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The parlor
then
The parlor
now
East Facade
then
East Facade
now
Kitchen
then in demo - dining to be
Kitchen
formerly workshop
Living & Dining
then (no porch)
Living
with view to porch
West Facade
before
West Facade
now
Upstairs
at start of demo
Upstairs
raised dormer
Laundry
destined to become deck
Deck
view to kitchen
Peep hole
into the future
Rainbow
on the horizon
To the greatest extent possible what goes in our net zero house is recycled, repurposed, or locally-made. Bocci fits into the last category. So many of the things in the house are sourced for a song or half a song. On the Bocci lamp we splurged. The Scotts bought us the lamp on sale. The seven ball Random 28 series lamp is a beautiful object - Jules Verne bathysphere, crossed with party balloons. “28 is a hand-blown glass pendant with interior glass satellites. It is created through a complicated technique that involves adding and removing air while heating and cooling a glass matrix. MOVIE HERE It is emblematic of designer Omer Arbel's search for “specificity in manufacturing,”[14] essentially designing a system that produces form rather than designing the form itself. Our lamp has seven of these pendants. The glow from the bulbs can be seen from afar. When you combine the Bocci light with the marvelous leather and LED sconces that Scott and Scott made for the house there is a joyous oddball charm to the lightscape of the entire main floor. Proof that lighting can lift your mood - especially welcome during these long winter nights in the Pacific Northwest in the year of the Covid when no festivities are permissible.
Bocci is one of the stand out enterprises in the Vancouver Design scene of the last few decades. They emerged about the same time as the Scotts. Both outfits have gone on to great acclaim and helped put Vancouver on the international design map. This is not puffery. The article in WALLPAPER on Bocci and head designer Omer Arbel backs up the claim.
The Bocci chandelier was safely stashed for a year until a few weeks ago, when it came time for Tony of Arq Electric to hang it. The lamps functioned alright - but the pendants were dangling limply from their canopy. Clearly art direction was required. Taylor, our GC, gave me a dirty look when I said I’d need help setting the aviation wires so the pendants could “float and floof” over the table. The crew was pushing really hard to get all their major tasks done before the Christmas break. Tony had a whole house to get in order from electrical standpoint, so I dared not importune him. I obtained the necessary intelligence from the crew over snack about which size anchors I would need to buy from the hardware store for the ceiling to make the aviation wires operational - I beat it there and back on my bike in a rainshower. To assist with the “art direction”, I enlisted Ben Brannon at Bespoke - the owner and designer of the Oak Bay shop I turn to for paint and inspiration. Tony dismounted the canopy, gave me a few stern warnings about what NOT to do to his wires, before Ben and I set about calculating precise and perfect the drop and distance from the ceiling and the dinner table for each globe. We gingerly yanked (oxymoron) wire out of the tangle in the canopy to get the drop right and placed washo tapes on the ceiling to indicate where the anchors should be located. Then came the tense moment when Auggie drilled seven holes in the pristine ceiling so the aviation wires could be affixed. Now it was safe for Ben to leave. Tony, his assistant and I performed the delicate maneuvers of attaching bulbs and snipping wires, bending cables and reattaching globes one by one. The result shown is below.
A bright note on which to end this last post of a troubling year. Bye bye 2020.
Ignore the commotion past the French doors and just concentrate on how beautiful the chandelier is.
Starting next week the Frontera crew will go on vacation for month. We are close to the finish line. Here are photos taken the morning of December 11. Enjoy!
Here are a couple of shots from the past week on site waning days of November and the first days of December - mainly sunny.
Auggie on the scaffold out the kitchen window early morning light.
Graham and his brother Matt have been here from the start. Here’s Graham among the parallams.
Sun all week this first week in December makes dining al fresco possible on the brand new basket weave brick landing - Pictured - Matt, Graham. Auggie, Gavyn, Taylor and Noa.
The steel railing is cut and fitted -by Adam at Broadwell Metal then it wiill be sent out for powder coating and returned to the site in a couple of days. This will make the decks secure.
Matt is working on the battens that form the balustrade of the upper and lower back decks.
Nicholas and Ilse transform the front parlor - artfully laying out the William Morris paper and working round the marble, Stove and space for bookshelves.
Jim Meunier of Sunstone Masonry at work on the front steps and wall
Nathan Martell and friends of Part & Whole stop by with a couch.
At last, on Wednesday, November 18th our magnolia tree was planted. Purchased months earlier - she remained at Kimoff Nursery for safekeeping until transplanting day. The day kept being pushed back as the build kept getting longer. And so the presence of the tree brings joy and melancholy.
A local bole recalled to me the W. B Yeats poem “Among Schoolchildren”
To me the planting of the tree represents truly putting down roots - at the house and in Canada. Our little city became the first in North America to sign on to a United Nations pact to plant trees to mitigate climate change. In response to this pact, we plan to add five to our site - while protecting the old-timers (garry oak, dogwood and fir). Looking out on the tree I am reminded of my father. He told me a story about how nervous he had been to recite the Joyce Kilmer poem, Trees, committed to memory for a primary school recital. I suppose the story was told to make me less apprehensive about some task I had taken on. I was immensely lucky to have had such a father. Are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole?
