Friday, October 14, 2011

Thanksgiving at Halkett Bay

Here's how you have Thanksgiving Dinner Halkett Bay style:
First you build the kitchen

IK2 (interim kitchen #2) was set up in a few hours while the turkey was soaking in brine. You can see a video of the stove moving here https://picasaweb.google.com/WaylonFrederick/October122011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMr0uczNkKeBpQE#5662861663197560306 (Geek note -- why doesn't Blogger let me embed my picasa videos when they're the same company?) By the time the turkey was ready to go the stove was set up and I did some of the rest of my prep while power tools and a great work crew of  Kevin, Waylon and Mike kept me company. It was my first time cooking a turkey on a BBQ and my first time cooking it breast side down, not to mention having the kitchen built around me but amazingly IK2 and dinner all came off without a hitch.

IK2 uses what will be our permanent kitchen which we bought off craigslist last year so even doing the dishes was a new experience. What an amazing Thanksgiving! Even the weather cooperated!
Lots more photos here. Thanks Waylon for the great pictures

https://picasaweb.google.com/WaylonFrederick/October122011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMr0uczNkKeBpQE

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Building lessons

It was very hard to drill holes in the side of the plywood we so lovingly screwed on, but this is to ventilate the insulation in the event it does get wet. As I drilled I contemplated zen like on this building lesson: what gets must be able to to get out.

Friday, August 19, 2011

July/August 2011

This summer is going by faster and slower than we anticipated. Putting on the siding was tremendously satisfying, as was the first pee in the newly installed toilet. (But I think I will actually miss that long walk/run up to the toilet shack.) We had a grand vision of getting it all done in one shot but we did manage to get the guest cabin mostly done and it's beautiful. The closer we get from idea to thing the more amazed I am at what we've accomplished, even though sometimes it feels like we'll never be finished.

I realized how negligent I've been in the photo department when I looked at Maddy's beautiful pictures of the island this summer. She's not only a great friend and builder, but she's been our chief documenter as well.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

OMG double rainbow!

A rainy weekend with amazing rainbows and very satisfying progress on the guest cabin roof. 
It was very pleasant to come up and find everything so clean and organized thanks to the hard work of Pere and Didi. 
and the warm fireplace kept everyone cozy when the rain got too much
I took some photos of the disc golf course 
and hope to post a photo guide to the course sometime soon. In the meantime you can see more photos on our picasa photo album. 


summer2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

About the Solar Power Tower



a short film I made about the building of the power tower

Monday, June 27, 2011

Big progress, bocce and brownies to die for


A great weekend at Gambier with many thanks to Louise, Sean & Mike for great food, good progress and bocce mania.

We invited a new term: "real-time design" for some of the modifications and adjustments that get made along the way. Installing the window on the second floor was a perfect 3.0 -- e.g. the third time we tried to complete this aspect of the building. The first time we got the measurements wrong, the second time we got the measurements for a sliding door (which we didn't yet have) right but decided to use a window (which we did have) instead. The many discussions around this reminded me again that the 'logical' criteria in our design philosophy is almost entirely subjective! Maybe logic is the thing that balances out all of the other values, the simplest path to meeting the most needs. Anyhow, we used a window we had left over and we didn't have to buy a door and we rebuilt the wall so we wouldn't drive ourselves crazy with wishing, years from now, that we'd taken the time to do it right the first time.
So that's logical right?

The geek in me was helpless to resist the animation possibilities of these two photos of Sean. It would be smoother if I did it in Photoshop but not bad for the first animation generator I googled. Click on the picture to see it in action.

From Jun 2011

In addition to the installation of the window we did a lot of tidying and sweeping in a space that everyday is feeling less like an idea and more like a real cabin. We had music on the deck for the first time thanks to the sweet sound system Louise brought. Mike made brownies with a cream cheese filling from his cooking muse, Nigella Lawson, and she did inspire him to greatness. The weekend was all about keeping the carnivores happy: Sean brought the bbq to life with some amazing juicy burgers and Saturday night we went Ukrainian with sausage and perogies. 

The daisies are out


From Jun 2011

and the weather on the ride back was fantastic! Thanks again everyone for a rockin' weekend!

Monday, June 20, 2011

June report

From Jun 2011
From Jun 2011
This past weekend was frustrating and lovely all at the same time. K spent time on the mill working to cut the facia that will go around the cabin but unfortunately the chainsaw gave him some trouble.

Last week's addition of the french doors has really made it possible to see what the cabin will look like in its finished state. We also made some design decisions that have been hanging over our heads for a while including the roof of the guest cabin (same as main roof) the layout of the kitchen and the upstairs loft space.


From Jun 2011
The bird nests from the past few weeks all seem to be empty but the squirrels and woodpeckers are out in full force. Also spotted a medium sized pale brown spotted frog in the pond for the first time.

Bear rumours are starting to swirl around the island again, but so far no definitive sightings (thank goodness!)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Building season in full swing on the island



Lots of building going on at Halkett Bay. While we build our cabin, the birds have set up a condo development below! Act now little birds, these units are filling up fast!

Meanwhile, I've been working on renovating the blog a little, adding some more photos, tags and a popular posts feature. You can now follow us by e-mail and share posts through Facebook.

Windows


Since nearly all the windows are now installed, it seemed like a good time to give the 7L breakdown on this part of the project:

Loveable liveable and logical Because we were building from scratch, we bought windows we loved first, and designed our cabin around them. All windows are from salvaged construction projects, which covers low-cost, local and low-impact and we bought only wood or metal framed double-glazed windows so that our windows will be long-lasting and gets lots o' use which I feel is an acceptable variation on lots of uses.


  1. Logical
  2. Light / Low-Impact
  3. Liveable/Loveable
  4. Low-cost
  5. Long Lasting
  6. Lots o 'uses
  7. Local

a blog about 1 cabin and 7 ideas

local / logical / lots of uses / long lasting / low impact / low cost /loveable

Big thanks to everyone!

Help Gambier Island

Gambier Island is facing numerous environmental threats at the moment when we are seeing a rebirth of wildlife. Wolves, whales, owls and more, all around us we see evidence of an eco-system on the rebound. But that resurgence is threatened by plans to allow clear-cutting, develop LNG plants, sink warships.