The basement bathroom has no window to the outside, so we framed two openings at the top of the wall to install some of those used glass blocks I bought off Craigslist about three years ago. (I installed glass block sidelites by the front door and learned a few things.) I read in a popular home decor magazine that glass block is no longer trendy, but I don’t care. I love the light effects day and night, inside and out, and the slightly green/turquoise tint.

1. We lined the opening with painted wood. A plastic floor guide was screwed into the bottom of the frame.

2. The blocks have been stored outdoors, so needed scrubbing to clean off the old paint or mortar and leaves, etc.

3. Special glass block mortar mix

4. When mixing this fine, corrosive powder, wear a mask and use gloves. This is the main lesson I learned from last time – don’t use bare fingers, because your hands will suffer all sorts of injury/pain.

5. Add acrylic (Weldbond glue) to the water to increase strength and adhesion.

6. Add liquid to powder (about 1:5). Mix thoroughly.

7. Our mortar mix had absorbed some humidity over time, so the hard lumps had to be removed and discarded.

8. The right consistency is dry-looking, and falls off the trowel in one big lump.

9. Gloves, tools, equipment are cleaned in a bucket. Mortar mix in your sink will harden and plug the drain eventually. Bucket dumped outside when done.

10. Apply the mortar in a generous layer on the bottom and sides of the opening, Then, “butter” the glass block itself before placing it into position.

11. The mortar wants to slide off the block, so I use the trowel and my fingers to push it firmly into the spaces. This is messy work, with lots of mortar falling to the floor and getting on every nearby surface.

12. Once the block and mortar is in place, check level and plumb. Make adjustments where necessary. I used some plastic spacers as “convincers.”

13. I used blue masking tape as an edge guide on the inside. It kept the painted wood clean, too.

14. Brick ties nailed onto sides to strengthen the row.

15. After a couple of hours, clean excess mortar and smooth joints with a well-squeezed mason’s sponge. Rinse sponge often, and buff with a soft dry cloth.

The end result

(Thanks to Tess for assistance with photos.)

And, an add-on: I have trimmed the openings with wood and paint. It looks much better, don’tcha think?

Outside trim

Wood trim inside

I picked up on this quote while reading a very popular blog, Young House Love:

“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone,that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor, and wrought substance of them, See! This our father did for us.”  – John Ruskin

I do not assume that any of our own children will live in this house, but I see this as advice to build for future generations, with long-lasting methods and materials that will not fall apart or rot within a few years. Again, I think of the book, “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. It’s a fascinating look at what would happen if all humans were suddenly not here on this earth. Within hours, without humans to control our built environment, systems would break down and there would be floods and other disasters. Certain materials (stone, ceramic, concrete) will last through millenia.

And, while we’re on this theme of building forever, this Patrick Watson (and the Cinematic Orchestra) song, introduced to me by our eldest son, comes to mind:

To Build a Home

There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls and window sills
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust
This is a place where I don’t feel alone
This is a place where I call my home

And I built a home
For you
For me

Until it disappeared
From me
From you
And now, it’s time to leave and turn to dust
Out in the garden where we planted the seeds
There is a tree that’s old as me
Branches were sewn by the color of green

Ground had arose and passed its knees

By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top
I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me

And I built a home
For you
For me

Until it disappeared
From you

And me

And now, it’s time to leave and turn to dust

This hauntingly beautiful song refers to the meaning of home. We humans will leave it and turn to dust. The home will endure, if we’ve done our job right.

I hope the love (of each other, of craft, of materials, of beauty, of our planet, of work) will somehow communicate itself through the “soul” or “spirit” of this home (and of all the homes from which we salvaged materials), to all who enter here, even after we’re gone.

One day, while dropping off items at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, my eyes spied this interesting chest/cabinet. It’s made of oak, has a gently-bowed front, and was in the process of either being stripped or painted shabby-chic. Almost karma-like: the messy paint job was butter yellow with gold detailing, closely paralleling the colours of my wooden Chinese tiles. AND, it was exactly 36″ wide – the same as the loft powder room! I couldn’t leave it there, could I?

I lightly sanded it down, including the yellow/gold shabby-chic bits. Re-painted those bits my “Wheat” colour, with some Behr gold highlights. Then sanded it to make my own shabby-chic interpretation. Paste wax over top of the paint.

The bare wood was coated with three coats of Varathane.

Holes drilled in the back to accommodate the water and drain.

Dragged upstairs to check the fit. It fits!!

Pulled it out again to install baseboards.

Amazingly, I found a 3-way mirror/medicine cabinet 36″ wide by the road, so I re-finished it, shabby-chic style.

