My Life in The Shack

The Exodus Is Here

2010-09-08T21:14:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-08-30T22:52:00.002-05:00

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

2010-08-14T11:33:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-08-10T22:51:00.003-05:00

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

2010-07-23T14:31:00.002-05:00

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...

2010-07-05T17:02:00.003-05:00

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

2010-06-06T14:58:00.003-05:00

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!).

The Continuing Story of the Shack

2010-05-26T21:51:00.002-05:00

What a life... I woke up from a half-hour nap yesterday afternoon to my dad saying, "Hey Jonas, want to come help move a bathtub?" Only at the Shack.

Of course, I did go help move the bathtub, and then a whole bunch of pipes.

The next morning, as I'm eating breakfast, Dad walks by the kitchen counter carrying a toilet bowl (new, in a box). On his next trip by he's got a toilet tank with him! This, of course, can only mean one thing: Phase One is arriving at the plumbing stage.

The last few days have been all about bathtubs, showers, etc. Which to buy? Where to put them? Where to make them drain since apparently the floor joists are all exactly where Dad wanted to put the drains! Oh no! An exciting development from today was the news that we can apparently afford a fancy steam-shower type thing for the upstairs bathroom. I'm sure this will do wonders for our health, or something.

In other news, the Dank remains dank. The Shack remains on the brink of imploding. The Shack Nights tally is ever increasing. The only difference is it seems that all these things may be gone within a few months... what a weird thought.

Mid-May Update

2010-05-15T18:19:00.002-05:00

This is a seemingly momentous occasion... the first blog entry from the new non-Shack!

All right, we haven't moved in or anything. I'm just sitting on some scaffolding with a laptop, enjoying a wonderful, warm evening. I could get used to this being a deck... too bad it's only temporary.

What the scaffolding is for - that is decidedly un-temporary - is the large windows that were put in today! We've probably gotten very far since my last entry. Ironically, now that things have started changing rapidly, I find I don't have much time or energy for writing. As it stands, much of the interior framing of phase one is finished - I could give you a house tour right now. You would just have to imagine things like finished walls, flooring, ceilings, doors, etcetera. Those are just details anyway. There is also, as promised, a hole in the ceiling of the main floor, leading into the second floor. A ladder may become a semi-permanent fixture in the middle of our living space when we move in so that I may access my room... it'll be kind of a warehouse feel. The reason the hole had to be cut so soon was so that we could transport both windows and drywall upstairs.

Indeed, much of the focus of the last couple of days has been drywall. We had a delivery of it come in this Wednesday - three huge piles of drywall, a hundred and some sheets in total. It was the job of the indentured servants (Raya and me) to carry all this into the house, and to pass much of it up through the hole in the ceiling to Dad's awaiting hands on the second floor. Though it is annoying work, it is pretty repetitive, and because of this, we became quite adept at both hauling and lifting drywall - important life skills! A particularly good memory in this process was when Raya became slightly over-zealous, and managed to rip a pretty large chunk off the corner of a sheet. I was amused, and after I teased her about it for awhile, Raya was not.

Another noteworthy episode has been our continuing battle with mother nature. There have been some robins around, that seem to think a house full of studs is an absolutely ideal place to build a nest. To be fair, it really is, but it is not ideal for us to be rooming with robins. So, almost every day, Dad destroys their nest-progress, and the next day, it is almost always back, and sometimes even further along. You've got to admire their resilience.

The way the new house has taken shape so quickly is pretty incredible... almost every time I come home there's something new to see. For a few days I didn't go up to the second floor, and when I did today I was surprised to find the framing for a whole bunch of rooms, including a very large closet in the master bedroom - I guess building for yourself can have its perks!

Rain Does Not Stop Us!

2010-05-02T18:46:00.002-05:00

I had an interesting experience the other day: I walked out of the door of a room before I had ever walked in. If that's not a sure sign of interior framing, this definitely is: we've been doing interior framing! It's quite exciting, walls have been going up on the inside of the house, and we're beginning to be able to see where rooms will be, and what the spaces will look like. Now that we've lost Paul (he's all right, it's just that he's no longer working for us), I've gotta step it up a bit. For the last couple days I have been doing some work that, while not glamorous, is pretty important. I've been stuffing insulation into cracks (in metal studs/window frames on our very fancy and possibly fireproof east wall). This ensures that the area around the windows won't get cold. Or hot. So like I said, quite important.

In the next couple weeks, aside from doing whatever else Dad tells me to, I will be working on expanding the sump pit in the crawlspace! Hmm...digging in the dark and mud, in a space in which I cannot even stand up...another top-notch job for the lackey! Oh well, it's how I pay my debts.

More Upward Progress, and a Tarp Adventure

2010-04-30T11:08:00.002-05:00

Dad said to me a few days ago, "If you had told me that we'd get this house entirely framed, sheathed, and shingled before there was even a drop of rain, I would've said you were a dreamer."

Well...dreams do come true! Dad and our friend Paul have been working tirelessly the last couple weeks, and to show for it, we have a pretty complete shell (the exterior is framed, the interior still needs, well, walls) that is covered in brand-name building wrapping material, and has a roof on it - fully shingled! It has been quite a sight to see for me, and anyone who happens to be passing by our property and stops and stares for a little while! We've toyed with the idea of putting up a large sign with plans, etc. Perhaps Mr. Harper will also lend us an "Economic Action Plan" sign that they give out so freely?

But I digress...all of this did happen before any rain fell at all, which is incredible. However, anyone living in Winnipeg knows that yesterday, the rain did begin to fall. Pretty hard. This caused another fun episode in our Shack-lives, and guess what? The 1500 square foot tarp has returned (click here and find the segment on June 15/09 to recount the tarp's first appearance)! This time, we had to put a lot more effort into spreading out the tarp, because Dad wanted to do it vertically, to cover up the east wall of the house-shell so that there would be no water damage to some kind of special drywall he was legally required to put on there. So there we were, in the rain, for about an hour and a half, up and down ladders, sticking our heads/arms out of windows trying to get a better angle on things, lifting this massive beast of a tarp up with a 16-foot long 2 x 4, etc. By the end of this debacle, we had one tarp covering the entire east wall of our new house. I was again reminded of just how giant a tarp that is, it looks even bigger vertically. We were also thoroughly soaked, muddy, and cold to the point where even an excessively hot shower barely felt warm. But it was another experience unique to this Shack lifestyle. At one point, I suggested that we should have taken that tarp and draped it over the entire Shack, much like a shroud. I have no idea what sort of benefit that would provide, but it would certainly be amusing.

A House Going Up...Completely Undetected!

2010-04-17T15:12:00.004-05:00

Hey, remember me? I'm that guy who writes about the Shack. Have I written anything since going to Europe? No! This is because I'm in a musical that has eaten my life and have rarely been around. However, I have the day off today, so I thought I'd give a quick update.

As the title suggests, a house has indeed been going up around here! "Completely undetected" refers to a couple different things - one being the fact that I haven't been documenting it terribly well, the other being the fact that *ahem* we totally have our final building permits already! Anyway, Dad and friends have been working hard with this great weather we've been having the past while, and a lot has gotten done. I remember one morning in particular, waking up and going downstairs for breakfast, finding Dad talking to a window and door guy in the dining room, and looking outside to see several old guys with trucks and equipment milling about, and of course, our friend Paul working away. It's good that this kind of thing feels normal to me... I've been raised well.

Last night I set foot in my new house for the first time... well, the shell of my new house. It's quite an enjoyable experience. You can see the shape of the first floor now, and the second floor is currently much like a very nice deck. My room has a great view - too bad there'll be walls soon. Speaking of my room, Dad has been asking me lately how comfortable I am with climbing through a 14-inch hole in order to access my bedroom for a couple months. My reaction? "Sounds like fun!" I may also be blessed with access to an exterior ladder from time to time. This is all due to the fact that there will be no permanent staircase between the first two levels of phase one, seeing as the first level will eventually become a rental suite.

That's the last few weeks in the Shack, in a nutshell. Here's a couple illustrations in case you are wondering what things are looking like, but don't have time to walk by our property and stop and stare like many people do:

Dad wondering what to do with a wall that's on the ground.

How the situation currently looks from the front.

From the Ground Up...

2010-03-26T10:01:00.002-05:00

That's right, there's now an "up" to be added to the ground! Where I last left off a couple weeks ago, all we had to show was a big hole in the ground and some concrete piles. Well, we have much more now! In addition to a sweet drainage trench I dug one Saturday morning, we now have Logix forms that have been going up like nobody's business, with some help from a church friend that knows what he's doing. It's quite exciting to see some visual progress - there is even a space that is clearly going to be a back door one day. We're getting some more concrete poured today, and Dad is very excited about getting water and sewer lines soon (in my opinion the new foundation is soon going to be as good as the entire Shack!).

I have also decided that Dad loves the new project much more than he loves me, because I am embarking on an amazing trip to Europe today... and he has decided to stay here with the concrete while Mom takes me to the airport. At least one parent loves their child.

Another sweet development in the Shack is the recording studio that I have set up in the Dank. The fussball room has proven very versatile - I now have an old computer set up down there with a microphone, and am using it to record various ditties (especially "Songs of the Body" for biology class). Dad thinks I'm going to miss the Shack because of all I can do in it. I say a nice house is a worthwhile trade.

That will be all for another stretch, as I am making a great escape from the Shack and heading off to France and Spain for spring break. I'm pretty psyched to see all the new developments upon my return. I will leave you, now, with a photo showing some of the progress on the new foundation:

Happy Easter!

Bicentennial

2010-03-12T21:10:00.001-06:00

As Dad continues to toil away in the incredibly mucky hole in the ground, further preparing it for a house, my personal Shack journey reached another milestone last night. As many of you know, I have a "Shack nights" tally on my sloped ceiling above my bed. Last night it hit the number 200! It was very exciting and heartwarming and all, and then I went to sleep.

