Inspiration

What inspires me?

Seeing nice work that others have done… like the wood carvings at Barclay's. That was very inspirational for me.



Where do we get our ideas from?

Often we get ideas from nature.  The sun has been an inspiration to many artists.

Sometimes we look at one thing and see something else.

But basically we are all a bunch of copycats.

We see something someone else has done and think… why not do it this way?

We draw on all of life's experiences in everything we undertake.

After seeing this incredible piece of wood carving I got to thinking how I might do it in stone?  Maybe white quartz rays on a background of sandstone… with black pebbles around the face… and at the end of the rays.

I found myself sitting at my desk yesterday doodling in my day-timer.

It's just a quick sketch, but I have a vision of making a design like this on a rock wall on our house.  I found myself thinking about in the night when I should have been sleeping… then later in the day I sketched it out.

If it ever does happen, I will do a lot more planning… select the right rock colours and other elements.  But that is how things get started and soon one thing leads to another.  It will be fun to see if this idea will get the thumbs up.

Speaking of creative rock work this wall blew me away.  We were looking for a store… KMS tools… when we stumbled upon this retaining wall on Old Island Highway in Victoria.

This is not the everyday Department of Highways retaining wall.

A lot of planning and thought went into building this wall.  I found myself inspired by this amazing design.

As you can see, this is beautiful work.  If you have few minutes check out their website.

This is the kind of work that inspires me!

Family Traditions

There are several family traditions around here... and they vary from one season to another. Our Friday evening tradition seems to work better in the late fall and winter when the sun goes down earlier.

... and when artichokes are in season.  I just love it when Shirley pulls out all the stops.

Complete with white tablecloth, candles and grape juice.

I like to have mayonnaise with mine...

Shirley prefers to dip hers into butter.

And if our life is not too wound up and Shirley has the time it is always a special treat to have fresh home baked cinnamon buns or Challah. What a great beginning for the Sabbath.

One of my favourite parts from Fiddler on the Roof is this song "Tradition."



A couple other traditions that come to mind is our daughter's tradition to post her Grateful List on her blog every Friday night.  We always love to check it out and see how her week went.  It is a great tradition! ...and she has been doing it for several years now.

Our tenant Chris has a tradition of taking a photo every evening of the sunset from our place.  He has been here almost exactly a year now and he still finds inspiration in taking the time to walk out the viewpoint where we have a bench between our house and his cottage and capture yet another sunset.

This one was taken October 29... a few days ago... and between Shirley and me we have well over a thousand sunsets... and no two ever alike.

"Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world." -Susan Lieberman

Construction Update September 2, 2011

As I was putting my tools away the sunset on Friday evening begged me to grab my camera and capture this moment.  It has been a really good week with lots of progress on the project.

The black hole in the garage wall is a hole I cut earlier in the week at the exact spot where the major beam goes into the workshop.  I then ran a string at the correct height between the garage and house and squared the new building at approximately 92 inches above garage floor... which is where the bottom of the main beam will rest.  I had to trim off a few rebars that were too high so the beam can set on the top of the concrete.  When I squared the building I was able to confirm that the distance between the beams was 22'  8" outside to outside in the main area where there is no cantilever sections.  This gave me great comfort, as I had ordered the LVL laminated beams and truss joists... and for the most part they are going to come 23 feet... and I can then trim them to fit.

When we first conceived expanding the studio over a part of the garage, we thought we would have metal or a wooden posts to hold everything up.  But after talking to engineers about the project, Brian, my friend in Phoenix suggested I consider a concrete post with rebar inside.  As this soon became the most advantageous system we forged ahead with it.  But when I went to put the rebar cage into the hole I first realized that there was less than 8 inches between the overhead door tracks on each side of the common wall.  Once I removed a section of the wall it became very clear that I could not run an 18" or even a 13" concrete post between those overhead door tracks.  So in consultation with Ritchie Smith, my engineer, we came up with a modification at the top.  It meant bending the 5/8" rebars near to the top and making a notch in the post for the door tracks.  These are things that come up that one never imagined would be a problem.  Hence, I am making the concrete post a full 18" of concrete up to the bottom of the overhead door tracks.  The whole place may fall down, but this post is huge and has a great foundation.

Friday Shirley made a gravel run for me... and I hope that will finish off the concrete stage.  Along with the Navy Jack she brought another six bags of cement... which brings our total to date to 50 bags, if I use all that I have recently purchased.  So far 32 bags have been used.

If you look closely behind the bags of cement there is the 18" x 18" form for column #1 in the garage.  We poured the bottom half, up to the cleat on the form this past Tuesday... and today I added the top half without stripping off the bottom... and we will put concrete in the balance on Sunday.  It will not be easy to get this one done since I have to work between the existing trusses in the garage.

You can see column #2 in the background.  We also poured concrete up to 6" above grade on Tuesday.  This is the rock ledge height for this column.  From here to the top the concrete will be 13" square, leaving me 2.5" for rock facing.

We also poured the bottom part of the column #4 on Tuesday, which matches #3 for height to rock ledge.

On Thursday when I was excavating for #6 (the stair foundation) I dumped three loads of dirt removed from there into #2.  I then had Shirley come with a garden hose and I brought several loads of fill dirt that I had stock piled and we completely backfilled #2.  I doubt there will be much settling as Shirley really soaked it good and I threw in lots of rocks.  Does it ever feel good to have that huge excavation backfilled... and we even dressed the top with crusher chips... my favourite road and yard gravel topping.

