... probably making this the last ever blog entry from the Shack. Updates will continue for awhile re. Shack destruction, continuing construction, etc. However, "My Life In The Shack" will soon become a pretty invalid title.

Amazing.

Point Form Update!

WOW I don't write on this blog a lot... here's a quick sum of what's going on, and the timeline for moving. I'm tired.

-All drywall that needs to be done right now is done (boarded, not finished except in certain areas).

-The toilet upstairs flushes. Therefore we have water.

-A bunch of light fixtures, etc. have been purchased.

-Phase One is completely insulated now (unfinished upstairs areas included)

-Dad cut his head on an electrical box today and I got freaked out by his trail of blood.

-Water/sewer/gas/electrical to the Shack is getting cut off around Sept. 13th, so we'll be out of here by then, therefore Phase One will be livable!

-I have picked the colours for my room. Darkish blue and beige... technically called "Provence" and "Haze".

-Dad is estimating September 17th for Shack destruction.

-Onward and upward!

Sorry for minimalist description and all, things are getting pretty crazy around here and I only just remembered the blog... it's far too close to bedtime to write a full entry! Perhaps more details soon.

The Shack Begins Self-Destruct Mode

This has been quite a week. Dad and I have been working approximately 10-12 hours a day insulating phase one - blowing massive amounts of shredded paper also known as "cellulose" into the walls and ceilings. My job was to cut open large bags of this stuff and feed it into a machine called a "hopper", which would then send the stuff via fan through a 100 ft. hose, on the other end of which was Dad, guiding the stuff to where it needed to go. After doing this, he usually looked something like a sheep or an abominable snowman, and I was fairly dusty myself.

However, the insulation saga was not the most stereotypical/hilarious Shack story this week. The crowning moment for me was yesterday afternoon; Dad discovered a leaky ceiling. It was raining at the time, pretty hard, but this leak was not due to rain. This was on the first floor... something was causing water to drip out of the false ceiling in the "sleep in closet" onto my parent's bed, of all places! Dad and I agreed that the only way to get to the root of the problem was to rip out [part of] the ceiling. So, without hesitation, that's what we did.

-Dad fixes things.-

It didn't take us too long to find the problem; a cheap, plastic, and leaking joint in a copper water supply pipe. Being a "straight up copper" fanatic, Dad immediately replaced this faulty joint. Now the only problem is the way the ceiling looks in there - although the design has been updated to a piece of plywood. I found this whole experience rather amusing, it's almost as if the Shack knows of its imminent destruction.

Happy Birthday Mom!

It's been quite a day at the Shack. It started when I woke up at 6:30 AM. It gets more bizzare - I was in the shop! That was expected though. I slept there last night due to the unbearable heat in the upstairs of the Shack.

The reason that I woke up at 6:30 (deliberately) was the fact that Dad wanted to start work at 7 in order to get stuff done before the heat of the day. On a sidenote, the plumbers went to work while we were on vacation, we passed an inspection, and things are moving along like clockwork! Because of this, generally spirits are good in spite of the very hot weather we've been having. But I digress.

Today is a special day. This is because it is my mother's birthday. Therefore, today's workday began with something unusual. Dad and I went into the shop, and he dug around on some shelves until he found a couple old cans of spray paint. I was very confused as to what this had to do with Mom's birthday, but then he let me in on his scheme. He told me that I was to create a "happy birthday" design on the mesh that we have been tacking up on the studs for insulation purposes. This would be at no cost to the overall look of the completed project, seeing as there will be a layer of drywall on top of it in the end. So, before doing anything building-related, I set to work, relying on my experience as a graffiti artist. Well, relying on the fact that I know generally how to use spray paint. It turned out pretty well; there was even a candle with stripes on it! Mom came in around 9:15 or so, and was very amused and appreciative.

- Mom stands by her "birthday card" -

I did some actual work today too... the first huge task (and hugest of the day) was "processing" an insulation delivery. That means that 3 palettes plus a huge pile not on a palette of cellulose insulation bales were dumped on our parking space. It was my job to haul all the bales off the palettes (the other pile could stay where it was), and re-stack them in the yard. The bales weighed about 25 pounds each. Drawing on the experience with "relatively light" drywall, I was expecting them to start feeling very heavy by the end. That didn't happen so much, except when I was lifting above my head to get them onto the top of the stacks. The worst enemy I had was the heat... some of the yard was shaded, but I had to go out into full sunlight to get a new bale. I took fairly frequent cool-down breaks in the shop - thank goodness one building around here is well insulated! In the end, I got all the palettes moved before noon, and I had managed to create impressively high stacks. By some miracle, not one bale has fallen so far.

- The piles of insulation have surpassed me in height. -

After lunch, we took a very long break to avoid the heat some more. I actually ended up going to spend some time with a friend who had an accessible trampoline and garden hose - quite a way to cool down! Upon my return to the Shack I was assisting Dad in getting more mesh up for the insulation and stapling it to the studs. We have to do this because the type of insulation we're using is actually blown into walls using a large machine/hose. The mesh is so that, ideally, the insulation stays in the walls! My other main job this evening was to cover both my ridiculously high insulation piles, and the pile that I didn't have to move, with tarps and plastic so that there could be no potential rain damage. Winnipeg has an ever-present "chance of showers" these days, and usually some thunderstorm watches. It was a difficult task to take on my own. It ended up involving, among other things, getting lost underneath the infamous 1500 sq. ft. tarp (aka "the beast") and falling off of a dirt pile, becoming sandwiched between a large mound of dirt and a large pile of insulation. Eventually though, both piles were covered, and the work did not go to waste at all - it began to rain even as I was still putting bricks on top to secure the tarps!