We Have Piles!

2010-03-09T16:02:00.004-06:00

No, not hemorrhoids! You people are so twisted!

I'm talking about concrete piles, that have been planted very deep in the ground, and that we intend to put a house on in the near future. They came in just yesterday.

Unfortunately I was not present for the installation of these piles, but Dad did manage to take a few photos, and I have had the pleasure of living in an incredibly muddy environment for the past couple days. I guess it's all in the name of progress. I just have to keep finding new ways to get into the Shack with minimal muddiness.

And now, I would like to display Dad's awesome photography-with-a-3.2mp-camera talents (I'm not making fun of him...maybe. In all seriousness they turned out pretty well):

A Changing Landscape... Again

2010-03-01T20:36:00.004-06:00

After an extended period of excessive ordinance, finally something has come about worth writing down! The story is as follows:

I had been walking home from a musical rehearsal at school. I turned the final corner before my block, and made the last few steps of the journey totally oblivious as to what I was about to see. I approached the Shack, and prepared to open the gate to enter the yard. It was then that I realized, there was a total lack of gate, and a good chunk of fence had been flattened to the ground.

I knew that this had been coming, I just wasn't entirely sure when. The purpose of this new not-fence is to create space for large machinery to enter our yard and get down to business on the concrete piles Dad has already ordered, creating the foundation for phase one of our prospective new non-shack (also known as a house). Evidently today was the day that this needed to be done, and Dad certainly did it, although the idea was to remove the section of fence entirely. This proved difficult as it is still frozen into the ground. All in due time, I suppose.

This has indeed changed the landscape of our property fairly drastically. Obviously, there is a chunk of fence missing in the front. Since we can't very well let our dog out in a yard that is incompletely fenced, Dad has (a few weeks ago already actually, he was thinking ahead) created a small barricaded area in the backyard for Bruce to go out and take care of his business in. This is a pretty crude setup, bringing into use things such as plywood and snow shovels. Another fence that this has made unnecessary is the incredibly attractive (now mostly defunct) temporary fence made out of that fluorescent orange chain-linkesque plastic found only on the classiest of construction sites. Yes, the hole is now fully accessible, convenient seeing as according to Dad we should be getting our piles soon.

And you are now up-to-date on our building process. I may attempt to put some pictures up within the next couple of days so that you may fully understand what I am describing. For now, I am enjoying the fact that we are moving forward, edging closer and closer to having a new residence on the same property (that still sounds funny to me sometimes).

UPDATE:
Here is a photo of what the property currently looks like (March 2, 2010):

Jungle Shack

2010-02-06T20:40:00.002-06:00

Life has been relatively slow, Shack-wise, these last few weeks. Dad went to Vancouver and came back, Raya's been in and out on weekends, and things are relatively normal. However, one excellent improvement has been made to my room in the last couple days. I was at home sick, and very bored, yesterday, so I decided to have fun with my ceiling. This involved creating a hole in it, such that I could stick a coat-hanger in there. After I had done that, I thought, "what now?". The answer was to root through one of my larger boxes until I found a big stuffed snake that I kept for some reason. I then twisted the snake around the coat-hanger, and voila! There is now a snake hanging from my ceiling, greeting visitors as they enter, and keeping me company... is that sad? Oh well. I enjoyed it. I've got to take full advantage of this freedom while I can. And this way, my room has a little more of a jungle theme. That's obviously a plus.

Snow IN The Shack

2010-01-25T19:17:00.002-06:00

All of Winnipeg was slammed by a blizzard this morning, but I'm sure (or at least I hope) that most homes didn't have snow inside of them. However, being the exceptional home it is, the Shack did. Not very much, but just enough to make you stop and wonder "how soon can we get out of this place?"

Because we don't have a storm door, the high winds and relentless snow created a small pile of the white fluffy stuff just inside our side door. Fortunately our furnace is good enough to keep us relatively warm, even though the house can't keep snow out, apparently. However, the exception this morning was my bedroom, which was very chilly when I woke up, and has been all day. Part of the problem is the fact that I keep my door closed, but if I don't, Bruce [the dog] gets in there and causes shenanigans. Another factor is the fact that I have two outside walls, and my room faces north, which is the direction the wind is coming from. Oh well, that's the Shack for ya!

Holy Shack! What have we done??

2010-01-19T20:27:00.004-06:00

Today was a relatively normal day free of thinking about the past. Well, it was that until about 8:20 PM when I logged into Facebook and noticed that a good friend of mine had tagged me in a photo. I was not actually in this photo, but she wanted me to see it. It was a picture she had taken of the Shack a very long time ago - long before we owned the place, or even had designs on owning it, I'll bet. I was floored by the sudden realization of just how much has changed around here. Take a look:

If you can believe it, this is what the property looked like long ago, under the previous owners I suppose. Note the archway, the logical sidewalk, the porch still being there, the not-a-really-big-hole-in-the-ground, the large shrubbery and intact fence, the little windmill thing, the large wooden wheel, the actual grass...even if the season had never changed, the complexion of the property has been altered drastically, and permanently. This photo will look even more distant once there is no longer a Shack at all, but instead a brand new house (or perhaps non-Shack?).

This will conclude my reminiscing for the day. Every so often I just have to look back, and realize that even though the house is still just a hole in the ground right now, there has still been an amazing amount of progress made so far. And to think this all started with Dad's crazy dreaming.

In Memory of the Creepy Bathroom Light

2010-01-16T12:52:00.002-06:00

Shack life has been relatively quiet since the water pipe fiasco of New Year's Day. The foundation is yet to implode (entirely), and Dad hasn't been coming up with a whole lot if innovative home solutions these last couple weeks. We did, however, hit a spot of bother today.

The much-talked about Creepy Bathroom always had an independently controlled light bulb to illuminate the situation for its occupant. This light bulb was controlled by a pull-string that hung down just beyond the door. In recent days, it has taken more and more effort to get the light to turn on and off. Clearly the strain was becoming unbearable, because when the string was pulled today in an effort to turn the light off, not only did the light go off, but so did the string! This has caused Dad to be doing a bit of work in there today - we may no longer have the light be independent, but just always on if the kitchen light is on. Oh well, I guess we won't be saving the planet.

Happy New Year from the Water Pipes

2010-01-01T12:06:00.002-06:00

Who knew that the Shack would provide us with an adventure so quickly in 2010? We were certainly caught off-guard by some frozen water pipes this morning.

It was a fairly lazy start to the day. I ate my breakfast around 10:30 or so. Upon finishing my bowl of frosted flakes, I casually strolled over to the sink with the intentions of rinsing the bowl out so that it could be later placed in the dishwasher. I reached out and turned the handle that would normally cause cold water to come out of the kitchen sink faucet. That did not happen, however. What happened was, well, nothing. I turned both the hot and cold handles a couple of times, and when noting continued to happen, I called out to Mom and Dad, who were still in bed, "Is there a reason that the kitchen sink shouldn't be working?"

Naturally, these words caused a bit of a stir, and Mom quickly jumped out of bed to test the faucet herself - I guess she didn't believe me. She confirmed that it was indeed not working. We then tested the sink in the creepy bathroom... it was working fine, as had been the water in the upstairs bathroom not so long ago. Clearly it was a problem very local to the kitchen, and Dad slumped out of his bed, put on a very manly knitted sweater-vest, and strode down into the dank armed with a blow dryer and a flashlight to check it out.

Fortunately there was not much excitement beyond this. No explosions of pipes, or anything else. Dad found the problem, fixed it with the blow dryer, and the kitchen sink is running smoothly once more. This may not bode well for a quiet new year in the Shack, but it may for some interesting writing. All the better for me and my blog!

The Shack: A Year in Review: Part 5

2009-12-31T14:00:00.015-06:00

It has come to this. It is the last day of 2009, the last day of a year and a decade that will forever be remembered, and, of course, the last day of the first full year of Shacktacularness. To mark this auspicious occasion, I have put together a retrospective of the Shack in photos, featuring a lot of new ones so that you, the reader, know what the Shack looks like in the here and now!

Without further ado, I present 38-ish photos which define the Shack (note: captions will come in sets of two, underneath a set of two photos. Which photo they belong with will be indicated by the logically progressing numbers):

1) This is how the Shack used to look, around this summer.

2) This is an "artist's rendering" (aka my red lines and notes) describing what you would see nowadays.

3) This is the back of the Shack around summertime.

4) Another artist's rendering depicting what you would see now.

5) This is what the Shack currently looks like on Google StreetView.

6) Artist's rendering of what you might see now in real life.

7) Hauling shingles up onto the roof of the shop. Great fun.

8) Roofing the shop...note Dad's expression, evidently this brings him great joy.

9) This is what the side of our house where the porch was looked like in the thick of the porch-destruction.

10) A small example of the chaos that was our yard during the destruction.

11) Additional example of chaos - I think that pile of stuff used to be the porch.

12) Artistic shot of the reason it was difficult and rather dangerous to try and use the gate.

13) In case you've ever wondered, this is what stucco looks like on the inside. Pretty cool.

14) Dad popping out of the porch in mid-destruction.

15) General yard chaos during destruction.

16) Dad taking down the woodshed out back, also note the large dumpster on the left.

17) After the porch was gone, Dad set up this excellent temporary fence. He creatively used leftover rebar as posts.

18) The coveted "Shack nights" tally in my room. Each night I spend in the Shack, one more tally mark goes up. It is shown here at 131.

19) The warning that will greet you as you enter my bedroom.

20) Dad's innovative faucet handle which I have mentioned before.

21) The hole in the wall that has given the creepy bathroom its name and legacy. Note the light switch just beyond.

22) Home made warning sign displayed proudly on our basement door.

23) The Shack as it currently looks by night, holiday-type decorations and all.

24) What the hole in the ground (for the new house) looks like from inside the living room.

25) The large pile of dirt in the front yard... it is complimented by 2 in the back.