Again you can see a yellow string at the top of the columns... this is part of the squaring the building exercise.  The laser level on the tripod makes finding the correct height of the column pretty easy

It won't take much to backfill #4 on Sunday.  We developed a good solution to prevent settling of the driveway, which has some serious undercuts to fill in.  We found using between 1 to 1.5 shovels of cement to 15 shovels of dirt and rock makes a very solid backfill... with no shrinkage.  It worked really good on #3 the week before.

No. 3 was about 40 inches of backfill and using the reduced cement formula in a soupy mix not only filled in all the cavities, but there has been no noticeable shrinkage.

The nice pile of gravel in the background will go into foundation #5 and #6... plus the tops of the columns... and then we are done with concrete.

I finished forming the walls of the foundation in #6 this week and by Sunday evening I hope this will have concrete in it.  The cross bracing looks kind of honky... but with only one side formed with plywood and the other side dirt walls, I had to come up with some way to keep the walls straight under the pressure of concrete.

Foundation #6 is for the stairs and the wall adjacent to the house that will support the second story walls and roof rafters.

I removed a few more boards of siding in two places this week... where 3" x 8" posts will go to carry the wall and roof load.

Each rebar that attached to existing house has epoxy in the hole.  Two horizontal footing bars... and two vertical foundation bars.

I took half a dozen photos of this footing and foundation preparations and emailed them to my engineer... hoping to hear back with a green light so I can pour concrete footing here this weekend.  My concrete mixing helper goes back to school after the weekend.

The last one... #7 foundation for the pantry came out really good.  My careful cutting of plywood to follow the contours of the pavement payed off.  My home made anchor blots worked out just fine.  I am now ready to set up the floor joists... but I still await another quote so that I can decide who will be supplying the lumber and plywood.

This coming week on September 8 we are scheduled to get delivery of the beams and TGI's.  It will be interesting to see if they can be delivered on schedule. Soon or very soon we will be done with concrete and on to bigger and better things... but without a good foundation the rest would be in vain.

I enjoy telling people that this house was built according to the Bible... it has been built on the solid rock!  ...and we have cut no corners on the excavation, concrete or steel.  So we expect that our new addition is designed to withstand the high winds, heavy snow load and even earthquakes, if they should happen.  Fortunately we do not get hurricanes here... even though some days it sure feels like it!

But I did talk to a lady at the stock brokers office this week who said her name was Irene.  I jokingly asked her if she got much abuse because of the hurricane last weekend... and she said she sure did... it comes with the territory.

My End of the Week Grateful List

After a week with very few sunsets, several snow storms, twice with hail... we were grateful to see even a modest sunset Friday evening.  I kick myself for not taking any photos of the snow this week, which melted almost immediately upon falling.

I am always grateful for the opportunity to be able to do rock work... and this week I was able to work outside four afternoons and complete facing some ugly concrete sono-tube post foundations for our sun deck. Again I regret not taking photos of the work in progress, but I took footings that looked like this...

and made faced them with sandstone to hid the round concrete footing.  It bothered me that the post did not sit in the center of the round foundation, so I cut part of the front edge off before applying the rock.

Here you can see all three posts that I did.  The rock curb in front will contain a planter with soil that will fill up the base of the middle post footing.  It was one of those fiddly little jobs that take a crazy amount of time to produce such a small area of rock facing.

This is my neighbour Jack's driveway off Heck Hill... where I have re-shaped it so the water now runs off it into the ditch instead of all coming across the intersection.

I am grateful to have a sweetheart who isn't afraid to drive our truck with a load of gravel... and this week brought two more loads back from Victoria for this driveway.

I have been keeping an eye on our neighbours place... Jack still lives mostly in Bermuda.  This week the  ramp onto the front step was replaced by a couple of small steps.  Later Jack plans to have a larger landing/step that will sit on the concrete house foundation and hide it.

Update on the Artichoke War... we are grateful for a victory!  Shirley picked up artichokes again this week at SaveOn Foods and at last the price has been changed... now $1.99 for the smaller artichokes... but not for the grand size that is in this photo!

We are grateful to have our son Shelby and family home for the long weekend.  Monday is Family Day here in Canada... except in Prince Edward Island it is called "Islander Day."  Check it out.  I like that... I think we could call it Islander Day too, don't you?

I am grateful for my daughter Sherilee and her faithfulness in consistently posting her Friday Night Grateful Moment every week.  I always look forward to reading it.

"Its funny that those things your kids did that got on your nerves seem so cute when your grandchildren do them."

Sunset from the Top of the World

On Thursday afternoon as we travelled over the Coquahalla Highway to Kelowna the sun was setting as we approached Sunset Main.  I have always told Shirley when we pass thru that part of the highway we are riding on one of the high places of the world. It was too magnificent not to stop and capture the moment.

I drove most of the way between Sunset Main and the Penaske Summit looking out the side window at the sunset and not much at the road.  It was just so beautiful we had to stop again to take more photos.

"Today I saw a red and yellow sunset and thought, how insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday too, and it rained." -Woody Allen

As we started to head off the Penaske Summit I was still looking in the rear view mirror at the sunset.  I could not resist just one more photo opportunity.

"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator." -Mohandas Gandhi

"If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God." -Gilbert K. Chesterton