Now the age my mother was when my father became seriously ill, I am resolved to cherish the remaining years of wellbeing. I doubly feel the sting of not being with my family as the tree is installed. We were all meant to be together here for the holidays. Ah Covid. Were I to leave for the holidays, it would mean not seeing this build to completion which is anathema to me. Until certificate of occupancy is obtained, here I remain. Who knows when Don and I can jointly take up residence - when the border guards will permit us entry, when it will be safe? Contemplating travel makes me very apprehensive. Yard work is a good distraction. Having already good friends in this new home is a balm and a blessing.
The ground around the house has been compacted from a year of disturbance….multiple deliveries of lumber, insulation, shingles, solar panels and drywall, as well as placement of heavy or sharp equipment upon it. Just the 20 by 20 foot space that would host the tree had been home to the contractor’s tool shed, a port a potty, scaffolding, footings for brick walls, stump removers & ladders. Some of the ground that would be wildflower garden surrounding the magnolia had to be excavated to pry away asphalt. Anyway, as directed by my tree and wildflowers experts, I undertook to aerate, irrigate and amend the soil (multiple times as it would turn out) since contractor work continued above and around this soon to be hallowed landscape. Passersby became familiar with the sight of me - spade, aerator or rake in hand. They shouted encouragement and paid compliments for our efforts. Yards of beautiful fresh new soil was delivered from Peninsula Landscape Supplies but remained in a mound under a tarp for a month. My friend Kate helped me spread the fresh earth. We worked round the mason’s workbench/scaffold so as to be ready for the wildflower scatter. The following day more friends - Lita (this was her mom and dad’s house), Stacey (Kings Road neighbor), and Moira (landscape planner and muse of garden scheme) mixed a handful of custom mix of wildflower seeds from Saanich Native Plants with forty cups of play sand, strategically distributed and lightly raked it into the ground as a rare pale November sun shone down on the proceedings. We await spring to see what blooms. Our house was put on the site 108 years ago. A garden and trees have ever since been a part of the landscape. Our latest solution is but one of many beautiful and varied responses to the personal exigencies of the families who live on this hill, in this neighborhood, in the capital city, on this the largest island off the coast of North America. The garry oak meadow that marches up and over our ridge line to Cadboro Bay is a ever a reminder that long before Fernwood was “settled” in the Gold Rush era, it was home to the Lekwungen people who tended gardens. It is their native plants whose seeds make up the wildflower mix we plant.
The gardener in Me.
I was raised in NYC in an apartment. Central Park was my playground - No botanist I, but surely I absorbed the aesthetic of Vaux & Olmstead. Our family would go on outings to the New York Botanic Garden in the Bronx and to Inwood Park to collect Indian arrowheads in the last of the primeval forests on the island. At college Vincent Scully made me appreciate the profound significance of architecture in site and the work of landscape architects like Vauban and LeNotre. In the years Don & I spent in Belgium and then further afield in our beery explorations we took in many beautiful gardens. Belgians spend more on landscaping as a percentage of total building costs than any other Europeans. When our kids were very young, we moved to Cooperstown, NY - home to the Farmers’ Museum and a Cornell Cooperative Extension office. Early on, I enrolled in the Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners’ Program, co-founded a farmers’ market, and befriended those farmers, Annie Farrell chief among them, and Pat Thorpe, a genuinely gifted gardener and writer who maintained the gardens of Brookwood, a land trust for which I was a trustee. Brookwood’s magic secret garden was the creation of one of the early graduates of Harvard’s Landscape Architecture program. Then a decade ago came the move to Chicago - whose motto is “Urbs in Hortus” or “City in a Garden. I joined the Chicago Botanic Garden Docent’s Program - and learned about Chicago’s remarkable parks and their makers. I had the great fortune to meet and become friends with Julia Bachrach then the historian of the Chicago Parks District. Thanks to her guidance, the shadow of Jens Jensen looms large in my imaginary garden. Vancouver Island, with its stunning combination of maritime rainforest and Mediterranean climate enthralled. Before we started work on the house, I volunteered at The Horticulture Center of The Pacific (HCP). My role was to interview the founding trustees about what motivated their early efforts. Ever the eager student, never have I lived in one place long enough or had the free time enough to establish a proper garden - the kind that will endure a generation. Here’s hoping this is the time and the place. Good gardens take time. Step one is the magnolia and the wildflower meadow.
I want to acknowledge help and inspiration from Marion Cumming (guiding spirit of all that is good here), Louise Goulet (native plant protector par excellence) & Margaret Lidkea (Friends of Uplands maven), Barb Gergel garden designer at Demitasse (who graciously accepted the postponement of any grand schemes in light of our situation). Thanks, of course, to David & Susan Scott for their artful master plan, and to Taylor McCarthy who cheerfully undertook to help with the heavy lifting to get the landscape in shape even though it was not in his original scope of work. Yet to come - the finishing the brick work by Jim Meunier of Sunburst Stoneworks, the laying of the porous paving system from CORE and the spreading of pea gravel thereupon. With luck in 2021 we will begin to tackle of the backyard - home to one mighty Garry Oak round which all else will gyre.