26) The Shack as it currently looks by day. Note the absence of porch and the large hole in the ground which extends from the front edge of the fence to the pile of dirt visible in the back.

27) The side of the Shack that used to be the porch. You can also see a bit of the new shop

in the back.

28) Similar shot, with a little more emphasis on the hole. Can you believe that hole is going to become a new house within less than a year?

29) One of Dad's finest innovations, a hole in the exterior wall (formerly int. wall of porch) that allows for an extension cord to reach our living room, powering our outdoor Christmas lights.

30) The back of the Shack as it looks today, note the complete absence of the attached shed, and the large pile of dirt in the foreground.

31) Large-pile-of-dirt-in-the-back #2.

32) Wider angle on the back of the Shack, shows evidence of both dirt-piles, and the absence of both the porch and shed. Also notable, of course, is the hole.

33) Dad's current pride and joy, the shop.

34) The back of the shop, including the basketball hoop which we so often use (really...) and the door that was acquired via a shed (see past entry entitled "Men in Shack" from Sept. 09).

35) View of the shop from my bedroom window. Notable is the skylight, and the clearly visible excellent roofing job (oh wait, it's covered in snow).

36) Slightly better view of the hole, gives an idea of depth. The hole is not very deep, because we are building the new house sans basement (we'll be building on concrete piles, which require a less hardcore hole).

37) The entire property as it looks nowadays from the front.

38) The artist's final rendering for now: a projection on what the property may look like

after phase one of the new house construction. The hole will be filled with a chunk of new

house, and the Shack will be eliminated, as suggests the red X.

And that brings us to the end of this grandiose year in review. As it turns out, it was exactly 38 pictures. I hope you have enjoyed seeing them, and I look forward to chronicling the Shack adventure in 2010. Happy new year!

The Shack: A Year in Review: Part 4

2009-12-30T14:47:00.004-06:00

Reminiscing about Shack life so far is a lot like reminiscing about moving to an old house with significant structural problems, slowly destroying that house while you are living in it, having a massive hole dug in the ground right beside your house (and still on your property), and hitting your room's walls with a hammer at will. Oh wait - that's exactly what it is.

I realize that this whole time, via the blog and otherwise, I have basically been complaining about a situation that isn't really so bad. I know that we are lucky to have what we do, and that many live in a much worse situation. However, I also feel somewhat justified in complaining because, unlike most others in similar or worse situations, we chose to live here. Well, I guess "we" is putting it rather strongly. Dad chose this as the place for all of us to live, and after he successfully sold our other house, we didn't have many alternatives. This has been a good medium to lash out at him. Whenever he says anything about the Shack being less-than-ideal, or how much the new house project is going to cost him, I say, "you brought this on yourself." To sum up, despite obvious reasons why not to, complain I will! It makes for easier writing for me, and probably more entertaining for you. That being said, let's talk about life in the Shack.

The most noticeable difference between this new reality and my past one is the acute lack of space. In our previous residence, we had a spacious kitchen/dining area, large living room, 3 bedrooms complete with closets, a spare bedroom that also served as a computer area, 2 full bathrooms, a decent sized TV/family room in the basement, etc. Here, we have a very cramped kitchen with one place to sit and eat, a tiny half-bathroom on one end (the creepy bathroom!) and an improvised pantry-ish area. Our living and dining space is synthesized into one, with not much room at all to either live or dine with more than 3 or 4 people. The "master bedroom" is a sectioned off part of the living and dining room (it used to be one big area, now it's 2 rather small ones). They call it the "sleep in closet", and for good reason. Speaking of closets, the total number of those in the Shack is ...*drumroll please*... one! It is situated in the room that is the actual master bedroom, which serves as our TV room, and also Raya's sleeping-place when she's home from university. The other "legitimate" bedroom is mine, my closet-clothes reside on a closet rack with a wire shelf attached, like one would often find in -you guessed it- a closet. My bed takes up about a third of the space in there, but that's all right, because all I really do in there is sleep anyway, or do homework, read or play instruments, all of which I do while sitting or lying on my bed. The computer (where the magic happens re. this blog) is shoved awkwardly into a nook in the upstairs landing, just outside the bathroom door. This nook is also on a different level - about 3 inches above the rest of the floor - so you have to be careful as to how far you lean back. What I have just described is about the extent of the Shack, unless you count the dank (basement). Down there we have storage, laundry, and a room that used to be someone's bedroom, which I now use as a photo studio or place to play fussball in.

The lack of space is basically the center of all the complaints I have about the Shack. If all 3 or 4 of us are in the kitchen, it is very difficult to move anywhere, or get anything, without having to climb over someone, which for some of us, such as Dad, feels like quite an invasion of personal space. If there are more than 5 or 6 people in the Shack for a meal, some people will likely have to eat upstairs, or on the couch in the living/dining room, or anywhere they can manage to sit down. Naturally, we don't do a whole lot of hosting. Another issue with lack of space (or lack of more than 1 shower) is Dad wandering around the house in less-than-adequate clothing either before or after taking a shower. Admittedly I do that was well, but my room is only a few paces from the bathroom, whereas he goes basically all the way through the house on his journeys... it's hard not to come into contact with him at some point. The third complaint I wish to share with you is the inability for me, or anyone else really, to "get away" at times, if I/we are temporarily weary of interacting with our fellow family members in such an intimate setting. I guess this whole thing could bring us closer as a family... miracles have been known to happen.

The biggest upside (and pretty much the only one besides the location, now that I think about it) to the Shack is our ability to do whatever we want with it. I have talked about this before - my walls are covered in colourful permanent marker messages, the best of which is probably my "Shack nights" tally (which is up to 131), as well as host to multiple nails, screws, dents from a hammer, etc. Whenever I feel like putting something in, I need just do it! However, Dad did warn me a couple days ago, upon seeing my array of musical instruments hung up there, not to put nails too close to a certain corner, because there are electrical wires there! Thanks, father, that information was very useful after I hung a flyswatter quite close to said corner! Another example of this freedom being put to good use is the manner in which we hung our Christmas stockings this year. We did it simply by putting screws in the wall! This will be radically different in the new house, of course. Some say we're going to miss this place, but I think I'm willing to sacrifice such freedoms for a little more space (though phase 1 is likely to be another adventure... we'll get there later).

And that is our living situation. It isn't exactly pretty, but we've been pretty good at making do with what we've got so far. Though a somewhat irritating reality, the memories are fairly priceless, and will probably only get better during the whole construction/moving again/constructing more process. What has happened on that so far, besides the construction of the shop, has been a fair bit of destruction, by way of the now deceased porch, attached shed, and large shrubbery that was in the way of the porch. Doing all that was rather fun, though it felt weird to be destroying the house I was living in. The fence has also been rearranged a little bit to better suit the positioning of the hole, but to still prevent Bruce from planning any daring escapes. Now, we just have to wait out the winter, and then the real fun will indeed begin. Look for the final part of my year in review within the next couple of days: the Shack in pictures!

Sidenote: You may also have noticed that the photos on the right side of the page are no longer there. I thought it best, since the Shack does not look like that at all anymore. New context photos may soon take their place.

The Shack: A Year in Review: Part 3

2009-12-26T15:22:00.004-06:00

Yes, the "year in review" entires are coming a little more rapid-fire now. As I mentioned before, I feel as though I should finish reviewing the year before the year is finished. That said, let's get to it!

I alluded to this yesterday... the Shack is not the only building on this property that has its stories to tell. Just a few paces north of yonder Shack, extending close to the threshold of the back alley, one will find what we have affectionately dubbed "the shop". This shop has become the new office of the one and only "Village Casketmaker", also known as Dad. The current function of the shop, however, is not nearly as interesting (from my point of view) as the long and laborious process it was to create this shop in the first place. I'll start from the very beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...

All right, that's a little too far back. Incidentally, that was Genesis 1:1. [Sidenote: My apologies to any atheists reading - for you the story is told more like "in the beginning, there was nothing, and then it exploded"]

But I digress. For the shop-creation story, I will go back to June of 2009 (which is a good number of millions of years later). It was in this month of June that the construction of the shop began. The first thing that needed to be done was to prepare a place for concrete to be poured, which would make - wait for it - a garage pad! Of course, doing this with Dad was a long and meticulous process. The first step was flattening out a good space with a rented gravel compactor. That was not one of the more fine-detailed tasks. The best you could do was try to keep the 1000-pound monster going relatively in a straight line. After that came the more precision-intensive tasks. The most memorable of these, for me, was cutting and laying endless amounts of rebar in a very specific grid pattern (confused as to what rebar is? Check our earlier entries of this blog, or click here). Cutting the stuff was quite fun - I had to use a reciprocating saw with a very sharp blade to cut these bars of reinforced steel. For a couple days after one particular shift I couldn't feel about a quarter of my left thumb from the vibrations.

Another thing I had to do was glue endless amounts of little holders for the rebar to little plastic bases. Obviously, this being done for Dad, it had to be done "just so". It took me a good half hour or 45 minutes (at least) the first time, and as if that wasn't enough, I had to do the whole thing over again with hot glue the next day because the first type of glue hadn't worked out. Oh well!

After the rebar had all been laid, Dad made an intricate system of red tubing that would later become his in-floor heating. I wasn't heavily involved in this until one fateful evening. This tubing, you see, was affixed to the rebar with hundreds of little plastic ties. Wait, it gets better. Every single one of these hundreds of ties had to be clipped using shears in preparation for the pouring of the concrete. After doing that, the only part of my body that hurt more than my back was my hands, which were both basically covered in blisters.

Once all this business was over, Dad hired some people to pour the concrete - people that didn't show up as scheduled at least twice, and finally got the job done two or three days later than we had first expected. Now that that was done, the fun parts began! Well, not quite. The forms (basically miniature wooden walls that made sure the concrete went where it was supposed to) had to be stripped, so Dad put me to work with a crowbar, sledgehammer, and drill. It was a very good outlet for any applicable frustrations.

