RESHAPING THE HOUSE

TWO OVERLAPPING PROJECTS: As I am the only continual occupant, three bedrooms are one too many. On the upper level, there were two bedrooms on the East end. The task has been to turn these into just one large room. Separating the two were a large built-in wardrobe and a storage closet. These formed part of the original structure and one partition supported the roof trusses. I had little compunction about removing these as I am adverse to doors and walls within a home. Usually, there is just me about so privacy within the house is irrelevant.

There was quite a bit of work involved and for the final stages, my contractor gave assistance. Anyway, I plugged away at it most days for most of the day. This is what it looked like at the midpoint of demolition. Prior to this, while working on the attic ventilation, the contractor (Daniel) strengthened the roof trusses so these would not need the support of the partition between the rooms. This view to the South. One reason I purchased this house is that it has a full Winter exposure to the sun, which (here in the Northern Hemisphere), gets closer to the southern horizon between the Winter equinox and solstice.

The reason for this is to take full advantage of passive solar heating between the Autumn and Spring equinoxes. The next pic shows the 'demo' work near the end. You can see the window in the wall facing South. This is to be replaced by a taller window and 6 foot (1.83 metres) sliding patio door opening onto the deck. The present deck will be extended across the width of the southern wall, covering a potting room and lower entrance that will be opened to the laundry room. A little more sunlight will enter this room than into the kitchen/breakfast room section, but the whole thing will be nearly symmetrical about the mid-North-South axis.

Presently, all that needs to be done in this new room is finishing drywall repair to the wall and ceiling. I will wait for the completion of the window and door work before doing this. When completed, it will be great to be able to walk right out onto the deck and catch the warming sun.

All this will allow heat and light to enter the southern rooms. At night this will have to be conserved, since windows are about as good as letting heat out as in, so I will use the lumber from this demolition to construct insulating shutters to cover the windows at night. There is an equivalent of about 18 windows around the house, so this will take a bit of work and I might not get it all done. We shall see.

Yesterday, the work began preparing the foundation area for the potting room and the deck extension. This is how it looked at the start of the day. You can see my little garden. So far, six zucchini, one cucumber, and the promise of a dozen tomatoes. Lumber from the bedroom 'demo' is stacked under the present deck. On Wednesday of this week, I disassembled the external stair. The next day the Bobcat arrived on its flat bed and was unloaded.

And yesterday they got to work; here we go! Lots of interesting stuff came out, bits of the previous house which had a gas leak in the basement back in 1972 or so and exploded, as well as a lot of rubble which looks like ceramic moulds for casting glass ware.

I now have a big hole in the back yard. The laundry window you see in the lower left will become a door, opening into the potting room. Rear entry will be into this room below the deck via descending stairs. The deck will get a new stairway leading up to a bridging section between the two decks. I plan to use this room particularly in the Spring to bring on early plantings. The floor will have radiant heat available on demand so should be a good place in which to work.

We think about three weeks to complete all this work. Further work will relate to making the living room and kitchen/eating area into one space, as with the bedrooms. Whether I can attempt this prior to going back to Australia for two or so months, mid-October, I am not sure. The main concern is to get the house ready for Winter. I will offer short postings so you can follow the work. This will mostly complete work that I cannot easily do myself. The rest will be up to me.

On the energy conservation front, focus is on upgrading the heating/hot water side. The house has hot water driven baseboard heaters. The current boilers will be replaced by a high efficiency combined system. With passive solar heating and nocturnal heat conservation, I hope for really low winter energy bills. Waiting for my natural gas supplier to come up with the research on this.
I hope you keep on watching this space.

TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP

TWO AGENDA DRIVE the house project currently. First, make the house into my home; making it work for me. Secondly, optimize the fit of the house to the environment. Mostly, I am following these principles in parallel.

MAKING THE HOUSE WORK FOR ME: this house was built in the early 1970s for two aging parents and perhaps one resident adult child, with room for three other grown children visiting from time to time. It has three bedrooms, two in the upper level and one in the lower. with two full bathrooms. The kitchen/dining room opens onto a large deck (with rather rickety railings), steps going down to the rear yard. Also in the lower level are the laundry and a recreational room. This is the only rear entrance. The garden consists of lawn and a few shrubs. When I purchased the house, it lacked a garage or a garden shed. My first action was to purchase a garden shed and site it on a concrete pad just off the rear lane. I got this from a local Amish company that makes rather good sheds at a very good price. I have no clue what the pad was previously for but it takes the shed and my car very nicely.