When we tried it out above the vanity, it didn’t work, style-wise or proportionately. The “safari” lights I bought many months ago needed space to shine down onto the bathroom occupant, but the medicine cabinet stuck out too far.  We installed it above the toilet, where it offers much-needed storage in this tiny space.

My sister and I “auditioned” a few mirrors that she has on hand:

Then I found this one at my local thrift store for $10:

I refinished it in my colours, and here it hangs:

The backsplash here is made of 3 of the tiles, with the blue border trimmed off. It has been varathaned to help with water-repellency.

We installed the toilet ourselves. Got tired of chasing the plumber, who I will review in due course.

And, arduously, the vessel sink:

Finally, the drawers had to be rebuilt to accommodate the plumbing inside the cabinet. Here’s the professional drawing for the drawer renos!

I used the table saw to get nice straight cuts

Used glue, finishing nails and staples, with clamps, to rebuild the drawers

A bit of sanding

And a bit of painting

It’s an unusual powder room, but I like it! I hope I will still like it in 20 years.

The day has finally come to pour the driveway. For two years, we have endured loads of fill and gravel, mud, vehicles getting stuck, mud, gravel getting tracked onto our beautiful fir floors on dog’s (and other mammals’) paws, and did I mention mud?

Level access area "BEFORE"

We debated (oh, okay, I debated with myself) the issue of building green by using permeable concrete which allows rain to percolate into the ground below, to avoid flooding the neighbours’ yards and causing erosion. Permeable concrete incorporates a different gravel and concrete mix which is very dry, and involves much more tooling to finish properly. Denis, the concrete guru, says it would cost about 50% more. He has designed the driveway to drain into the storm sewer and along the bank side of the driveway.

When I started this blog, I described my process of decision-making as balancing cost with green-ness. Almost all our decisions were controlled by these parameters (plus our sense of aesthetics, of course, which has lead to a considerably higher cost than a plainer house would have.)

The driveway is already a huge expense, involving some 30 meters of fly-ash concrete. (Fly-ash is a waste product from industry, used in the concrete mix, so that’s the green angle here.) FYI, we’re talking $15,000 in this area of the world.

The driveway is also a huge expanse. Again, our philosophy of green-ness lead to a little debate about its size. (Are we paving paradise, putting up a parking lot?) As with our perhaps excessive use of stone, our desire to make this an easy-to-care-for xeriscaped yard has dictated this mix of concrete and strategically-placed planting areas. We know the spring will bring a huge effort on our part to tame this large yard, then make it “wild” (sustainable) again!

Denis and his huge crew arrived about 1:30. The rainy, windy weather of late means they have to do all their pours when suitable weather arrives. Dark comes at 4:30.

Pouring a greenhouse pad

They worked feverishly into the evening hours, then Denis and Harry came back after dinner to finish smoothing the driveway, using worklights and flashlights to see what they were doing. There’s no rest or coming back tomorrow when you’re pouring concrete. The job has to be finished in one go. I think they did a beautiful job.

Level access "AFTER"

In my insomnia-induced delirium the night before the pour, I conceived of this idea for finishing the stair treads:

The forms are stripped four days later. Here are photos:

An example of how the stones blend with the concrete

So, that’s the driveway.

Although our basement guest bathroom is not complete, we have started the finishing on our little loft “powder room,” above.

I want it to be funky and interesting, not so sophisticated as our other bathrooms. The nice thing about bathrooms is you don’t necessarily have to coordinate them with the general interior, because the door is usually closed. You can have a little decor-fest in there on its small canvas, so to speak.

I was casting about in tile stores for a starting place, but not having any luck. Then, while trolling Craigslist one day, I saw these vintage 18″ wooden Chinese tiles.

They are hand-painted with some kind of embossing material, on 1/8″ mahogany veneer, and the Chinese characters in the medallion part read a general good fortune, according to the woman who sold them to me. She had three different designs, and these were the brightest. They provided my colour inspiration.

The orange is called “Devilish”, and the gold is called “Wheat”, both Beauti-Tone semi-gloss from Home Hardware. The orange took four coats to cover, the gold just two.

I thought about applying the tiles as a border above counter height, all around the small room (3′x7′), but I really wanted to use them on the floor. They would not be durable. The paint would rub and chip off in no time, and the veneer would delaminate.

How to make them durable? Epoxy! I remember how expensive the two-part coating was when D was building a cedar-strip kayak. But, I found some at Home Depot, sold as a kit for faux-finishing countertops to look like granite.

I have also seen it used over pennies on a kitchen countertop.