That's it for today, I think... once again happy birthday to my mother.

Essentially, Shack life rolls on well amidst the heat. So well that sometimes the thought gets in my head that in a matter of weeks, there may be no more Shack life... very strange.

The Inspector And Me

So as with any legitimate house-building project these days, inspectors need to inspect things. This we were ready for. Or at least thought we were. The day the inspector was to come, Dad had to go run some errands. He said, "When he comes, just let him in, tell him to phone me if he needs to." I figured it sounded simple enough.

The inspector pulled up in his truck sometime around 1 in the afternoon. I said to him as he got out, "are you the inspector?" His reply was, "Is that bad?" I told him that it wasn't, and showed him into Phase One. This seemed all right to me. But then he started asking me various questions about the house, questions that I wasn't fully confident in answering. I did my best on them, but I felt like a relative idiot. At one point I said, "These things would make a lot more sense if you discussed them with my dad." He seemed to agree, but then continued asking me questions, and I started thinking that I had essentially just told him I know nothing, but he was continuing to try and get information from me.

Eventually, he left, saying he'd phone my dad in the morning because he wasn't sure on some things. I decided that was best. I'd briefly thought of suggesting he stick around until Dad got home, but that proved to be about an hour later, and I was glad I hadn't!

The next day, he came by again. As he got out of the truck, I said, "My dad is here today. You can speak to somebody who knows what he's talking about."

That story is pretty indicative of how Shack life has turned out these last couple days. We have some things that need fixing, so the building is going slightly slower than we anticipated. However, that works out well for me because now I am able to volunteer another week at camp.

In other exciting news, Dad and I experienced a great field trip to Morden to learn about cellulose insulation. We first toured the plant where this stuff is made. It's quite simple, really, a whole bunch of newspapers are shredded into an unrecognizable mass, then this stuff called "boric acid" is added, which is completely environmentally friendly, plus it's a fire retardant and rodents hate it. Bonus. We then traveled to a house being built (still in Morden) to see how exactly this stuff is put into walls. Basically, a mesh is stapled onto the studs, and this stuff is blown in through a large hose that's kind of like a reverse vacuum cleaner. A very educational trip indeed, which also yielded an impromptu lunch with local friends! We get to do this insulation thing ourselves once the things that need a second look have had that very second look.

The Shackblog is going to be down for another couple of weeks, due to my being at camp then going out west for a family reunion. So essentially, there will be no interruption to my sporadic posting!

It's Slightly Bothersome to Keep Digging Things if They Just Keep Getting Filled In Again...

But that's the way it goes, I guess! Yes, it has been awhile since I last wrote about the Shack. Have I been dead? Well, no. But death aside, the house project continues to take steps towards completion. Several of those steps taken lately have involved Raya and/or me digging... a lot! Just today I completed a 2-foot deep by several feet long by less than a foot wide trench from Phase One to the shop that now serves as a place for the electrical conduit. That trench has been in the works for quite some time now, and I hardly got to bask in the glory of its completion at all before we laid the conduit and I started filling it up again. Cruel world.

On the plus side, this trench-digging provided inspiration for creativity late last month. Not being sure where to put the mud we were digging out, and the mud forming into round shapes quite nicely, Raya and I eventually decided that we would create a mudman! This was a lot like the average snowman, except you get dirty instead of cold while making it. And it's fairly small. Below is a picture of us proudly showing off our creation.

Besides the promise of electricity, water has begun flowing in the new world as well! A couple of days ago, Dad called me out to help test/flush out the pipes for the bathtub in the future rental suite. There are not yet normal fixtures on these pipes, so the water was gushing out fairly freely, and I was attempting to contain it using a large bucket. Essentially, I think that experience counts as the first shower taken in the new house.

Otherwise, life just rolls on... when the weather gets as hot as it has been over the last couple days I sometimes reminisce fondly of the days when we lived in a house with lots of insulation and a nice basement. But of course, I must remember we are on an adventure. Good times.

I Dug a Pit

After a nice journey to Iowa for a few days, Dad and I got back this Wednesday evening. The next day, I jumped right into work - literally. I finally continued the work on the sump pit that I started in the crawlspace awhile ago. It was nasty, unappealing work. I was digging below the waterline, therefore I was standing in water about ankle-deep in a waist-deep hole, and my boots were removing more ground than the shovel. However, after two solid chunks of work (one on Thursday, and one on Friday), I managed to make the hole big enough for what Dad needs to do with it - which is put a giant holding tank in it. I came out very muddy - I even managed to get dirt on my face somehow! Oh well, it's all in the name of progress.

In other news, the unappealing smell in the Dank continues to get worse as the weather gets wetter. Thank goodness we shouldn't have to deal with that much longer (fingers crossed!).