Plants native to the Garry Oak Meadow include - Common Snowberries, Tall Oregon Grape, Red-Flowering Currant, Baldhip Rose, Indian Plum, Hairy Honeysuckle, Trailing Blackberry, Oceanspray, Orange Honeysuckle, Seablush, Broadleafed Shootingstar, Satinflower, Small-flowered Woodland Star, Small-leafed Montia, Nodding Onion, Fern-leafed Desert Parsley, Chocolate Lily, Licorice Fern, Indian Consumption Plant, Broad-leafed Stonecrop, Pacific Sanicle, Tiger Lily, Chickweed Monkey-flower, Spring Gold, Woolly Sunflower, Yellow Monkey Flower, Common Camas, Great Camas, Menzie’s Larkspur, Harvest Brodiaea, Hooker’s Onion, Large-flowered Blue-eyed Mary, Two-colored Lupine, White Fawn Lily, Fool’d Onion, Woodland Strawberry, Grassland Saxifrage. Rein Orchid, Field Chickweed, Meadow Death-Camas, Yarrow, Miner’s Lettuce, Field Chickweed (list from Garry Oak Ecosystems brochure).
Na’tsa’maht Indigenous Plant Garden at Camosun College. Here is a simply beautiful site that helps you identify native plants and learn of their traditional uses. Names are listed in SENĆOŦEN, English, and Latin. Check with the college about the suitability off visiting. This past winter I attended a ceremony at U Vic - called Rising Tides on food security among indigenous community. There I was served a delicious tea from a native plant in the celery family called KEXMIN. I will be planting this. See box below for an intriguing detail on the manifold health benefits of Kexmin.
“Wildflowers and and other native plants of Garry Oak Ecosystems” is a brochure put out by the Garry Oaks Ecosystems Recovery Team at www.goert.ca and Saanich’s Garry Oak Restoration Project at www.gorpsaanich.com It shows the plants by color way. Check out Goert’s great Garry Oak Gardening Handbook. A good summary of organizations devoted to this cause by community here.
Friends of Uplands Park - founded by the redoubtable Margaret Lidkea. Learn by doing as you help rid the park of invasive species and restore the native landscape. Frequent outings organized (except during Covid restrictions)
Garry Oak Meadow Preservation Society was formed in 1992 by local citizens concerned that Garry Oak meadows and woodlands were rapidly disappearing as a result of development in the Capital Region District. Helpful brochure of action steps you can take to protect Garry Oak Ecosystems. See Goert.ca for more information. Sites about to be cleared for development often permit harvesting of indigenous plants.
Pollination Canada - People protecting pollinators www.pollinationcanada.ca & island pollinator initiative
Saanich Native plants and Nursery - part of the Halliburton organic farms growing locally and helpful staff. We got our wildflower mix from them. It was custom blended to the conditions of our site. They have a consulting service for this.
Seeds of Diversity www.seeds.ca - People protecting People’s seeds
The Victoria Horticultural Society - Victoria’s oldies and largest gardening association (founded in 1921)
The City of Victoria Rewards Rainwater Runoff Reducers! Native plants require less water and hold water well. Learn about the benefits of rain water management, earn rebates. Did you know you can earn rebates for installing rain barrels ($35-100), cisterns ($180-600), Rain gardens ($375-1000), pInfiltration chambers ($375-1000), permeable paving ($200-1,500), bioswales ($375-1,000).
Horticulture Center of the Pacific - A beautiful living landscape showing that almost anything can grow in this clement climate. I volunteered here and love the place.
Seth and Eli making sure the magnolia will be at home in its new setting.
“KEXMIN —- Wild Celery/ Lomatium nudicaule
The dried seeds of the plant can be boiled into a tea to assist with sore throats, coughs and other bronchial ailments. The seeds may also be chewed, plant fibre discarded, to achieve the same effect. The inhaled smoke of the burning seeds as medicine is said to treat headaches, as is the inhaled aroma of compressed seeds or seeds added to a poultice and placed on the forehead.
When burned as medicine, KEXMIN seeds provide both a cleansing and protection from negativity, and harmful spirits.
The Washoe people of Nevada use the root of this plant to make tea to treat bronchial ailments. It is of note that not one Washoe person who had access to this plant died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, while other tribes in Nevada suffered losses.
”
Here are some shots of the way the place looks as of Sunday evening. This is in slideshow format so click to move to the next image.
August 19, 2019 - -Bartlett Trees Crew came and did a magnificent job of readying the site for demo/reno. Based on your survey the city will identify trees on your property that require protection. Be happy they do so. Trees extend our lives. (see NIH Study).
As construction draws to a close, the work of the arborists recommences. Victoria is the first city in North America to sign on to UN Trees in Cities campaign and has pledged to plant thousands of trees in 2020. We feel we can manage to add five on our site - a magnolia (we sourced from Kimoff Nursery), an eleagnus ebbengei (from the Horticulture Center of the Pacific), several fruit trees and a maybe a ginko will be added later
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 Trevor Coey of Bartlett again deployed a team - this time to plant not to prune. Eli & Seth planted the Kimoff magnolia in the front yard. It is small in stature but big in personality and comes from Kimoff Nursery.
Eli & Seth prepare to transplant the magnolia.
Sandy goes for a vacation to Duncan while I move out of the rental and stay with the Sparlings. Thank goodness for the Sparlings!
Matrix team comes late in October to set the local tlupana marble in place.
Nicholas Alexander painting swears by this product.
The doors are about to be painted in the bedroom upstairs
Tosh how to cut a hole in marble as seen from above
Heat Savers installs the Stove fireplace which allows us to start heating the joint.
Michael Ford stains the marine grade ply panels on the stair as other prep work continues on the main floor.
Kitchen is shaping up and the autumn afternoon light is beautiful.
Cory at Gutterman made me climb the ladder to show how the flashing will help the gutters direct water away from the house.
The reading nook - chair from House of Chester and pillows from Bespoke.