So, confidently (read: blindly), I started:

1. D glued, then screwed down a half-inch plywood sheet over the existing 3/4″ sub-floor, to make a more solid base.

2. I fitted, trimmed, and auditioned the tiles, drawing the placement lines onto the plywood.

3. Using a trowel-on adhesive designed for parquet, I applied each tile along my drawn lines.

It immediately became apparent that the edges were distorting and lifting in a completely unpredictable manner. I think the bare wood on the back of the tile was absorbing the moisture, and warping against the finished top, which did not absorb any moisture. What to do????  Send D on a hunt for heavy things to weigh down the tiles. I only applied half the tiles the first day, partly because I was not at all sure this adhesive was going to work. In the morning, I removed the weights, and the tiles were solidly stuck.

So, I applied the rest, piled on more weights, and even stood/sat on the edges for maybe a total of an hour.

D declined my invitation to enter my personal pub and stand at the “bar” to drink a pint! I had to drink alone in my little room, but could just see his movie if I peered around the corner, so the time passed, as time does. The adhesive set for 24 hours.

I wiped and vacuumed the tiles in preparation for the epoxy.

4. The epoxy comes in two parts. The activator (part “B”) is added to the base (part “A”), and thoroughly mixed for 3 minutes. There is no measure on it, to allow me to mix 1/2 the epoxy. I wasn’t sure what the coverage would be (packaging claims 30 square feet, but no thickness was indicated, and I knew I would need at least 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch to cover the embossing.) And remember that I was doing this blindly, no experience, just as I do most of my jobs here. I would have liked to try a sample tile first, but had no idea if I would have enough to do the whole job. The working time of the epoxy is only 30 minutes, tops. I just had to dive in.

5. The epoxy is poured onto the tiles,

then brushed into the embossing to fill the gaps.

I cursed the dog (yet again!) because she is copiously shedding these days (and winter’s coming – go figure.) I have NO IDEA how those 40 or so hairs migrated into the epoxy as I applied it, and I continued cursing while I messily scraped the hairs up.

For her part, she just grabbed one end of the toilet paper and had her way with it.

6. There was just enough to cover the floor and two more tiles for spares (a total of 26 square feet.)

By the end, I was sweating like a horse, partly from anxiety. Imagine tearing it all out if it didn’t work.

It needs to dry/cure for 72 hours, but then should be very durable.

Stay tuned for the next funky-bathroom-in-progress post. No one knows how this will end, including me. If that epoxy caper hadn’t worked out, I’d have to go to Plan B, and there is no Plan B.

There’s not a whole lot new going on around here – I’m spending my time planning and shopping for future projects, cleaning, organizing, hounding tradespeople, refinishing old wood for doors and window trim, and sealing/caulking the shower in readiness for the plumber. Last weekend we had some help to build a deck and install some seasonal greens.

But, I wanted to post on 11/11/11, just because!

My sister, who writes daily on her blog about collecting and re-purposing vintage items, has dozens of related links and a whole international circle of blogging friends who have similar interests. There’s a blooming subculture of these clever DIY and shabby-chic afficionados.

I wondered if there was a similar subculture of building blogs. Maybe it’s all been written before we started our project.

So I thought I’d (belatedly) research and offer a small survey of green building case studies (new-build single family dwellings, like ours) in a journaling or blog format.

I found only two relatively non-commercial blog sites that offer perspectives on building green homes:

1.

Green Building in Denver‘s focus is “low and zero energy home design and construction for Denver. A recent post on the lighting efficiency of bulbs (itself linked from the Green Building Advisor website) offered this useful information (paraphrased):

-old incandescents provide about 15 lumens/watt

- CFLs provide an average of 54 lumens/watt

- high quality (i.e. expensive) LEDs provide an average of 60 lumens/watt

(I’ve always wondered about the comparative light output of bulbs, because there is no consistent labelling.)

GreenBuildinginDenver is the work of Kevin Dickson, a graduate in Engineering Physics.

2.

More like my blog, Our Round Green Home is a diary about a project in Nelson, British Columbia, started July 20, 2011. And it’s not commercial! No ads (except for the blogger’s husband’s business, Mandala Homes) or sales. Pretty cool. I particularly like this post: How to Design a Green Round Mandala Home. Less than 4 months, and they are already at lock-up. They used Insulated Concrete Forms for the foundation, and prefabricated panels that come with cladding and windows already installed. The blogger, Rachel, chronicles a beautiful strategy for a meeting with all the subcontractors together. Makes so much sense. Such a meeting would have pre-empted problems with scheduling and location of the mechanicals for our project.

