8
Mar 2020

Email 7

TED Talk Your elusive creative genius This was a surprisingly funny TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. She talks about the weirdness of the creative process and how it just might be possible that “fairies follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects.”  Article Fear is boring, and other tips for living a creative life If fairy juice didn’t work for you, this article by Elizabeth Gilbert is more practical advice to kick your creative butt off the couch. My favourite part is: “If you have a creative mind, it’s a little bit like owning […]

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1
Mar 2020

Email 6

Book Cook Once, Eat all Week This is a cookbook. In case you didn’t know, I don’t cook. I try, I like the idea of cooking, but the actual execution for me has always been difficult. I got this cookbook because I like how she walks you through pre-making most of the ingredients, using only a few main pieces for the week in different ways. Step by step, no interpretation necessary. Unfortunately though, it’s meat, meat and more meat and we’re trying to cut down (see video from last week). Oops. We’re trying the first one anyway this week. It was entertaining to […]

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1
Mar 2020

Pig Story

Pig was asleep. The creatures of the night were awake, but Pig couldn’t keep his eyes open. He had intended to. His plan was set. His plan was flawless. His plan would have worked. He would be bat pig! The wings he had imagined sprouting from his back, strong and furry just like the bats in the farmyard would appear. He was going to be the pig that flew. And now, the Sandman had ruined everything. Pig had been overtaken without his consent, even worse, without his very knowledge. When Pig awoke with a start, the sun had risen, the […]
22
Feb 2020

Email 5

Video Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world) This is a really interesting video recommendation from Steph! It talks about the impact of meat on the environment but from the view of innovation for change. I particularly like the visualizations he uses to illustrate his points, like the one below. I briefly looked for where it came from, but couldn’t find it, so I’ll have to dig a little more. Book Make Good Art by Neil Gaiman This book is really cute and came out of nowhere (thanks mom!). Neil Gaiman is an author I’ve been reading a lot of […]

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15
Feb 2020

Email 4

Here’s the content from the 4th email. If you go into this post you should have the option to comment on the bottom. I’m trying it out to see if this works for everyone. Please let me know if you have any issues with it, or of course suggestions, content ideas or interesting things you’ve been doing. You’re always welcome to email or message me if you’re more comfortable with that. Comics Catana Comics I’ve been looking for funny comics recently and came across these ones. Very relationship oriented but there are some that are pretty cute and relatable. Strange Planet by Nathan W. […]

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8
Jun 2015

Barn Sliding Door

The progress on the barn is slow going these days. Here’s a maple and steel door for one of the little bedrooms. The idea is that there will be 3 more just like it, 2 for the other bedrooms and one for the bathroom. I think it turned out really nicely, and despite how heavy it is, it’s very easy to move and the vinyl rollers make it pretty quiet.

10
Aug 2014

Driveway and Pergola

Our anniversary present this year was to have a baby-free weekend and build our pergola outside. We used multiple 4×4’s instead of bigger posts so we had an interesting connection for the privacy barn boards we are planning to put on it. We made our lives a little bit difficult with the flagstone, because we not only have a giant driveway, but we also got B-Grade flagstone so not all of them are the same width. But we managed to find a method and layout went fairly quickly. We will be filling the cracks with soil and planting some hardy […]

18
May 2014

The Finished Floor

After much hunting we splurged on the floor we wanted. It’s a white oak, hand scraped matte finish that is durable and will wear nicely with abuse from the dogs’ claws. Putting the floor down only took 4 days beginning to end, and it makes a huge difference. Thanks to the awesome team we had to get it all done so quickly! Before the crew got there Kyle and I spent a while laying out and placing the first row. Getting that one perfect was key to the rest looking right. We even measured to make sure there wouldn’t be […]

5
Dec 2013

The Finished Ceiling

We ended up going with a dark, semi-gloss bass wood for the ceiling to have a nicer contrast with the floor. It picks up the colours in it nicely. We also thought that it would bring down the ceiling a little bit so it doesn’t feel too much like a cathedral space. It was interesting trying to get to the top with 16′ ceilings, but it’s done now! The sheen does a nice job of bringing the light to the far side of the barn from the south facing windows.

18
Sep 2013

Gable Windows

The windows are in and the long awaited temporary wall is down! This side of the barn didn’t have quite as many layers of barnboard on it, so deconstruction actually went fairly quickly.

20
Aug 2013

Gable Framing and Ceiling Insulation

It’s official that we’re finishing off the last third of the barn renovation this summer and fall. Here are some pictures of the framing going in for the gable end wall where we will have most of our windows and the ceiling insulation. The top sections of the gable wall will

15
Aug 2013

Front Entry

The front entry is on the ground floor (stone section) of the barn, and needed to be a welcoming space to invite you in and lead you upstairs. Originally the door opened into a 3′ x 3′ space, where you had to step down into the slightly larger area before going up the stairs. We opened this whole space out and moved the bathroom door so it is now part of the living space instead of the shop.

13
Jan 2013

A little bit more in the kitchen and bathroom

Here are some more pictures of the kitchen and bathroom as they are today. Some notes: The Bathroom Ceiling – The ceiling is made up of tongue and groove pine boards that we took out of the barn last year. They are sanded down and finished with an oil based semi-transparent stain. The Pantry – We made this wall of the bathroom out of 2×10’s so we could have a pantry adjacent to the kitchen/dining area.The shelves are now in and I’m not having any trouble filling them with jars of pasta. Kyle has started building the track for the […]

5
Nov 2012

Starting the last third

As many of you know, until now we have only completed the structure on 2/3 of the barn, with a giant “temporary wall” blocking off the last third. Well, now we have officially started that last structure. Here are some pictures of the last third of the original floor coming out, our leveling process, the new joists going in and the plywood subfloor (tongue and groove glued and screwed!) going down. Our temporary wall is still up, but the pipes for the in-floor heating are now in and the shop underneath is insulated much better for the winter.

16
Sep 2012

Summer at the Barn 2012

Overall it was a very busy summer with our wedding, designing and working, but unfortunately not a lot of construction work went on at the barn. We still think it’s the best place to live/work though, here are some pictures of our summer at the barn.