Category: Bricks & Mortar
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How Did You Find Your Dream House?
ser·en·dip·i·ty/ˌserənˈdipitē/ Noun: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way: “a fortunate stroke of serendipity”. – Merriam-Webster We never did look at another house. We were driving ever so slowly through the tiny rural village when we saw the real estate For Sale sign on the front lawn.… Read more
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SacredSpaces: Vedic Verses on the Mystical Rites of House Consecration
FROM THE VEDAS Reproduced with permission from Hinduism Today The building of a house, or even any transaction concerning it, is not just a matter of masonry or of business. It is in both instances a liturgical act, in which human lives as well as the powers above and below are involved. A house is… Read more
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Shelter from the Storm
Fear. Mental illness. Apocalyptic visions. It’s so hard to tell the difference between them these days. In Take Shelter, Curtis, a young husband and father from the midwest, obsesses about building out his underground storm shelter. Times are tough, jobs are in short supply, and families teeter on the edge of survival. Not a great… Read more
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Living Inside the Belly of a Whale
A Thule Whalebone House, circa 1,000 a.d. “One thousand years ago, a group of people began a trek across the far north, up above the Arctic Circle. They were following the bowhead whales that they hunted for food. The whales gave them other things as well. The whale bones were the building materials for remarkable… Read more
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This is the House That Jack Built
A morality tale from 1967 that is, sadly, equally relevant today. Forty-four years have passed and the enormous difference between then and now is the accrued environmental and sociological damage as the world chases the (frequently unsatisfactory) “American Dream”. oehttp://www.nfb.ca/film/the_house_that_jack_built Read more
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A Tale of Two Hotels – The Drake (Part 2)
We checked out of the Gladstone, Husband headed to the financial district, and I strolled down Queen Street to the Drake Hotel. I didn’t want to leave the area without getting, at the very least, a cursory look at the Gladstone’s kissing cousin. The building began its life in 1890 as Small’s Hotel, catering to… Read more
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Creative Houses From Recycled Materials
He builds new homes using 70 to 80% recycled materials. As he describes it “I feature blemish. I feature organic process.” Read more
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Grand Opening of New Algonquin College Campus, Perth, ON
It was great to attend the grand opening of the new Algonquin College campus this past week. I graduated last year from the Advanced Housing – Construction Carpentry program and was not sorry to see the old campus torn down. It was never meant to be a permanent building, it had been band-aided to death… Read more