Awaiting the arrival of the couch from Part & Whole
Just a reminder of how things looked last fall
The view over Amber’s house
The couch is installed in the living room - brand new from Part & Whole - David Scott carted the glass table all the way from Vancouver and on the ferry on an earlier trip
the way the back looked last year - more on this later
Jim Meunier at Sunburst has valiantly persisted in building our wall from salvaged chimney brick in spite of crappy weather. Meanwhile with help from friends Kate, Lita, Stacey and Moira a custom wildflower mix from Saanich Native Seeds was scattered in the meadow around the Kimoff magnolia on soil trucked in from Peninsula Landscaping - all before a first frost. As I write the temps were down to 2 degrees. Phew - just in time.
A year ago we started demolition. Late this past month the house achieved Net Zero. In another two weeks I and our belongings return to the mainly finished place. As soon as the coast is clear and the border is open the whole clan can gather at the house on Fernwood. But, who knows when that will be?
Last October Don headed back to Chicago to visit his mom. It made sense I stay on to be close to the work as questions came up. I remained until mid November. We had expected to undertake the later stages of the renovation together in 2020. We knew we would have to leave at some point… but could not have imagined a scenario in which to leave would mean to be denied reentry. But that was before Covid.
While Don was gone last autumn there were widespread protests condemning the lack of climate action by national and global leaders. On the first Monday in October, Extinction Rebellion organized closure of the Johnson Street Bridge. Throughout the fall Wet’suwet’en protests continued over the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline construction on unceded First Nation’s land. Greta Thunberg inspired 14 million young strikers from more than 200 countries to demand climate action by policy makers. In November 2019, Trump flipped the planet the bird when he called for the US to begin the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. It has been downhill ever since. This fall the news has been all about the pandemic, wild fires and elections. Working on the house project, phone banking, walking and connecting with friends and family has kept me sane.
This appears on a wall at National Museum of Czech & Slovak History in Cedar Rapids. I toured the museum one January afternoon. Claire was working in Iowa as an organizer on the Pete Buttigieg campaign and the only way I would see our daughter was to drive to Iowa. My grandmother’s family came to NY from Bohemia. Kundera won the Nobel Prize for literature for The Unbearable Lightness of Being .
https://medium.com/@jonathanseyfried/6-reasons-to-read-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-right-now-59356b91a29d
Precisely a year ago today, this is how the parlor looked. Part of the interior space was sacrificed to restore the front porch to the house. There were no exterior spaces when we bought the house. Now there are three.
A glimpse of the parlor and a reading nook - fir floor beneath the interior trim - to be revealed in 2 weeks -
The heavy equipment has been in use of late - stump remover came Tuesday - post excavator , but pre soil slinger and and tree planter.
After the net zero reno, I feel sure I’ll be ready to start this franchise on the island.
The crew is getting the upstairs in shape so I can move in right after Halloween. The trim is new but perfectly matches the old.
House is looking proud - the scaffold is down and soon a cleaner image of this facade will be posted
Beautiful light in the kitchen. Next week Michael will be back to install and finish the cabinets and the following week the marble gets sets in place
Also seen in Cedar Rapids
Considering a grille
Another series of grilles with a fern pattern made just for the house on Fernwood
A glimpse at Mo’s tiling in process seen through the doorways -freshly hung - the first coat of blue paint is on the floor and protected.
A tree grows in Brooklyn - but in Victoria artichokes abound in autumn. This prize specimen is in boulevard garden on Haultain down the street from our house.
Pete Buttigieg takes questions in Cedar Rapids - Claire organized the event - proud mom and dad were in attendance.
The view from Little Mount Doug on a walk with Kate and Sandy today.
The old bricks from the chimney rest in the back yard and will soon be used by mason Jim Meunier to build the stair and retaining wall in the front yard later this month.
Since I got your attention with the blower door test, I thought I’d give you a short treatise on Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. Pascale laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal’s principle of pressure, (hence the blower test name) and propagated a religious doctrine that taught the experience of God through the heart rather than through reason. The establishment of his principle of intuitionism had an impact on such later philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henri Bergson and also on the Existentialists. (Source Brittanica)
The brilliant Maria Popova celebrates his genius in the realm of psychology. “People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” Read the whole darn Brainpickings essay and see if it doesn’t help you head an argument off at the pass or convince someone who isn’t thinking straight to see things in a new way. I shall try this out on the next numbskull I meet. BRAINPICKINGS. Perhaps we can use this approach to help more people over the hump of spending more money on energy conservation steps than cosmetic improvements to their homes?
This is Shaun St- Amour of 475 High Performance Supply picking up some Intello to return to HQ and issue a credit to us. What could possibly be more persuasive than a product consultant for western Canada who gives expertise and gives refunds! These guys are great.
The Frontera crew have been preparing for this day for months. The blower door test would show just how successful their efforts to super-insulate the house have been. In the photo below, The front door is open. In its place is the “retro tec” door - equipped with fan which in the first instance will suck the air out of the house. A computer records the conditions inside. There will be some drama once we open that door.
Mark Bernhardt, energy expert, uses his leak-seeking smoker to spot where the air gets in. The pink smoke (a glucose solution) swirls around an air current - giving evidence of air infiltration/outflow - in other words a place to be patched. In today’s first round of testing 4.45 air exchanges per hour were recorded. This is a solid start. Even without improvement, the systems (heat pump and heat recovery) will perform as needed. We are hoping to get to 3 air exchanges per hour. Let the search for leaks begin.