Apart from these two examples,  there are a few more sites that could be useful:

Another web site with a blog is greenbuilding.com. Its stated purpose is “to help separate the real green products, professionals and procedures from all the green-washing …” It provides architect and builder referrals. Its author, David Johnston, offers comprehensive advice, as well as his e-book and his lectures. One of his links, Chapter 1 – The Building Envelope (download chapter for free) doesn’t seem to be working. The site includes an article on a Boulder, Colorado home case study. It lists the processes and technology used in this net-zero home.

A huge website called buildinggreen.com has short synopses of case studies. It describes itself as “an independent publishing company committed to bringing our members accurate unbiased and timely green design information.”

Sustainability advice from Canadian Peter Parsons, who is “pursuing a masters in electrical engineering” on his site, nlcpr.com includes some interesting headings, such as “deceptions,” a “scam-busting section.” He says his “main focus is in the underpinnings of a sustainable society which includes housing design, cooperative enterprises and alternate energy.” A recent entry in his associated blog, “Voice of Reason” shows a Student Loan Debt Clock ticking furiously.

I have linked to the Green Builders’ Talk Forums before, whence came many of my early statistics and building decisions. Although it was helpful, there are so many conflicting opinions and people promoting their own products, that it’s hard find the cream that rises to the top for our project.

So, faithful readers, that’s my survey of useful/interesting sites for building a green home. Not a huge circle of bloggers. I guess all those green home builders are doing it instead of writing about it.

Kitty sometimes tries to stay out of the way, and sometimes walks right in front of the excavator.

I love the juxtapositions this job brings: the sound of stones dumped from a truck vs. the sound of wing beats as a murder of crows passes overhead. The look of mud squishing under my (inadequate) shoes vs. the new rainbow when I cast my eyes up. The stink of diesel vs. the aroma of sweet peas and roses from the garden. The gritty corrosiveness of mortar and grout vs. the velvet of my bench upholstery.

This week brought a delightful juxtaposition.

Some time ago, Joy generously commented on my tiling the shower post, that it looked like art, and I responded “speaking of a painting, stay tuned for a bathroom surprise!”

My post, Art and Electricity, exposes some of my prickly points about making a living as an artist.

This week, two of our trades on site were Dave, the excavator (M&M Excavating) and Jose Ventura, the artist, who is also a neighbour.

I love that both “trades” are, in my mind, essential for this project, and both are being paid fairly. In fact, I invited Dave (and any other specialists on site) to come in to see the painting:

We’re working away on various finishing tasks. On nice-weather days, we joyously go outside to work.

Lately, it’s been flagstone pavers in the front yard. An updated photo:

I started filling the joints with polymeric sand today, since the rain is supposed to hold off for at least 18 hours. To use this product, the stones and even the sides of the stones must be perfectly dry, because it’s moisture that activates the polymer product. Polymeric sand has a binder added to it to make the joints solid and long-lasting. In my quest to keep maintenance to a minimum, using this joint-filler is supposed to prevent weeds and grasses from gaining a foothold in the joints. However, the Century polymeric sand I bought from Home Depot was ridiculously expensive (I recollect $40-50 for a 35 lb pail, but can’t find the receipt easily.)

I have decided to use it only on the most-used walkways, and encourage moss-growth in the other joints.

This is how I did it (according to printed instructions):

1. I compacted the existing sand in the joints with various tools, including my fingers!

2. Using a spade and funnels, I directed the smooth-flowing sand into the joints.

Where the sand overshot its crevice, I brushed it back into the joint with a broom then a paintbrush.

This step took a lot of patience, but it is necessary to clean the sand off the face of the stone, since it will adhere permanently if wet but not washed off  the stone’s surface. The instructions suggest using a compactor to shake the sand into voids and a leaf-blower to clear off the face of the stones, but I do not own these and think it’s overkill. We use a 4×4 post to pound the stones into their places.

3. Using a gentle spray on the hose, I wet the sand for about 10 seconds.

Waited 3 minutes, then wet it again, and a final 3 minutes wait and a final wetting.

4. I used a rag to clean the few stone faces that had some sand on them still.

5. Leave it to cure for 18 hours. Keep the dog off. (Not.)

When I work with the stone, I am occasionally caught off-guard, and my mind wanders away from my task. With this work in particular, I might be suddenly taken with the texture, colour, or mineral content of the stone.

I can’t help feeling very lucky indeed that I get to look at this stone every day for the rest of my life.

One day last year, while D was working alongside our stonemason, he overheard a visitor to the site (a new tradesperson) comment to the stonemason, almost bitterly, “What do you care, you’re working on a million-dollar house?”