After that, we started the framing. This was probably my favourite part of the process, because it's when you can really see the thing start to take shape. My job was mostly to cut the studs with the sliding compound miter saw, which will likely end up being a great life skill. Slowly but surely, walls were taking shape, and before we knew it, we were ready for a roof! Well, roof trusses anyway. This was another adventure in deliveries/people showing up on time... once again, they were late. In spite of this, a diligent team of three (myself, Dad and Raya) got those trusses where they needed to go in less than 2 days!

Eventually everything else fell into place. Bare studs/trusses became a plywood shell. This would've been around the time that we moved in, because I can remember the plywood roof being covered in tarps in an effort to stop rain from getting in (and getting all our stored stuff wet!). Soon thereafter Mom and Dad chose appropriate shingles, and we set to work giving the shop a more legitimate roof. Is it sad if I get those "warm, fuzzy feelings" reminiscing about beautiful, warm summer days spent laying shingles up on that roof? Oh well, I can't deny the truth. I do remember those days fairly fondly, probably because the weather was so nice, and we get a decent view from the top of the shop (I'm looking forward to the new [tall] house!). Anyway, the plywood shell avec legitimate roof soon became shell with roof and many holes in the studs with wires running through them (aka electrical!). After that would come insulation, drywall, and finally... siding!

If you can believe it, the siding-delivery guys were late too. We seem to have a terrible track record with this kind of stuff. Such is life. Despite this, we managed to get the siding on before the snow set in, thanks almost entirely to the unseasonably warm November we experienced this year. This is essentially how the shop stands now. Dad looks forward to the day when it will no longer be filled with all our stuff, because then he will finally have full reign over his 680 square foot paradise. That is, until we park the car in there.

Looking back, it seems like it took a whole lot of work to build this edifice. Looking forward, it will probably feel like nothing compared to the new house... oh joy! At least the new house will create plenty of work for me, and thus I will be able to pay my debts to my parents, who are sending me to France over spring break 2010. Only a couple hundred hours worth of work and I'm thinking we'll be even. This is gonna be fun!

Come back soon for part 4 of my 5-part series, where I will look back on some general highlights of Shack life so far. Part 5 will hopefully come around New Year's, and feature a photographic retrospective on the Shack. Stay tuned!

The Shack: A Year in Review: Part 2

2009-12-25T12:49:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas to you, devoted reader! If you happen to be a new reader, I suppose you're allowed to have a merry Christmas as well.

Having just returned from a nice leave of absence from the Shack that took me and the family to Minnesota, I have decided it is high time I continued reviewing the year before the year is over.

When I left off, we had just acquired this new shack, and on the very first day we owned it, it was in fact dubbed "the Shack". At the time, this shack was not looking very healthy. It was dirty, rather foul-smelling, and somewhat dangerous to walk in... the basement was also, for lack of a better word, quite dank (some things never change, to this day we call it "the dank"). I remember thinking that Dad would have to pull off a miracle to make this thing habitable, and maybe borderline respectable. And although I, like many others my age, hate to admit that my parents can do anything right, I must say he did indeed pull off that miracle. He installed brand-new carpet in the upstairs, which made me feel much more comfortable about living up there. He also sectioned off the large living-dining area into two smaller rooms, one of which became Mom and Dad's "sleep-in closet", the other becoming our (somewhat cramped) living/dining room. Not much was done to the dank... it wasn't worth trying to make it into anything but storage space. However, Dad did paint over the walls in the one bedroom that is down there. They had been a lovely orange and purple flame pattern, with permanent marker writing all over them, a lot of which was rather rude. You can still see some of this original pattern and these scrawlings through the light yellow paint that now covers those walls. This room is the one that we have our fussball table in, and also one that I use as a photography studio from time to time - when I can handle the dankness.

Advancements were also made in the world of plumbing - the upstairs bathroom sink faucet lacked a handle, so instead of buying a new one, Dad decided to be thrifty. I can't remember exactly what the tool is called, but it looks somewhat like a fancy pair of pliers that is now affixed to the upstairs sink, functioning as its handle. There is no temperature indication - one must simply remember that left is hot and right is cold. And as if that were not enough bathroom-innovation, Dad did something possibly even more amazing, or weird, depending on how you look at it. He took the rather unappealing end of the kitchen, which may have been a pantry at one point, but had the proper fixings for some plumbing, and made that rather small space (about 2 feet by 6 feet or so...) and made it into a bathroom! It is, I suppose, technically a half-bathroom, complete with dual flush toilet and large laundry sink... and a door! There are a couple things that some may not consider to be features, however. The walls are made out of hardboard, and are no more than 1/8" thick. Though they are entirely opaque, creating enough of a physical barrier that you feel you have some privacy, sounds escape (into the kitchen, no less) very, very easily. And if that's not enough to make you feel somewhat exposed, there is, in fact, a rectangular hole in the wall, right by the sink. There is a good reason for this hole - the light switch for the kitchen is in fact placed inside the bathroom! Therefore, the hole is entirely necessary, and placed such that nobody can really see anything from outside except for maybe the back end of the sink, but it's still somewhat unnerving, especially because it has to be large enough for people to stick their hands in there! Mainly for this reason, this bathroom is referred to as "the creepy bathroom".

Now, while all these improvements were being done, we were still not entirely sure whether or not we were actually going to end up living in this shack. This was basically being done "just in case", or for the purposes of renting the Shack out short-term (we in fact did rent it out for a month). Of course, I was still opposed to the whole idea of having to live in this thing, but things slowly fell into place over the spring months of 2009, and before we knew it, we had sold our wonderful new house and were preparing to move into the Shack.

Moving in itself was quite an adventure. One of the greater logistical challenges was the fact that it was raining quite heavily on our one main moving-day, so many tarps were used in many ways in efforts to keep our stuff dry. The other problem was where to put everything... even though we still had the porch and shed in those days, the Shack was not nearly as large as our previous house. A lot of our stuff ended up in the shop, and has remained there. The problem with that at the time was the fact that the shop was not nearly finished, and things needed to be carefully placed under the ramshackle roof so that they wouldn't get wet. Otherwise, it was just a matter of trying to fit everything else in. I remember having several people helping carry things into the porch, where Mom would either direct them to the appropriate place for what they had, or take the things herself and carefully place them somewhere in the porch. Her Zerbe instincts helped us find a place for everything. At the end of that day, which was July 29th, 2009 in case you were wondering, we celebrated our first day/night of living in the Shack by cramming 10 people into the aforementioned living/dining area and ordering pizza. Somehow this all feels like a long time ago now... has the Shack perhaps become normal reality in my mind? Oh boy.

Look out for part 3 of the year in review: coming soon! In it I plan to discuss the parallel universe in the backyard - aka the building of the shop!

The Shack: A Year in Review: Part 1

2009-12-08T21:54:00.002-06:00

It's true. The Shack adventure has officially been going on for over a year. The date we took possession of the new house was December 1st, 2008, and here we are on December 8th, 2009. And what an interesting year it has been. For the rest of the month of December I plan to reflect on what the experience has been like so far (as well as include any new and exciting developments should they come about), building up to a fairly full retrospective in pictures, hopefully to be released around New Year's. I will begin at the beginning, that seeming to be a logical place, and take you back to when I first discovered the Shack, and retell the thrilling tale of how the Shack got its name.

I remember walking into the Shack for the first time on that aforementioned December 1st. There was no furniture, little carpet, and an air of unkemptness to the whole place (which went along with the air of not-a-very-pleasant-smell). I was with Mom, as Dad was out of town somewhere. Where, I am not sure. Probably BC, the lucky man. Having toured the place with my uncle Gord earlier, she pointed out a couple of terrific features, one being the floor in the master bedroom. A fix job had been done on it using, not any logical floor-materials, but particle board. Because of this, that section of floor sank a good 3-6 inches when you set foot on it. We also had a task that very cold evening, to install a hasp for a padlock on the back door, because at that point the Shack did not actually lock properly (not that there was anything valuable in there, but for insurance reasons/plain old fashioned logical ones, this had to be done). It was fairly difficult to do in the - now gone - dimly lit attached shed with winter gloves making both our sets of hands remarkably less nimble, but eventually we got it on right, and nobody died (an accomplishment, considering I was handling the drill).

Later that night, I spoke to Dad on the phone. He asked what I had thought of the new house. Taking into careful consideration all the factors - the uncleanliness, the sinking floors, the upstairs bathroom sink which at that time didn't even have a faucet, the basement in general, the crumbling foundation, etcetera, I chose my words carefully. The words that I remember speaking a full year ago (repeated elsewhere on this blog, I'm sure), were, "You cannot even call that thing a house. It's more like a shack." This, I believe, was the pivotal moment, for it was then that this house was first referred to as a shack (later to become the Shack, the definite article used because we're talking about a particular shack here, same notation for the capital letter on "Shack"). The label given to this place at that moment is essentially responsible for the way everything else happened. Yes, the shop would've still been built, I still would've moved against my will, we would've still knocked down the porch, etcetera, but it is the name Shack that has given this whole experience a somewhat surreal feeling, a spirit that it otherwise may lack. The Shack is no longer merely a name. The Shack is a way of life.

That is how this tremendous affair began. Little did I know one year ago that I would really be living in this place now. I was aware that it was a possibility, but nothing was definite yet at that point. Stay tuned for part 2 of my year in review. It will include thoughts on Dad's revamping of the Shack to make it inhabitable, and quite possibly something else!

Tis the Season...

2009-12-05T17:56:00.003-06:00

The season of Advent is evident all around us. Decorations are being hung, cookies being baked, and friendly wishes of a Merry Christmas are being exchanged. Actually, in these times I suppose it would be proper to say "the holidays". Happy holidays...do you have friends coming over for the holidays? I wonder what I should get her for the holidays...it doesn't exactly have that same ring to it. However, I am not against either the recognition of other celebrations that occur around this time of year or the incidental movement away from the holiday meant for Christians to celebrate the birth of their Savior being branded as an occasion for overconsumption. I also realize that that's not what this blog is about. So back we shall go to relevance.