Mark buys glucose solution at a party supply store. This is the same stuff bands use to create smoky effects on stage. Where’s my disco ball?
Upstairs - to our horror, we discover that a section of the batt insulation has fallen out of place and the ceiling is coming down. In effect, in the process of extracting the air the powerful fan sucked insulation down. Taylor and Shaun gamely climbed a scaffold to repair the damage. The operation only took about 20 minutes of rapid action stapling- Now there are staples about every three inches tack the Intello vapor barrier to studs and thus hold the insulation ultra tight. This is a perfect lesson in why you do the blower test BEFORE you ask the drywall team to swing into action.
Oh good! No swirls. The windows are performing as they should. There are lots of hands in closeup in my snapshots today. This wasn’t on purpose —- but on some level I must have been appreciating the handiwork that went into so meticulously insulating the place. To get a new house build’s air exchange per hour under 5 is creditable. To beat that score on an old house is downright impressive. Not only is the house very air tight, it is extremely quiet. Fernwood is a busy road - but we barely hear traffic. Of an August evening pre-renovation upstairs was hot and stuffy.. No more. As a result of the Herculean effort the Frontera team has achieved a 79% reduction in leakiness. How do we calculate this this dramatic turn of events?
% REDUCTION = CFM50 (before) - CFM50 (after) DIVIDED by CFM50 (before) X 100 / 14.50 - 3.01 = 11.49 divided by 14.50 X 100 - 79%
What is ACH 50?
ACH50 tells us how many times per hour the entire volume of air in the building is replaced when the building envelope is subjected to a 50 Pascal pressure… as if the entire building is subjected to a 20 mile per hour wind on all sides. Where does the term Pascal come from you ask?
“YES, THAT BLAISE PASCAL! The pascal (symbol: Pa) is the SI derived unit of pressure used to quantify internal pressure, stress, Young’s modulus and ultimate tensile strength. The unit, named after Blaise Pascal, is defined as one newton per square metre.[1] The unit of measurement called standard atmosphere (atm) is defined as 101325 Pa.[2]
Common multiple units of the pascal are the hectopascal (1 hPa = 100 Pa), which is equal to one millibar, and the kilopascal (1 kPa = 1000 Pa), which is equal to one centibar. Meteorological forecasts typically report atmospheric pressure in hectopascals per the recommendation of the World Meteorological Organization. Forecasts in the United States typically use millibars,[3][4] in Canada these reports are given in kilopascals.[5]”
Aha, another leak has been detected. This time it is close to the stove pipe exiting between the upstairs hall and bath. No sooner spotted than patched by Taylor.
No stone is left unturned. The detectives move to the basement where a spider’s web wafts in the breeze. Charlotte has built a web where rock meets concrete. The crevice is brushed out and filled by Gavyn while Shaun throws some light on the subject. We are now about ready to perform blower test number 2.
The team seen here Gavyn, Matt and Auggie_. awaits results. In round 2 the Air Exchanges per Hour drops to a puny 3.01 - which means that once the dry wall goes up we’ll like get to 2.5. Fantastic work team Frontera! -
Word to the Wise - Always perform a blower test before you buy a house. The tighter the house, the less energy you’ll need to use to keep it warm or cool.
ACH50 tells us how many times per hour the entire volume of air in the building is replaced when the building envelope is subjected to a 50 Pascal pressure. AND…. from Energyconservatory.com
The airtightness of existing homes can vary dramatically based on the construction style, age and region. The chart below shows the relative tightness of homes based on the ACH50.
0 - 1.5 ACH VERY TIGHT
1.5 - 3 ACH TIGHT
3 - 5 ACH MODERATELY TIGHT
5 - 7 ACH LOOSE
7 - 10 ACH VERY LOOSE
10 + ACH EXTREMELY LOOSE
Refer to the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) tor climate zone specific maximum allowable ACH50 values.
Here’s Steve’s handy dandy Mirka Ceros 5” sander which he let me use to polish the edges of the tongue & groove floor boards.
Covid 19 hit and our finish carpentry schedule flew out the window. To make up for lost time/reduced labor on site, we ordered floorboards and trim from Canadian Bavarian. Canadian Bavarian has a paint room where they applied paint to interior and exterior trim, but their equipment could not handle oiling the tongue in groove linear footage we’d be using for flooring and ceilings. David Scott (architect) had the bright idea to send this material from Chemainus to Comox (a distance of 146 kilometers) where his contact Steve Roscoe runs The Woodland Flooring Company and Raincoast Alternatives, the exclusive importer for Saicos - a vegetable oil stain that architects prize - and it is on this basis David knows Steve.
I love field trips and factory tours, so I asked Steve if he would let me come help out when it came time for our boards to “get the treatment”. The first day, I spent four happy hours, sander in hand, smoothing the edges of the planks so that they would most comfortably fit snugly. It was pelting rain outside - temptations to wander were absent. The next morning, I observed the oiling machine and took excessive pride in “fixing” the machine that was refusing to deliver oil onto the roller. I will love my beautiful floors even more as a result of this experience. Thank you Steve, Josh, Jim, Nick and Gracia for a wonderful welcome and great learning experience!
Don and I have sworn off polyurethane floor finishes. We do not like their artificial plastic sheen. At our apartment in Chicago we “cerused” the floors with a blue wax that evoked Lake Michigan on a summer afternoon. In Cooperstown our floors were comb painted - a decorative treatment. We’ve patched and painted beat up old floors.