We had never thought of it as a million-dollar house. It’s just our home, the last home we will live in, if we have the freedom to choose where we live in our dotage. If you’ve been following the “Spending and Saving” page, though, it would appear that this IS a million-dollar house, especially if you include in its value the “Saving” contributions we’ve made.

When we worked on the design, more than two years ago, we were asked by architects and the regional district building department, what our budget was, and we had no idea. We have just been building as we can afford it (with help from the local credit union!)

Interestingly, from my point-of-view, a homeowner-built house is assessed lower than a professionally-built home and its green features don’t appear to be a factor in its assessment (this I gather from talking to the assessor who came around to determine a value.) I could be wrong about this. If any reader knows better, let me know, please. When the assessment notices come out, the neighbourhood’s property values seem to be based on square footage and number of bedrooms (we have a smaller square footage than the homes in our area and only two bedrooms.)

To readers who may be interested in building green but are discouraged by its high cost, I have some comments and suggestions which may encourage you:

1. The actual cost to build our home is closer to $660,000, or $244 per square foot, after I deduct the cost to build the studio and the landscaping/land-shaping/garden.

2. The studio, using insulated concrete forms (ICFs), has been a bargain to build (and it’s green-to-the-bones!) It weighs in at $94 per square foot. I know that it doesn’t have a kitchen or a bathroom, but it is a basic, well-insulated building that would pass the EnergyGuide 80+ratings.  If we did it over again, I would seriously consider building the whole house with ICFs, then just use the expensive spray foam insulation in the ceiling. That way, you could avoid the whole rainscreen headache and cost. The thing is, you’d have to be sure of your design – not so easy to alter this building material once it’s built. On the other hand, ICFs are just Lego blocks, that come with excellent instructions, and a careful, logical homeowner with more time than we had, could build with this product him/herself.

3. If you build on a level lot, the foundation would cost about $60, 000 less.

4. Our rentals (forms/scaffolding/toilet/storage bin/generator) cost over $16,000. If we were smarter about this building stuff,  we would have bought a generator (or got a temporary pole for Hydro hookup) and a simple two-stage scaffolding to move around the house as needed. Both could be sold afterward. We also could have built a bigger storage shed and biffy for the framing crew, rather than renting a bin and toilet. And, if we had used ICFs (see #2 above) no forms would need to be rented or taken apart after the pour.

If we had taken this advice before WE started building, we could have built just as green, but for $191/square foot. Mind you, if you build before the reversal of the HST in 2013 (with its additional 7% sales tax on labour) it will cost you at least $18000 more. If you’re contemplating building in BC, I would recommend waiting until after the HST is reversed.

One of our overarching goals for this project is to use materials, such as stone, that will endure for a long time after we’re gone. Another is to build with these materials in such a way that we will not have huge maintenance issues. Aesthetics sneak in there, too.

So, we have stone for our central fireplace, and for four pillars inside:

There’s flagstone in our entry:

And on the pillars and doorstep outside:

There are big stone retaining walls on the lot:

There will be stone covering the green building wrap.

And, we are in the process of applying flagstone in the front patio area:

To apply flagstone: On very solid ground, we raked all the stones, pulled weeds, cleaned up debris from our building and stonework, and flattened it. Then, D brought in 70 wheelbarrow loads of sand, which I raked and flattened.

We have distinct edges to build to, but where we need a form, along the house, D has built one.

Our goal is to use the flagstones just the way they come, fitting them together as best we can without having to do any cutting. I’m not so worried about the size of the spaces between these stones – we will fill them with sand and encourage moss to grow in between the stones. At the transition between the doorstep and the stone patio, I laid down some landscaping cloth, to help keep weeds down.

Another of our goals for our home is to make it wheelchair-accessible. This means we need the flagstone to meet the doorstep. The first stones we laid were thicker, and we built a bit of a slope so that a wheelchair could navigate over the transition.

Once we have placed a stone for its shape, we need to make it lie still and even with the edges of the surrounding stones. We lift it up, see where the “print” of the stone has not flattened the sand, and add more sand or remove sand to help with “seating” it firmly in its place.

Then, with a heavy post, we pound the stone to tamp it securely into place:

On the first two days, we were able to lay 156 stones, and only had to chip off a couple of points. We didn’t need to use the angle grinder with its messy dust.

I will add photos when we have finished the job, including the joints.

In the meantime, I ask you, is this just too much stone???? I long to add flora (that fauna do not like to eat) to soften all these hard edges we have so painstakingly (emphasis on “pain” on some days!) installed. These stones may be here forever, but is this landscaping too “hard?”