Although there is barely room, and we barely had time that day, we put up the Christmas tree on the first Sunday of Advent as we have done most other years according to family tradition. Other decorations around the Shack are fairly minimal due to the total lack of space. One thing we did this year that we never have done, and likely will never do again, was hang our stockings on screws driven into the living/dining room wall. We also have a lovely little lights display outside in the one part of our yard that still resembles a yard. Lights were beautifully strung around a park bench beside a tree, then wound around said tree, by my father. The one disappointment with this setup is the fact that he hooked them up to a timer, the idea being that the lights would be on when it was dark outside, which at this point is most of the time. However, this timer has different ideas...that, or it just has trouble keeping up, because the lights have not been going on regularly without precise maintenance. Despite all this, the Shack certainly has elements of cheer about it. Dad describes the decorations as "lipstick on a pig". I would think he'd be more kindly towards the Shack, since this was all his idea. Sometimes it just feels good to reiterate that fact.

Here are a few photos of our decorations/decorating process. Miraculously, Blogger agreed with me today!

The stockings! When in doubt, fasten things to the wall with screws or nails.

Raya in tree-decorating action.

Mom re-acquaints herself with an old friend, the artificial Christmas tree.

This shows Dad's role in the decoration process...

The Shacktennial

2009-11-25T17:35:00.003-06:00

I have returned from a great week in Ottawa, and can no longer hide from blogging. That's not a problem though, now that I actually have a couple interesting things to write about.

The title of this entry was inspired by the fact that a few nights ago, actually it was the night I returned from Ottawa, I celebrated my 100th "Shack Night". For those who don't know, I have a running tally on the sloped ceiling above my bed. There was much pomp and circumstance. Actually, there was not. I went to sleep very quickly.

The morning after my 103rd Shack Night (this morning) brought an interesting sight to my eyes. I looked out the window to be greeted by a bobcat (essentially a miniature front-end loader) tearing up the backyard. I pretty much shrugged and went to go eat breakfast. Nothing really fazes me anymore - I live with my dad. In case you're wondering, the bobcat (which happened to be driven by a former neighbour of ours) was, in fact, clearing the space where we intend to put the new house. Dad said this was the first step. He then said that there were, of course, going to be many first steps. I know this to be quite true. We now have more dirt in our yard than we know what to do with, but we have to keep it so that we can eventually fill the hole that the Shack will leave. For now, the yard has again become a war zone, one which is very difficult to get in and out of. I'm thinking we need to start putting disclaimers on our fence - you (read: "we"...thanks Jason) are not responsible if you get injured or covered in dirt on our property.

Finally an Update!

2009-11-08T11:25:00.002-06:00

Yes, it has been two weeks since my last update, sorry to any of those who are hanging on the every word of this blog...

Blogger and I are still having creative differences - that is uploading photos is a pain in the neck because it doesn't seem to work! So the porch-destruction photos and other visual evidence I have captured will not be published for all to see just yet.

Speaking of the porch destruction, it is now entirely finished, as is the dismantling of the attached-to-Shack shed and the woodshed that was just kind of sitting there. So all the destruction that needed to be done seemingly is done for now (one friend of our family suggested I make the motto for this blog "The Squalor's Getting Smaller"). Our yard is even relatively clean after Dad spent a couple of quality days with a large dumpster and an ever-burning fire in the firepit. We also have a really awesome fence, built with old fence-segments and some of that really sweet bright orange construction fence. It remains propped up because of Dad's creative use of rebar (for more on rebar, see my earlier blog entries...Dad still thinks it's going to save the world). It is now much easier for us to keep track of Bruce (our dog), who is, much to his chagrin, unable to escape the property now.

Of course, that is not all. Much exciting progress has been made in the realm of the shop as well. Dad can now work in there at night - because he has power! I suggested that perhaps he should go mad with power... but he's far too busy with the other exciting shop-project, siding! After a long and tumultuous journey, the siding that Dad ordered specially finally made it to our backyard, and now he is working outdoors (with me sometimes) in November. Thank goodness the weather has been unseasonably warm these last couple of days.

That seems to be all for now. This week I am preparing for a leave of Shack-absence, as I will travel to Ottawa the following week to partake in an exciting program known as "Encounters with Canada". So again, it may be awhile until my next update. However, if something drastic and exciting happens before my departure, you'll be the first to know.

Destructo Summary and Photos

2009-10-24T21:03:00.004-05:00

The porch is now essentially completely gone, thanks a little help from our good friends crowbar, sledgehammer and normal hammer. All that remains are the concrete stairs, just chilling out where they've always been, and massive piles of junk. Dad has built new stairs leading up to the front door so we don't have to jump really high to get into our house. The back door is an option, though it's a little less accessible now that dad has also gone to work on the shed in the back. Not much of that thing remains either, except of course the obligatory piles of junk. My personal contributions were all in the area of the porch, I ripped off a lot of stucco (at one point I pretty much ripped off an entire wall with my bare hands. . . that's a good feeling), and removed a few floorboards.

Now, on to the visual evidence of progress.

These are just a few pictures of the process of tearing down the porch. They are not quite up-to-date in terms of how the Shack is looking now, a few new context photos will be added soon. These are just to give an idea of how much fun we've been having!Actually, this is the only picture for now. Blogger doesn't feel like uploading my photos today, apparently. More to come soon, hopefully.

A Fond Farewell to the Porch

2009-10-22T14:50:00.003-05:00

When I left the house this morning at 7:30, the porch was still more or less standing. The windows and door were gone, yes, but most of the structure was intact. When I came home today around 2:10, the situation was entirely different. At the moment I do not have time to upload photos, but will soon post a few to highlight this key time in Shack life.

Dryer Update

2009-10-20T18:06:00.002-05:00

I've been informed by Dad that we have indeed made a purchase of a dryer, we just do not have it yet. It is a fairly small model that may be suitable for the suite or possibly even go in the main house. Mom wants you to know that this purchase was a very long and complicated process.

It's A Laundry Crisis!

2009-10-20T17:24:00.002-05:00

Life has been fairly quiet at the Shack recently. Except our laundry is still wet. Why? I'll tell you why! Our dryer is broken. Why's that? I couldn't tell you. Dad suspects it may be something to do with the motor. However, it's not really worth the money to fix it. We may at some point purchase a new appliance that would be suitable for the rental suite once the Shack-time is over. But until then, it's air-drying all the way! Joy!

Destructo and Photography!

2009-10-14T21:59:00.002-05:00

This week has brought a couple fun changes to the Shack. For one thing, "Operation Destructo" was in full swing on Saturday, with pretty much all the stucco coming off the north and south sides of the porch. The Shack is going slowly from "Shack" to "war zone" judging by the way it looks. Dad asked me at one point if I felt bad destroying someone else's work. I said I didn't. As I thought about it more, I still didn't feel bad about that, but I felt kind of odd slowly destroying the house I'm currently living in. It seems almost counter-productive, but I know it isn't, of course, in the long run.

The other fun I've been having (since acquiring a new camera) is turning the fussball room in the basement into a fussball room/photo studio. It's perfect in terms of ability to control the light, etc. The only problem is it's in the dank. Oh well. As winter has apparently been approaching (groan...) it's been getting drier down there. I may spend more time down there than I thought when we first moved in.

Update on Shrubbery

2009-10-08T19:53:00.001-05:00

In my previous post I said I may hack off a few branches with a saw. This basically turned into obliterating the entire bloody thing. There is now a gigantic pile of branches and leaves in the front yard and what is essentially a stump where the shrubbery used to be. I didn't know half an hour with a bucksaw could be so productive.

Pictures? What's this?

2009-10-08T18:53:00.003-05:00

As you can see if you look to the right, I have finally added a few photos outlining what the Shack looks like (exterior). Credit goes to Mom for taking these shots today. I hadn't gotten around to doing any photography.

I would love to write more, but I was just about to [finally] go begin the grand process of "operation destructo". I'm going to go evaluate the enemy - the shrubbery in front of the porch - and possibly even hack off a few branches with a saw!

Update: The pictures have since been taken down since they no longer represent the Shack at all.

Room Redecorating

2009-10-01T20:46:00.002-05:00

As I was rooting around in various cardboard boxes looking for some stuff (that turned out to be in my dresser, so I needn't have opened the boxes at all), I came across a mirrorball that either me or my mother purchased at Dollarama a few years ago. Needless to say, I was struck by inspiration. After much careful planning I hung the mirrorball from my ceiling, slightly obscuring a hilarious Don Cherry quote written on my wall. I managed to place it at the spot where, I think, the most light is reflected off it in a certain situation.

Of course, mirrorballs go very well with music, so I ended up slightly re-positioning the speakers of my stereo system. I think the sound is projected to all parts of the room as well as it's ever going to be. Now I could hold sweet dance parties in my room, except that not too many people would fit in there... darn.

In other news, the ill-fated porch has mostly been cleaned out. If I ever have free time, I may start operation Destructo. I have also heard of requests for some "context photos" on this blog. I still have intentions of doing such things. Motivation and free time are rather rare these days. Someday they will come!

Men in Shack

2009-09-26T17:17:00.002-05:00

With Raya living in residence at CMU and Mom being off in Saskatchewan this weekend for work, the Shack was left at the mercy of myself and Dad. It is still standing, so I think that's a step in the right direction.

One adventure worth noting in the last few days was the procuring of the new door for the shop. Dad received a call that sounded rather cryptic. A male voice on the other end of the line said, "It's in the shed". Of course, we knew what this meant. The door in question was purchased from a company that doesn't have its main base in Winnipeg, but does own property around Fermor Avenue and Lagimodière Boulevard where customers from the city can pick up their orders. The order was placed, and they left the garage door in a shed on that property, just like they said they would. We drove up in the Casketmobile, and fortunately the door was there in an unlocked, seemingly unsupervised shed.