Steve deep-sixed polyurethane decades ago for a very serious reason. As a finish carpenter, he used to apply a lot of it. Then he and his co-workers developed asthma. Seeking a remedy for the ailment, a naturopath did a test which revealed monoethyldipropyleneglycol (think antifreeze) in his blood. The pursuit of non-toxic floor treatments, which led him to a German company making a product called Osmo, then to a spin-off enterprise, the makers of Saicos. Steve’s SAICOS-applying machine was the first of its kind in Canada developed by an Italian rep. The staining machine is a marvelous Rube Goldberg invention. A blue roller deposits the stain “goop” onto the floor board. The board proceeds along a bed of rollers to meet a series of brushes - akin to giant shoe polishers whose height can be adjusted by old-fashioned cranks. The oiled & polished board enters a box with a UV light which “cures” the stain on the wood. Each and every board is inspected as it comes out of the UV box for uniformness of stain. Any splinters or imperfections are marked to be bundled separately from flawless boards. Let me tell you that the boards emerge beautifully silky warm and smelling sublime. Two coats of Saicos will be applied before the material is sent down to us in Victoria. They stain gradually darkens over time. Sensational!
This material came from Canadian Bavarian, but Steve has lumber of his own - including old growth windfall, beaver-kill, bridge timber salvage fir, as well as red alder. In fact his business began using local red alder - a deciduous hardwood that grow fast, is a super nitrogen fixer that grows to maturity in twenty five years. I learned from Steve that alder and maple are pioneer species that make way for the Douglas fir to thrive and push through. Without alder you have no old growth forest. Steve has had his fair share of interesting projects. He harvested the wood from the windfall in Stanley Park (though it took years to secure the wood in hand). His end matched, kiln dried yellow cedar made its way into the Frank Gehry designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. He supplied 20,000 board feet of FSC zero VOC, formaldehyde free, Douglas fir for George Lucas’ house. He has a stash of old growth fir 1 by 4 crown molding up in the rafters of the workshop - in case you should need it.
Our paint is similarly non toxic & eco friendly - we’re using Farrow & Ball for all interior painted walls, trim and floors. Pictures to follow once the installation in underway.
SAICOS is made from carnuba, candelaria, thistle, sunflower and soybean oils. More on the virtues of oiled floors- Think NO VOC’s!
This treasure trove of Green Build-realted books was generously given by Peter Sundberg - director of City Green. Last week I stopped by Chandra Horth’s place to pick them up. Chandra is my Clean BC Energy Coach and has gone above and beyond not only advising on rebates but actually constructing the book house herself. Naturally it has a little solar array on top. The 2654 Fernwood book box is likely to get a lot more popular once word get out.
After we sold Brewery Ommegang and before I rejoined Don in working on our importing business, I took a hiatus from beer. We moved from Cooperstown (Central NY) to Troy (Hudson Valley) so that our daughter, Claire, could attend the Emma Willard School. She got a great education. So did I.
I decided to see if I could bring entrepreneurial skills to non-profit management. Shortly after arriving, there was a job posting in the Troy Register for the position of Executive Director of a women’s retreat on Lake George.I had never heard of the place but was intrigued. I applied, got the job and so commenced work tackling deferred-maintenance on some ten buildings, developing programming for the summer session, getting the place on the national register, applying for grants, staffing the place, and raising funds for this - the last surviving example of a Progressive Era women’s retreat. My predecessor, Sheila Rourke, successfully redefined the mission for a new generation and did a brilliant handover. An Emma Willard pal, Melissa Salmon, came on board as house manager. Summer intern, Katie Jarvis destined to become a history professor at Notre Dame, helped compile a history of the property. My Troy neighbor the textile artist Barbara Todd (more on her work later) joined the board and helped organize a giant fundraiser called Threads of Wiawaka. We featured women designers of New York State. My friend Silda Wall Spitzer was the keynote speaker and had the audience in tears by the end of her talk. I went from toiling in the back slapping male-dominated beer world, to the nearly exclusive company of women. There was one great guy on campus, the property caretaker, Joe Wylie. It was really hard work, but mostly wild fun.
Anyway, as a result of running Wiawaka (and while simultaneously serving as a trustee of the Emma Willard School) I learned a lot about women’s history, Troy history, labor history, Adirondack history and most importantly what it takes to age happily if you are woman. These were lessons learned from the wise Wiawakans of advanced age: Know when you need to take time for yourself, and do it. Have a necessary passion. Cherish your true friends. Maintain a connection to and respect for the past - but do something prepare the way for a better future for those who come after you. Simply profound and profoundly simple.
The “holiday house” had been founded by Trojan philanthropists for female immigrant textile workers in Troy’s shirt collar industry. Troy was known as the “city of women”. The campus is a twenty six acre parcel (the largest property in use for public good in the Adirondack Park) developed in the 1850’s as a resort. In 1902 for a dollar and a bouquet of flowers it passed from the hands of Katrina Trask (who founded Yaddo) to Mary Fuller - Wiawaka’s creator and guardian spirit. An early guest was Georgia O’Keeffe - but that is a story for another day.
The great great granddaughters of the immigrant textile workers continue to frequent and support the place. Thing is they are college professors, aerospace engineers, artists, lawyers and doctors. The textile workers have left the scene, but in their place scholarshipped guests are grandmothers who are primary caregivers of school-aged children, women who have loved ones who are incarcerated, women who have been victims of domestic abuse.
