Category: The Trades
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Getting Up, Dusting Off, Moving On
Apparently, to my chagrin, there is a limit to the number of balls I can keep in the air without running around like a chicken with my head cut off or forgoing sleep altogether. New blog entries and housecleaning fell hard and fast off the virtual priority list. But it has been an intense and… 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
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Birthing an Opus, One Stone at a Time
I love this article from The New York Times on Clark Sanders, a former veterinarian and longtime builder in the Catskills of New York. He builds gorgeous strawbale homes and buildings and hand-built his personal residence, which resembles a fairy-tale cottage, stone by stone from materials found on his land. I challenge you not to… Read more
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Fire in the Hole
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly on fire but I was in a hole and it was well over 40 degrees with humidity. That hole is the crawl space below my front porch deck which, of course, needed to be stripped out and, of course needed to be almost entirely rebuilt. It was my window of… Read more
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The Irony of Knowledge & Skill Development
For the past few weeks I’ve been fashioning a built in wall-to-wall headboard/storage frame in our master bedroom. It has been a zero cost project as I’ve used leftover framing and reclaimed finish materials from other projects around the house. It’s good to see these piles shrink and to see my creation near completion. It’s… Read more
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Road Trip!
Drove. Photographed. Gawked. Book shopped. Looked at architecture. Ate. Sat next to Bruce. Talked about God, income tax and Libertarianism. Ate chocolate. Met Robin. Amazing tile samples migrated to the trunk of my car. Met Tedd Benson. Met some of Tedd’s fantastic team. Talked. Toured. Talked some more. Exchanged books. This one too. Left buzzing… Read more
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Building Model: Bensonwood Homes
According to New Hampshire builder Tedd Benson of Bensonwood Homes “we have a crisis of entanglement in our buildings.” In this 2010 video presentation to the College of the Atlantic, Benson discusses his Open-Built® Strategy for creating sustainable housing, and other buildings, that he expects to last several hundred years. Thanks to Andy C at… Read more
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Nowhere to Go But Up
I am always left a little breathless when Mr. Fredericksson’s house lifts into the air with the aid of a million or so jellybean-coloured balloons. Read more
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Un-Done
Just as some guys don’t remove their facial hair during hockey playoffs, I decided not to wash my work jeans until my final energy audit was complete. Like a talisman, I slipped on those pants day after day – ragged, stained and holey – until they could almost walk by themselves. Today they’re headed for… Read more
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The Trades As Art
Somewhere in the mid-20th century working with one’s hands lost its caché. As machines produced more and people less, it became déclassé to work as a tradesperson; the trades became a perceived dumping ground for those who lacked the capacity to reach a higher socio-economic level. About the same time, a great many people were… Read more