In other news, the stucco for now remains on the porch, seeing as I have not had a lot of free time with which to begin hacking away at it. But know this... soon it will be no more!

Upcoming Exciting Adventures

2009-09-20T13:46:00.002-05:00

Last night as we ate supper outside in our front yard (which was actually quite lovely), Dad introduced what will likely be my newest project starting this week. We are beginning the process of destroying the ill-fated porch that is attached to the Shack. My job for now is to remove the stucco from the outside. Step one will likely be to clear the area at the front of the porch. This will involve relocating a few rocks. The previous owners apparently really liked rocks, because they're all over the yard. Another thing to do will be to obliterate a large shrubbery that's currently in the way of some of the main target (the stucco). Inspecting the stucco last night, I have already spotted a few weak points, and will likely attack strategically... by hacking at it with a crowbar a lot. This should be fun!

I have also come to realize (again) that a great benefit of living in a temporary house is I can cause damage to my walls for fun. Earlier today I made a splendid pattern of dents on a corner piece of wall where the chimney is with the side of a hammer.

TheShacki Freedom Update

2009-09-19T17:40:00.002-05:00

Our enemies (the mice) seem to have retreated beyond the boundaries of the kitchen for now, as we have not seen many signs of them these last few days. All's been quiet on the front these last few days. Dad claimed he was going to finish the shop today... perhaps he meant the interior, because as far as I know we haven't even ordered siding yet. I have not ventured out to check his progress because I haven't been feeling very well today, and fear that I will be enlisted into service despite my condition.

The Weekend Escape

2009-09-14T20:18:00.003-05:00

After the first week of school, Dad and I decided that instead of simply spending the weekend at the Shack we would indeed honour our tradition of going camping. And what an adventure it was! We took the casket-van out to Whiteshell Provincial Park, and did many things including a full day of canoing on Caddy Lake and South Cross Lake (there were tunnels joining the lakes under the railroad lines - cool stuff!). I also worked on my fire building skills (which I have also been doing around the Shack a bit). Upon our return to the Shack, we were *ahem* delighted to learn that there has been evidence of rodent-like creatures invading our shack! We do not want to overreact, of course, but George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been consulted, and they've approved the launch of Operation TheShacki Freedom. These mice could be threatening our way of life, after all. Plus we want their oil, if they've got any... but I have said too much.

Sidenote: we were also graced by Raya's presence for a little while. Good stuff.

One down!

2009-09-07T13:01:00.004-05:00

It's been a few days since my last update. We'll start on Friday night, when I was nailing styrofoam onto the studs in the shop to the tune of "Super Hits of the 70s: Have a Nice Day". Everybody was kung-fu fighting...

The most major change in Shack life recently has definitely been the loss of a family member. Not in the death sense, but in the "moved out" sense. That's right, Raya has sallied forth from the Shack to the wonderful world of the Canadian Mennonite University residence. Do we miss her? Absolutely, but the TV room is a lot cleaner now that she's not sleeping in there.

Otherwise, life just rolls on. School starts for me tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to have a routine whilst living this Shacktacular lifestyle. I haven't played a game of fussball with Dad in quite awhile. I wonder why.

The Quest for Drywall

2009-09-04T16:24:00.002-05:00

As I was relaxing in the Shack today, and icing my heels due to my Severs disease, Dad suddenly requested that I accompany him on a run to Home Depot/Rona to get some drywall. Reluctantly, I went along. The trip turned out rather eventful, including some free popcorn at Rona for some reason. Loading the drywall into the van/onto the trailer was fun (but only half as much fun as unloading it!), but the real action came on the drive home when the trunk kept flying open (because we couldn't close it all the way) so Dad would have to pull over and I'd go close the door as best I could.

Dad said this could be paid time for me. I asked for five bucks per sheet of drywall. No dice!

I'm Covered in Tiny Fragments of Fiberglass!

2009-09-02T13:50:00.002-05:00

Today's work was, well, an experience. We've begun the tedious process of insulating the shop. What I was doing mostly involved cutting pieces of insulation, opening new packages of insulation (which is actually rather fun, you slit the package with a knife and it expands very rapidly!) and handing pieces of insulation to Dad. I bemoaned the fact that I had not brushed my teeth or put some minty gum in my mouth before donning a dust mask, because it got to smell pretty bad in there. However, it was necessary to wear so that I would not be inhaling tiny fragments of fiberglass (which also ended up all over my clothes, hence the title). I now have fairly decent red marks on the bridge of my nose. However, my respiratory system remains intact, and that's what really matters after all.

Otherwise, the Shack is what it is. Some of our 8th-inch hardboard walls are beginning to come apart around the edges, but we're hoping they won't have to last too too long. The walls in my room get more decorated every day, which is actually quite fun.

Back in Shack

2009-08-30T19:26:00.002-05:00

After quite a week of volleyball camp I am now attempting to adjust back to "normal" Shack life. Supper tonight was one of the first full family meals in awhile, and we ate it in our somewhat cramped kitchen because the atmosphere in there was nicer than the almost-equally-cramped dining room. Following the meal we began discussing how things are going to work after we have to tear off the porch that's full of a whole lot of our stuff. Essentially, things could get very very interesting, not only in relocating our extraneous items, but also in entering the house and such. So while there does not seem to be a whole lot to report right now (except for the fact that since we got a doorbell, every time it rings Raya says, "we have a doorbell?"), know that in the future things are definitely going to pick up.

By the way, I beat Dad at fussball again. He said I could report the score. Game: 10-7 Jonas. Wins so far: 10-3 Jonas.

We've Got Bats!

2009-08-21T23:02:00.005-05:00

Shack life's been relatively slow these last few days. On Thursday morning I was put to work in the mud, lowering a huge mound of dirt in the back of our shed to make a nicer walking path. It wasn't very pleasant work, fortunately it only took me about an hour and a half.

Just before supper that evening, I was going to make some frozen vegetables when I realized that all we really had for frozen vegetables was about a third of a bag of green beans. To remedy this woeful situation, I got on my bike, rode to the local Safeway and came home with 3 kilograms of frozen vegetables (1 kg peas, 1 corn and 1 brussels sprouts). We had some deliciously microwaved peas with our supper.

Later that night, the family was sitting around in our TV-ish room, when suddenly my Mother thought she heard a noise coming from just outside the room (but outside of the house, not inside). Our conclusion was that there are probably bats inhabiting the bat house that is affixed to the Shack, which we've never done anything with, so I suppose bats have made use of it!

Friday and Saturday have been quiet days around the Shack. I haven't been lowering any more mounds lately. The Fussball scores will not be updated today, at Dad's request. I am going to be gone from tomorrow until Friday the 28th, so there will be no future updates until then.

I Now Have Something Against Valuable Bricks

2009-08-19T16:24:00.004-05:00

Today took "doing Dad's dirty work for him because he's paying me" to a whole new level. I spent a chunk of the day shoveling dirt, excavating old bricks (which Dad of course insisted on saving because they're worth something), shoveling gravel onto dirt, and trying to get mud off my rubber boots. A neighbour who happened to see me dumping a load of bricks onto the pile of rocks in the front yard simply commented, "Prison work!". There was also off-and-on rain, so I wore raingear for a bit (see picture).

Besides work, Shack life these days seems to mostly revolve around intense matches of fussball between myself and Dad. Score so far (games won): Jonas-6 Dad-3. Today a two-game set was played after supper, each of us got one victory (though may it be pointed out that mine was by a larger margin). A couple friends have also dropped in these last couple days to marvel at our living conditions. Viva la Shack.

The Smoking Drill

2009-08-17T16:05:00.002-05:00

I got back to shop-work for the first time in about twelve days today. Dad had me drilling holes in the studs for future electrical workings. Even with such a powerful drill, it was not easy. Especially when I had to do things like drill through three 2 x 4s in a very awkward position under a workbench. After I pulled the drill out of my holes, the end of the bit was often smoking. On one particularly difficult hole, the stud itself started smoking, and fortunately I got through in the nick of time, or the thing might've caught fire.

After a couple hours of that, Dad said we were going to go make a casket delivery, so we drove up to a funeral home on north Main street in the "Casketmobile". I decided not to go back to work upon our return home, since I am rather tired, hungry, and probably not to be trusted with a drill at the moment.

I am now contemplating trying to get the sawdust out of my hair, and realizing that I've been getting sawdust on the keyboard whilst typing this. Lovely.

Fussball in the Dank

2009-08-16T19:23:00.002-05:00

With our guests departing, and Raya going away for another week of camp, you'd think life at the Shack would be dull and boring. Well, it almost was, until we decided to make good use of our fussball table.

Back story: quite awhile ago (while we were still living at our beloved non-Shack), Dad found an old fussball table with no legs sitting in someone's garbage when he and Raya were out for a walk at night. Being the person he is, he of course picked it up and carried it home. Only yesterday did we finally make it some legs, and it now resides in our basement, which we affectionately call "the Dank".

Now Dad and I both spend a lot more time in the Dank than we would probably like to, because we have a fussball table down there! In the interest of "friendly" competition I have created a tally of games won. So far I am ahead 3-2.

We put up a few posters in the room as well, and I have taken to transporting my guitar amp down there and plugging my mp3 player into it so we can have music as we play. It's quite fun.

Otherwise, Shack life continues on about as normally as possible. Incidentally, I believe this is my tenth blog post so far. Celebrations!

The Shack Is Just So Much More Bright and Cheery in the Rain.

2009-08-15T12:25:00.002-05:00

Our brave guests from BC left just this morning, and it seems they may have left just in time. A dreary blanket of cloud has decided to cover Winnipeg, and send its droplets of rain down upon us. After a week of fairly good weather, this sudden change doesn't do much to buoy the spirits of a Shack-dweller. Fortunately the shop won't be getting interior wetness anymore, thanks to the awesome roof.

