Weekend of 9-10th

Kevin used some free laminate to put down a new floor in the power tower

the mice made short work of some napkins and dishclothes they managed to get to. 

The Shingle Best Weekend of 2012

How many puns can people make using the words shingle and shake? About as many as the hundreds of nails that were used to put up the shingle siding on the power tower!

In addition to the many bad puns our long weekend also featured

 trampolining

swimming

 boobytrap

and nature bingo!

ready to take the plunge

getting crafty!

We also had lots of neighbours and visitors coming to check out our progress. I am getting quite practised at our '7l cabin tour.' If I had to summarize the things I emphasized most about our building journey they were:

• Start with things you love. In our case, it was the land first, then the windows which we built the house around.
• Find some common ground that will shape your decisions.
• Create a good base camp
• Enjoy the process!

Big thanks to Mike, John, Maddy and Blake and our land partner Bill who brought the beautiful cedar shakes from Vancouver island,

Synchronized swimming and the beginning of the end of the scaffolding!

Another lovely weekend for Halkett Bay Builders!

Mike and Ralphie on the roof and breezeway

Maddy finishing the painting the window sills brown

We put our salvaged corplast on the east wall of the power tower. Now both sides of the tower have a nice diffused light during the day and a great glow at night.

and we got started on the siding for the power tower

What's missing from this picture? Scaffolding!! Sometimes taking something down feels like almost as big a deal as building something up! Taking down the scaffolding off the west wall of the cabin felt like a HUGE step forward!

And we still had time for fun and leisure

Lora studying to be our tree expert

Lunch time!

Lora and Kevin practising for the Halkett Bay Synchronized Swim Club!

What a fun and satisfying weekend!

Big thank yous to Mike, Maddy, Lora and her amazing gazpacho, Alex for coming over to finish his Chinese checkers game, Mother Nature and/or global warming for the amazing lightening light show.

About the Solar Power Tower

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

August long weekend

What a satisfying long weekend we had! After lots of prep work we were finally able to make some visible strides. Joists on the platform! Stairs on the power tower! Lots of drilling and sawing opportunities!

Highlights & Milestones: Scaffolding
Joists installed (that's what the floor will sit on)
Stairs (and not just any stairs) on the power tower (see all the photos in the solar power tower photo album)
The hammock
Spontaenous sing-alongs to Jesus Christ Superstar songs


Our big gratitude to this weeks Righteous Building Brigade: Nugent, Mike, Jordana, Maddy, and Cath for fabulous food.

From Late July

Here is a photo history of the powertower:

late July

Another very productive weekend at the land with all thanks to our friends Yael, Birgitte, Maddy and 'the other Kevin.' The rain mostly stayed away and miracle of miracles, our fridge started working again! Eric brought his miracle excavator machine and we buried the septic pipe as well as lines for electrical and water and also adjusted the angle to ensure everything will flow properly. In the process, we made a better approach to what will be the front of the house, and moved a massive rock onto our rock garden area for a perfect bench. And we all got to be Eric's ditch bitch! It was good to get this done before the excavator leaves the island.

Maddy, Yael and Nugent sucked up far too many fumes laying the vinyl flooring for the power tower deck. The flooring will make the area below it water-proof, and useable for tools. More importantly, now that the decking is on, we can put in the rails for the power tower, which is a safety priority. Finding information about waterproof decking options was probaby my most trickiest internet research yet. One option we considered was EPDM, which does seem to be slightly better than vinyl although I'm still not sure why. Natural and water-resistent coatings seem very rare. However EPDM does have to be covered with something else, and that wasn't something we'd factured in when we built the power tower, so we would have had to modify the door. We are going to go with EPDM for the flat room portion of the cabin however. There were some roll-on products too, but we didn't find much information about the long-term durability of those.

The stair committee (Birgitte, Yael, Kevin and Sonja) worked out a nice stair design & gave us all a new appreciation of such an ordinary everyday feature of our lives! We were making progress too until time and screws ran out. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of Yael's glue messages on each stair. I'll think of you everytime I step on the fourth step! The stairs are another safety priority, since lots of people aren't comfortable on the existing ladder.

Lots of baby deer & squirrels & some post-rain slugs. Also two sizes/colours of garter snake.

Highlights/Accomplishments

• Yael's Smores
• Maddy's grilled vegetable sandwiches & potato soup
• The wet boat ride
• The excavator at work
• The resurrection of the fridge for unknown reasons
• The flashing and decking on the power tower
• The septic, electric and water pipes to the house laid
• Cool new rock bench
• Birgitte & the rock drill

From Late July

Power Tower Foundation

The foundation for the solar "power tower" is finally finished!