The roof/attic was poorly ventilated and, consequently, ran very hot on summer days. So the next task was to have a contractor install a proper ridge-cap and soffit ventilation system. I also got him to paint the roof with a special highly reflective white paint specifically designed for composite roofs (very expensive at about $80 per gallon). My roof is in good condition and took less paint to do the job than estimated. This makes the attic space, and therefore the house interior, now much cooler and will extend the life of the roof by about ten years. Here you see the front roof partly painted.

In the next posting, I will tell about the plans for the bedrooms and extending the rear deck. These will convert the house from a family home to a bachelor's abode.

MY HOUSE AND MY RELIGION

WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?  Well might you ask.  Can there be a connection between a house and faith.  We are not talking here about how to get to one's place of worship from one's house. Since we all know, even at a superficial level, what a house is, let's look at what 'religion' might be.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of religion.  Never talk about religion and politics, some say.  Did you know that there is no word corresponding to 'religion' in the Chinese language?  We get the word from the Latin language, where it had the meaning of the degree of commitment or devotion we display toward our most important interests.  Today, for example, we can still say that a person who is devoted to fitness attends the gymnasium 'religiously'.  Religion is about values and principles.  This can find expression in spiritual practices.  Currently, I am thinking about this in my other Blog.

I am one of those who never really settled down.  By the time I started High School, I had lived in six houses, about one house per each two years.  After my four years in theology school, I averaged one house per each three years, except for one period of thirteen years prior to my first divorce, and another period of eleven years prior to my second divorce, the first long stretch bring in Adelaide (South Australia) and the second in Portland (Oregon).  You might say that I had very little commitment to any house.

Approaching the final quarter of my life, I have given a lot of thought to the home that would be just my own.  As some of you know, I had thought to build one...a very small house of perhaps 750 square feet.

Here some of the principles or themes I have taken up as important for my life, to be expressed in my physical home:

• I can access places of beauty and interest easily
• Essential services related to shopping, medical care, and recreation can be accessed without reliance on motor transport
• The location will encourage walking and cycling
• The house will be energy efficient, particularly in the cold months
• It will not be large and it will inhibit the collection of things
• The house structure will assist sustainability
• It will be located in a small community, able to sustain itself should the economic going gets tough
• It will facilitate, even require, continual effort and work, especially gardening and carpentry
• It will constitute the framework for a healthy, active, and demanding lifestyle
• It will have neighbors
• It will always have room for family and friends who wish to visit.

I am sure there are some others.  However, you can use these to test the religion I bring to bear as I pursue my dreams of home.

HERE IS THE BEGINNING HOUSE

So, folks, this is the house. As you can see, surrounded by lots and lots of lawn. It is a split level ranch style structure. In a moment, I will show you the rear view.

This how it was when I found it. The front faces to the North. The two windows on the left of the picture look out from one of the two bedrooms on the east side. The other looks into the back yard. On the west side, we have the window of the living room. Behind is the kitchen/breakfast room. Between the kitchen and the rear bedroom is a bathroom.

Entering through the front door, on the left a short staircase leads to the lower level while the right hand stairs ascent to the entrance of the kitchen and also the living room. Taking the stairs down, one enters a short passageway. A second bathroom is to the left front and, on the right front, is the utility room. Turning right takes you to a large recreation room running the width of the house. Going to the left leads to a third bedroom at the front and a laundry room to the rear. So there you have it...three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a recreation room, and a large laundry. Way too much house for me.

Quite by accident, I discovered the house during my first serious week of house hunting. It wasn't on my list. This bit of Corning is a little 'higgle-piggly' and my GPS has fallen from its attachment to the windscreen. I turned into Sterling Street and there, up ahead on the right, I spied a For Sale sign. Cruising by, there it sat, well back from the footpath, surrounded by lawn, on the largest block in the street. This how the house looked from the rear alley.

The yard cried out to me...'Help, make me into a beautiful garden.'

I had to see inside.

Which I did that very day. I fell in love with the possibilities it offered me. Structurally, it is very sound, so not quite the fixer upper. Nonetheless, lots of work and creativity lie ahead.

It has an interesting history. Built in 1973, it is at least a hundred years younger than the surrounding homes. The former house may have been one of the farm houses. It may have been quite large. However, soon after the Great Corning Flood of 1972, a catastrophic gas leak led to the house exploding. By this time the four children had pretty much grown up and a more modest home was built for their parents. First their father died and then, some two years back, so did their mother.

When I saw it, the house had not been lived in for two years. But I have dreams for it.