Otherwise we are still surviving. The visitors seem to have enjoyed themselves even in fairly cramped living conditions. My bedroom has been given back to me, which is nice, although I did not entirely mind sleeping in the room with the TV for a week (there was also the break when our cousins were here and we slept at a different residence.

Now it is back to "normal" Shack life for awhile. Raya is off to camp again this week, so the Shack will really feel empty with only 3 people living in it.

The Shack Heats Up

2009-08-12T12:47:00.002-05:00

Allow me to first apologize for not posting for a few days-I have been staying with my cousins whilst other cousins were in town for a visit. Don't fret, they certainly did get to see the Shack, and even experience "the dank" (the basement). I just have not had time to update.

Hosting guests in the Shack has been a relatively smooth experience so far. The kitchen turns out to be the place to be for breakfast often, which is quite an affair...normally we end up with at least one person chilling on the floor.

The title of this entry is a reference to the fact that the weather has begun getting very warm for Winnipeg, and I am now certainly noticing a difference between our former house, which was very well insulated, and the Shack. Even just sitting at a desk I am rather warm, and the environment fairly stifling. It does not help that the computer is on the second floor.

That'll be all for now. Updates should hopefully be more frequent in the next couple days, especially if something very exciting happens!

I Just Realized That I Never Gave This One A Title

2009-08-06T20:51:00.003-05:00

I slept in until after 8:30 for the first time in awhile today. I eventually rolled out of bed around 10:15. Today was the first day I didn't have to do any work since Saturday. Yesterday I didn't have to do much though, just cut a whole bunch of shingles for the ridge cap of the roof, and cut a bunch of almost 2 x 4s with the chop saw to fill in cracks in the plywood shell of the shop.

I can't say all's been too quiet around here today, what with Dad drilling stuff right beside me. He's building an extension to the fairly small computer table, that hangs out over the staircase. Other than that, we've been preparing for the arrival of the first overnight guests to the Shack. Some friends from BC are coming. We've tried to tell them they may be more comfortable staying somewhere else, but they are not afraid! I have agreed to give up my room for them, since I have the largest and most comfortable bed.

Thus endeth the recap of the last two days. Keep on Shackin' in the free world, I guess.

On The Roof

2009-08-04T16:42:00.004-05:00

Images: laying out tar paper on the south "extension" of the roof.

(Taken yesterday)

I was rudely awakened by my alarm at 8:30 this morning. To show my defiance, I got out of bed at ten to nine. After eating a hasty breakfast I went outside and joined Dad on the roof.

Yesterday we had begun work on the south side of the roof, to the tune of Bruce Springsteen and then some Eric Clapton. The whole extension portion of the roof got done, and a bit of the full-

size section. This makes much more sense if you know what the shop looks like.

Today we continued on the south side, but more to the tunes of the High Fidelity sountrack, a little 92 CITI FM, Neil Young, The Guess Who, The Police and Boston. Now that you know exactly what I've been listening to, I'll tell you about the roof. Almost all the shingles are in place, just the peak of the roof still needs shinges. I did a lot of cutting today, cutting shingles and tar paper (which is particularly nasty to do if there's even a slight wind). I also helped lay out rolls of shingles, and occasionally staple down tar paper with a sweet tool Dad has, it's like a combination of a hammer and a staple gun. INSANE!

General Shack life is going all right, though Bruce (the dog) seems to be having a fair bit of difficulty adjusting to the new situation. Otherwise it's pretty quiet. No structural disasters or surprises from the fridge yet this work week.

That Which We Call A Nail By Any Other Name Would Be As Pointy

2009-08-02T21:48:00.004-05:00

After all the "flashback" posts today I thought I'd post something current and relevant. What a switch.

I learned a life lesson this Sunday morning: if you don't know how long it's been in the fridge, look before you drink it. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way. An innocent-looking pitcher was sitting in our refrigerator, and nobody knew how long it had been

there. I poured a little of the contents into a glass, and it turned out to be orange juice. When it hit my mouth however, it was more like beer, carbonated and having a fermented feel to it. I thought it odd, and when I opened the pitcher, I discovered a plethora of mold, even large chunks of it floating in the juice itself. Needless to say I did not drink the rest of what was in my glass. It is still unclear exactly how long that pitcher had been in the fridge, th

ough I'd estimate around 5 weeks. Somebody probably made juice one time in the days before we moved in and forgot about it. Lucky me!

The other major event today was beginning putting the roof on the shop. Though I really enjoy being up on the roof, I didn't enjoy the process of roofing a whole heck of a lot, and

don't think I'll be making a career out of it. I did put in a good number of hours though, and we're finished almost half of the roof. Hopefully it won't rain for a couple days so we can finish

(wishful thinking...).

That's it for today. Tomorrow brings new things...more roofing. I'll look at what I'm drinking before I drink it though.

Images: Getting shingles up onto the roof/posing??

Flashback 2: Cinematic Excellence at the Shack

2009-08-02T13:43:00.004-05:00

This is something else that happened in June, but since it has nothing to do with the shop, it seemed to make the most sense to put it in its own post.

On Friday, June 19th, Raya and I decided to host our cousins Silvie and Micah for a "Shackover". Basically the idea was to spend a night in the unfurnished, empty Shack. This sounded like fun to us. Anyway, one of the things we did (as we often had at other get-togethers) was make a short movie. It turned out to be quite funny, and also include many "features" that the Shack has to offer (such features should also be displayed in a later entry of this blog, I still plan to post a "virtual tour" at some point).

The title of the video is "The Handyman". Plot summary: two sisters have purchased a "character home". They call in a handyman to fix its many problems. Unfortunately, the handyman is subdued by a weird creepy guy, and that creeper wreaks havoc on the sisters.

Enjoy!

Flashback: Initial Yard Clean-Up and the Progress on the Shop So Far.

2009-08-02T12:52:00.004-05:00

Since the process of cleaning up the yard and building the shop began before I decided this blog affair was a good idea, I'm going to reach into my archives (a notebook) and give a brief summary of what work has been done so far.

May 2009: The part of the yard cleanup I found most memorable (besides finding some random interesting objects) was moving large rocks from the backyard (where the previous owners had a pond) to the front, because we had no better place to put them. We used an old wooden wagon that Dad had found on the property. Surprisingly it held up under quite a lot of weight. It was a difficult and rather annoying task, but it had to be done because those rocks were in the way of where we want to put the new house.

June 2009:

8th-12th: The main focus for that week was compacting the gravel where the concrete pad was to go, and beginning to construct wooden forms for the pad. I was not too involved, though I did get to try my hand at the gravel compacters once or twice. Those are heavy machines (of course the 350 [or so] pounder that Dad originally rented apparently wasn't up to the task, so he ended up getting a 1000-pounder).

13th-14th: These two days were dedicated to laying rebar (for those who don't know what I'm talking about, rebar is short for reinforcing bar, and is basically long, thin bars of reinforced steel) on the garage pad. One of my main jobs were gluing holders for rebar onto bases that I had cut with the chop saw. I actually had to do it twice, with two different kinds of glue, because it didn't work the first time. Another fun thing I did was cut a bunch of rebar to size using the reciprocating saw. The vibrations actually caused me to lose feeling in about 1/4 of my left thumb for a few days.

15th: This is the day when I was finally presented with my own key for the Shack. Incidentally, the brand of lock is "Defiant", which is how I felt about moving in. The other Shack memory that day happened at 10:45 PM. Whilst the family was sitting in our living room [still living in the non-Shack at the time], Dad suddenly noticed it was looking like rain, so he stood up and said, "Jonas, come help me lay a 30 x 50 foot tarp over the garage pad!" To this day, I am still not sure where he managed to acquire such a large tarp. Anyway, we drove over to the Shack and pulled out this massive beast of a tarp. It took a long time just to unfold it, then it was rather tricky trying to spread this thing evenly over the garage pad, which at the time was some land forms, a bunch of rebar and an intricate system of red tubing which will eventually become in-floor heating. Eventually the task was complete, and we got home around 11:15. As it was a school night, I of course went straight to bed.

16th: On this day came the repetitive task of clipping the ties that held the aforementioned red tubing to the rebar. There were around 1400 of them, and they all had to be clipped as short as possible, and on that night because the concrete was to be poured at 7:30 the next morning*.

So we worked for about an hour and a half clipping these ties. The tool I was using wasn't exactly friendly. Each clip was a painful experience as it rubbed both my hands raw. The next day my left hand was pretty much covered in blisters. My right hand was okay, with the occasional layer of skin missing. It also seemed that my back would never be the same from bending down so much. A month and a half later, my back is all right, as are my hands. Funny thing. Oh by the way, we also had to put the tarp back over the garage pad when we were done. Bonus.

*The concrete was not actually poured until two days later. Silly contractors. The day the concrete was poured I went with Mom and Raya to join them in scratching our initials into the pad, but it had already hardened a fair bit. What terrible vandals we are.

Due to exams needing to be written, packing needing to get done, etcetera I did not work much more in the month of June.

July 2009:

5th-6th: Upon our return from a trip to Colorado, the concrete had firmly solidified its position in the world, and it was time to strip away the forms. That was mostly what dad had me doing those couple of days. It was rather fun, because basically what I had to do was hack at stuff with a sledgehammer and a crowbar, and then use a cordless drill to take screws out of stuff. It was also rather difficult though, because lots of the screws holding the forms in place didn't want to cooperate. Other than stripping forms, one other useful thing I did in those couple days was organize all the lumber in the yard. That in itself was quite a task. The single funniest memory I can recall happened during a coffee break on the morning of the 6th. Dad and I were sitting in the Shack living room when he noticed there was a cat sitting around in the front yard. I said, "Want me to scare it off?" and he said, "Sure." So I went out to the back, and grabbed a cordless drill, intending to surprise this complacent cat with a little noise. Somewhat unfortunately, just as I was approaching the front yard looking rather menacing with this cordless drill, and clearly eyeing the cat, a woman just happened to walk by the yard on the sidewalk, and was looking at me. I did my best to act natural, and look as though I did not intend on totally drilling that cat right there (which is probably how I looked, though it wasn't actually my intention). She gave me what may be the weirdest look I've ever gotten, and anyone who knows me knows that's saying something.