I had that experience of overseeing Wiawaka at an inflection point in my life. Through Wiawaka I found renewal, a deeper appreciation people who do not have an easy path, an abiding respect for the pioneering women of the progressive era, and a love of textiles and the people who make them. In a more perfect world, every region would have a Wiawaka - a place for women to gather for affordable holidays, where eating is communal, learning experiences are shared across economic, social and age barriers. Communal quilting and poetry writing workshops were two of the mainstays. That there is only one surviving example of such a place in North America is a crying shame.
So my intent is to fill the house with textiles made by women. More on that in a future blog post about women textile artists of Vancouver Island and a bit beyond.
The Adirondack Park - Image provided by Unsplash
I come by my bargain-hunting skills honestly. As a child I accompanied my parents on many a Manhattan Upper East Side Saturday thrift-shopping excursion. They and their fellow flaneurs - among them a managing editor at Vogue, Columbia professor of Arabic history, and the noted antique dealers John Rosselli and Furlough Gatewood were so well-liked by the volunteer ladies at the Lenox Hill, Spence Chapin, Housingworks, and Memorial Sloan Kettering charity shops that the best donations were, at times secreted behind the counter for their perusal. The treasure hunters would meet for lunch in Germantown (86th street) to show what they had found and discuss each piece’s merits. I listened intently.
Any wonder that we should rejoice in filling the net zero house with second-hand furnishings bought for a sous? We make nearly weekly forays to Lund’s to see what’s on offer and more often than not come away with a prize. This past week it was a KitchenAid stainless mixer, a set of Community pattern silver for 12, and two armchairs for the parlor. I had been holding out for a pair of wing chairs embroidered in Bargello- but since the two chairs set me back $60 (retail likely $2,000 each) I won’t feel bad about trading them in when the Bargello numbers show up. Meanwhile, they are very comfortable. I am sitting in one right now.
Except to furnish the parlor - a period room with built-in bookcases, fireplace and William Morris wallpaper - we are looking for clean-lined pieces that are Mission or Modern. Below are some of the finds living lightly in the rental bungalow awaiting the move to Fernwood. Everything is from dear old Lund’s unless otherwise noted. Onto this base we will layer local textiles, painting, photographs and ceramics- generally things that are in the serene color palette of the house - or that adumbrate the theme of conservation. The contents of the finished house will be very largely (maybe not 99 and 44/100% ) used, salvaged, or locally produced. We can happily work with what is here.
Teak parsons table style desk and Hans Wegner chair (Chair from The Fabulous Find)
Mid Century pottery on a barley twist drop leaf table (Pottery from Kim’ on Pandora)
Lee chairs and a coromandel lamp
Oak Bay landscape (Kim’s)
Imari dinnerware (more of them in the bottom row)
A modern piece I did not buy - a lot of work by this artist came up for sale recently
Detail of the Coromondel lamp (we got 2) some of the best buys ever
Pencil post bed and side tables
Mission bookcase - original wavy glass especially beautiful
Flat weave vintage rug of uncertain provenance but jazzy disposition,
Leaded glass transom lights
Murano glass lanterns
Imari resplendent
Stones and shells - one per day to mark the time we’re out of the house. Some kind of shrine will be erected
Welsh blanket - Lots of Welsh influence here in British Columbia found on Fort street
August is the month of abundant figs and dahlias.
Dahlias are improbably bright and cheerful. They are just now coming into their own. A few weeks back I found a Dahlia-growing operation in Merville in the Comox Valley run by two unrepentant hippies. I gave them my copy of Dancing in Gumboots: profiles of pioneering counter-culturistas who moved to this area in the late 1960’s. How could I not offer the book to the women? They seemed to know everyone who merited a chapter.
I shall return to the farm to buy tubers in the fall - perhaps some Ferncliff Copper and Calamity Shame to go with the Alberta Sunset and Bud da Pest Blush. Meantime, Victoria’s neighborhood dahlia beds are a source of delight. I particularly appreciate the gentleman gardener whose retired golf clubs serve as stakes.
Fig harvesting is in high gear. The rental house has a mighty fig tree in the back yard - the largest in all Oak Bay, I’m told. It is a challenge to nab the ripest figs before the raccoons reach them. Not quite ripe figs often bear claw scratch marks - having been tested & rejected by the varmints. A day or two can make all the difference in sweetness. as the furry connoisseurs know all too well. My tree must produce a hundred pounds of fruit. As a consequence,I am becoming infamous for my largesse. Bowls of ripe figs are presented to the crew at the work site. Roasted figs appear in a quinoa lupini, zucchini and spinach salad for a friend’s dinner. Homemade vanilla ice cream with fig jam (simmered with cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, ginger, lemon rind and pistachio) grace the tables of those who are helping me with landscape planning and pet sitting. Special ones are given license to do their own picking when I am away - so fecund is this tree. My landlord came over - ostensibly to power wash the driveway - but he stayed after I had left - not I think to clean, but to glean - the lure of the tree and its fruit is simply too great.
Google “glean” and “figs” and up comes this passage of woe and hunger from the Bible: “For I am as when the summer fruits have been gathered, as when the vintage grapes have been gleaned and there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that I crave. But for now - in high summer with that tree in the yard, it is impossible to imagine such deprivation.
Figs were among the first fruits cultivated by man. The Aztecs used Dahlia tubers for food.
The first time that David and Susan Scott presented designs for our house they brought along material samples - one of which was a slab of pale grey-blue unpolished Tllupana marble. We learned that it had been quarried up island. The Scotts are connoisseurs of that which is produced on Vancouver Island. They have used Tlupana marble on other projects (as in a massive handsome kitchen counter we admired (add image)). They encouraged us to take a drive to Duncan to Matrix Marble to see the operation. Ivo Zanatta is the major domo. he comes from a family of an Italian family of stone experts.
Vancouver island marble turns up in our house, you’ll see it when we get to the finishings stage. We scrimped to be able to use Tlupana on a few surfaces. We bought all our kitchen appliances on used Vic second hand for $1700. We sourced the base cabinets from Ikea for $3000.
Read moreThe 40th anniversary season of the acclaimed PBS home reno show, This Old House, zeroed in on a 1920’s cottage conversion. It is a great set of programs and I urge you to watch. The client of the Rhode Island retrofit is the self same architect who is designing our friend Matt Grocoff’s off the grid Ann Arbor community, Viridian. Our eagle-eyed daughter, Claire, spotted this profile on the window supplier’s site. Hat’s off to everyone involved in this sensitive renewal of a good, simple cottage.
If you want to scan the project houses that This Old House has taken on over the last 41 years - here is the roster. There are a slew of videos on their YouTube channel. I just bookmarked one on whitewashing brick, a current preoccupation of mine.
Another old house that has been lovingly and sensitively updated.
Trevor Coey of Bartlett Tree Experts helped us organize the pre-demo tree pruning. He and his team will come back for the first stage of landscaping. A portion of the front lawn will be made ready to receive a tree and planted with grasses and scattered with wildflower seeds. To the extent there is room (the northeast section of the property is diminutive) we will add herbs that look handsome in autumn when the first “beauty shots” of the house will be taken. David and Susan Scott called for a saucer magnolia to be planted there. Trevor directed me to visit Kimoff Wholesale Tree Nursery in Saanichton and to tell Julianne that he sent me. That is precisely who came to greet me when I arrived. We strolled down the lane to the beautiful stand of magnolias. Within minutes the right one had been identified. It is a narrow tulip variety Liliflora Nigra which when full grown will have a spread of fifteen feet.
I asked Julianne to tell me about the business and if I could wander around for a while. It is about as tranquil and healing a place as one could hope to spend a summer day. The gallery has a selection of shots taken yesterday. I will write more about as the date to transplant the tree approaches. I have been in the vicinity of Kimoff many times without realizing it was there - near by Danica and Mitchell Farms - not far from the airport but a world away. There is no website for the business - it seems there is no need. Word of mouth among landscaping professionals has built this enterprise over the last forty years. More before too long. Meantime keep an eye out for the water tower and beat a path to this treasure trove of specimen trees.
Little libraries dot the landscape all over Victoria and Oak Bay. If you are a book worm like me these repositories of free reading material are well-nigh irresistible. Last I heard there were nearly 300 of them. Right now I am reading a book on garden design (found at the Moss Bay box) preparatory to a visit to Saanich Native Plants in search of wildflower seeds for the front yard.
When we committed to the reno, we knew we wanted a book house on property - we thought a mini version of our house would be nice. It made sense to stock the shelves with literature that inspired living lightly on the land and material from the city and province to encourage that sort of behavior.
We have the great fortune of having someone make our book house for us. Though it does not resemble our residence, it is adorable. Chandra Horth our energy coach at City Green and a friend built it from an old Ikea cabinet found on the street, and salvaged material from our site. Chandra had the bright idea to add a mini solar panel so that at night the contents of the library are illuminated,
I ought to register the library for ease of finding. Thinking of putting a library at your place - you might find these links useful Little Free Library and learn about The Greater Victoria Placemaking Library
The day the book box debuted - June 19, 2020 -
I have plenty of grand notions about what this blog can cover and accomplish. But all would come to naught if not for two extraordinarily talented and good-natured young women. One is my daughter, Claire Feinberg, and the other, Elysia Glover. When I laid out the template for the site back in the fall, Claire (masters in industrial design from Pratt) set it up in a matter of hours on Squarespace. Thank you dear Claire. Through the winter I kept plugging away on the site to be - gaining experience, conducting research, taking photos and journaling. I put out feelers for a paid internship in Victoria, but came up empty-handed. That is until February 12th when over coffee with Ben Isitt, Elysia’s name was volunteered as an ideal co-conspirator . Elysia is the Executive Director of the Victoria Microlending Society a non-profit that was founded more than a decade by then councilwoman and now mayor, Lisa Helps. On my walk home for coffee with Ben I called Elysia and I was sure right off the bat, that if she had the time to help me, it would be a great collaboration.
We got started on our co-working on February 24th and logged four or five meetings - until Covid hit and we had to resort to working remotely. The site is as coherent as it is because of the good sense, intelligence and rage for order Claire and Elysia apply. This weekend Claire is headed to Anchorage, Alaska to run the campaign of Stephen Trimble an independent and solar entrepreneur who is running for a state house seat, so I won’t be able to rely on her help until after the election. She has a higher calling - so formatting mistakes from now to November must be blamed on me. Meanwhile, Elysia and I will forge ahead - on the site ….and as of May 21st working with a group of students of U. Vic Geography Department professor, Cam Owens who will be helping make the project of the site and the dissemination of news ever better.