7th: The frame for the first wall of the shop went up that day, July the 7th. It was a very significant milestone. My main duty was cutting studs with the chop saw (actually, it might technically be a sliding compound mitre saw...but oh well). I felt like I was in a spectator sport, in the middle of a huge concrete pad (that had no walls yet), kneeling by this saw, measuring and cutting wood as efficiently as I could. Sometimes people actually do slow down as they drive by in the back alley, or even stop and just gawk for a couple seconds. It feels a little awkward sometimes.

8th: Did a lot more framing, with both Dad and Raya. This was, I believe, the first time she joined the crew. I mostly did cutting, as I had gotten very good at it the day before. Generally over those couple days I grew to enjoy framing, because it's the point in the process where you can really begin to see what the finished structure is going to look like.

The Winnipeg Folk Festival essentially dominated our lives from the 9th through the 12th. Work recommenced the next week.

13th: One word: trusses. All we did that day was put up roof trusses. It took 4 1/2 hours for myself, Dad and Raya to get 18 of them up, and there were still 2 more to go (which had to be saved for a later day). As more and more trusses got put up, it became trickier and trickier to get the next one in, due to the ever-decreasing space.

15th: The rain subsided long enough to get the last two trusses up. It was a rather difficult affair to negotiate them into a very tight space. In the end it got done though, with no injuries! My nickname even became "Safety Boy" for a brief period of time. This is because for awhile my job was to steady the truss from the ground using a 12-foot 2 x 4 with another piece of wood screwed onto the end to form a bit of a claw. Used properly, it made sure that the truss would not fall over while Dad and Raya lined it up and secured it.

That ended the work on my part (and Raya's) for July, because we were leaving for a previously mentioned service trip to Louisiana. After we got back, the moving process dominated (see the previous blog entry). Today is August 2nd, and it's going to be back to work on the shop now. The next step is putting shingles on the roof.

The Tale of the Move and the First Couple Days in the Shack

2009-08-01T21:26:00.007-05:00

On Tuesday night of this week, Raya and I returned from a volunteer service trip to Louisiana to a house with very little furniture, and not much other stuff that wasn't essential or in boxes. One could tell the moving process was in full swing. Raya slept the night on the floor, and I got to sleep in my bed, though there was no bedding, so I had to use the sleeping bag I had been using for the trip. It was quite a way to spend the final night in the house I had come to love.

Wednesday morning came quickly, and before I knew it I was out of bed hauling boxes to our van and trailer that we'd be using for hauling stuff (who need U-Hauls when you've got the Casket Van?). After driving to the Shack and unloading whatever load it was, I'd sometimes get to ride in the trailer back to the house, much to my mother's chagrin. The biggest problem that day was the off-and-on rain showers. At one point, we were hauling a load of clothes and other such things that shouldn't get wet in the [open-air] trailer, when suddenly the heavens decided

to burst open and send us quite a downpour. Dad put on a burst of speed, and we quickly made the short trip to the Shack, then ran into the partially constructed garage, grabbed one of the many tarps which reside inside and spread it over the trailer. Of course, this one [very thin]

tarp was not enough, and besides, the water was beginning to pool, so dad went and grabbed another rather hardcore one. Using our innovative spirits, and somewhat encouraged by our desire to stay relatively dry ourselves, to prevent pooling we

stood underneath the tarp as it covered the trailer, holing it up like human pillars. (See image on left)

Aside from that, the only real problem the rain posed (and will continue to) is the fact that the window in my bedroom happens to let rain in when open, but is very difficult to close. Oh well!

The tarp adventure proved to be essentially the only major setback, and the day went by quite smoothly with help from friends and relatives. After most of the work was done, supper proved to be an adventure in itself. We ordered four pizzas from Domino's and had 10 people crowded into our very small living/dining room for the meal. It was decided that we probably wouldn't be hosting too many large gatherings of people over the course of our Shack life.

After supper, we proceeded to move the television over to the shack, so that we could watch movies for a couple days (TV service didn't come about until today). After hooking everything up, hanging a couple posters in my room and watching a classic episode of Hogan's Heroes I was about ready for bed. Using a permanent marker I tallied the first "Shack night" on the slanted ceiling above my bed. Being very tired, I then promptly fell asleep.

Waking up in my new bedroom on Thursday morning didn't faze me too much, but stepping out of bed sort of did. Being used to sleeping on a ping-pong table that was about 3 feet off the ground, I was surprised that my feet found the ground much sooner getting out of a "normal" bed. Funny thing. There were a few more things to move over the course of the day, but not too much. Most of the action at the "non-Shack" was centered around cleaning the place up. I participated in a bit of that (vacuuming!!), and also spent much of the day working on the decor in my room. I hammered a few nails into the slanted ceiling causing small showers of drywall dust and hung some 45 rpm records on them. It looks pretty cool. I also hung a few posters, and some 45 rpm records that I had previously framed (I have a lot of them...). A couple good friends of mine helped start the effort of drawing stuff all over my walls in multicoloured permanent markers (thanks again for the markers, Carla!). More and more decorating is happening every day. I must admit, it's pretty fun to live in a house you know is going to be torn down, so you can really do whatever you please to the walls in your room.

On Thursday evening we shared in a delightful family meal around our very small table. Eating soup and homemade biscuits was a relief after living off of pizza and toast for two days.

Friday saw a lot more cleaning of the non-shack, which proved to be incredibly tiring. I recall lying down on the laminate floor in the very-upstairs room with the vacuum cleaner in my hand at one point, very nearly falling asleep. There was one major item to be moved as well, the basketball hoop out back. Fortunately it was not actually rooted into the ground, just on a very large and heavy concrete base. After managing to shoehorn it into the trailer, Dad had to drive the van very carefully, or the hoop would hit the back of the van. This became especially tricky when it was necessary to make a left turn out of the back alley and onto the street. I actually got out of the van and manually guided the net out of the van's path, yelling instructions to Dad such as, "Go, go, STOP! Okay go...". At one point, as we were almost finished the turn, a transit bus suddenly turned onto the street and started bearing down on us, so in the middle of my directions I simply yelled "BUS!". Dad stopped the van and the bus went around us. I sort of waved at the driver, who was probably a little surprised to see this happening. We eventually got to the Shack though, and successfuly got the hoop out of the trailer and onto a new spot of land, right behind the shop.

Today has been a day of pure Shack life, since the non-Shack has now officially changed hands. I went and got Bruce [our dog] from the friend's house where he had been staying during the moving process (moving makes him very nervous). He seemed okay as I brought him to the new home for the first time since our stuff has been in it (he had been in the Shack before we moved in and didn't like it). Currently he is barking loudly at my Dad, who is using a staple gun to secure some cords.

So life is now supposed to settle down, I guess. Not much left to do but settle into a new life in the Shack. And finish building a shop. And then build a house. Okay, it might not be too relaxing after all.

Introduction

2009-07-30T20:12:00.000-05:00

Hello. My name is Jonas Cornelsen. However, if you prefer Josh Cornelson, that's just as well, since that's my Blogspot username. No matter, I'm not here to tell you my name, I'm here to tell the continuing story of what I call the Shack.

We did not always live in the Shack. There was a time, not so long ago, when we lived in a brand new beautiful house that we had built ourselves. We lived there quite happily for almost four years. Here begins the story of the Shack. My father has always been a dreamer, and it appears he is very good at that, because his dreams often come true. The most recent realized vision is the reason you are reading this. One day Dad told me he had made an offer on a house. I didn't think much of it at the time. Dad had made a habit of offering to buy houses. His bids were rarely successful, but I thought even if they were it wasn't as if we'd immediately be moving and building another new house or something. When the purchase was indeed a success, and a few interesting plans were made, I was proved dead wrong.

We took possession of the new house on December 1st, 2008. I got to have a look through it that very same day. I discovered for myself a foundation which was damaged beyond repair, an attached porch with a ceiling so bowed I did not feel safe standing underneath it, a basement whose unappealing atmostphere was magnified by a strong odor, and a power of other things that shocked me. When I spoke to Dad about it, I said something along the lines of, "You can barely even call that a house. It's more of a shack." The nickname stuck, thus the house is now referred to as the Shack. Another thing I said, and made very clear, was that I did not want to move into the shack. Naturally, it was decided that we would be moving into the Shack.

This may not be quite as crazy as it sounds. That is to say, the Shack is not actually going to be our permanent residence. Because the Shack sits very far to one side of a wide property, whilst we are living in it we plan to begin constructing a new house beside it. Once the new house is at least livable, we will move into there, tear down the Shack, and add a bit more onto the new house (build where the Shack used to be). To generate the means to undertake this project we had to sell our other house, which is why we must now live in the Shack instead of building from the comfort of the old place. So this may not be as crazy as I originally made it sound. Sometimes I think it may be crazier.

A new house isn't all that's going up on this property. We've already begun, and gotten quite far in, the process of building a workshop for my Dad's home business (casketmaking...another dream. Check out http://thevillagecasketmaker.com/). Many memories have already been created, along with a concrete pad and some walls. I'll sum up what's been going on there in a later entry of this blog.

That's the situation, in a nutshell. Of course, with such a strange situation comes many entertaining stories, and that's what this "Shack blog" is all about. I welcome your comments, as I am writing for your (the reader's) benefit. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. If not, perhaps you'll enjoy the novel "The Shack" by William Young. I wouldn't know, I haven't read it.