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Between a Rock and a Fireplace
Evidently a geologist-type owned Old Gal sometime before us and felt inspired to face the brick fireplace with his collection of semi-precious rocks and stones. It wasn’t just the out-of-square placing of the crazy stones that bugged me, but the fact that it protruded from the walls by ten inches and was just, well, so…
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Mother Nature’s Blower Door Test
I woke at three a.m. to howling winds, heavy snow, and a bitter minus twenty-four degrees with windchill. Stray bits of untrimmed Typar flapped violently against the polyiso outside our bedroom window. After two months or so I’d hoped I’d stop noticing that sound on the windiest of nights, but no such luck. However, unexpected…
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First, You Crawl
No word of a lie, I am THIS close to becoming a hobbit-like anti-social Howard Hughes troglodytic crawlspace dweller that descends the basement steps in the dark and ascends, filthy and abnormally bent, once night has fallen. No, I think I do hobbits an injustice. They’re much more social than I am these days, not…
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At Home: A Short History of Private Life
I just finished Bill Bryson’s new book At Home: A Short History of Private Life. I’d say I’d read it cover to cover but it was, in fact, my first e-book experience. It was a good choice for this format due to its easygoing writing style and non-linear content. There was no cognitive penalty for…
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The More Things Change
This past summer I spent way more time than I cared to attending council meetings, writing letters and talking to neighbours about a proposed Heritage Conservation District (HCD) for our tiny historic hamlet, when I really needed to be up on the scaffolding. I am hardly anti-heritage but I also don’t believe that the benefits…
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More Than Pilgrims Coming to Mecca
Apparently, one of the holiest sites in the world is not immune to the worldwide scourge of homogenized and gaudy urban development according to today’s The New York Times article. “It is the commercialization of the house of God,” said Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who founded a research center that studies urban planning issues…
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All Moshe, All Afternoon
I remember when my eldest was about five and we headed to the National Gallery in Ottawa for some regular cultural exploration to keep me from going bonkers. D fell asleep in the van and I carried him into the building. Once inside he stirred and, looking up into the sweeping glass ceilings filled with…
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Cheerios in the Floorboards and Other Assorted Commonalities
Most people pick their friends based on sympathetic personalities, socio-economic similarities, common interests, or the age of their children. But we seem to be collecting friends who, like us, live in old and partially renovated houses. I can’t decide whether our rural roots or similar value sets are bringing us together or whether there is…
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A Moving Manifesto on Homelessness
Husband more often than not works from home these days, which is particularly useful on nasty winter days when snow squalls or freezing rain threaten. I have switched to indoor work now and am especially appreciative of the warm, dry and nourishing surroundings that we share. I jealously protect my solitude a little less now…
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A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver (and Montreal and Toronto)
Sure wish I had found this coolio little book BEFORE I got to Vancouver; I would have saved myself a lot of time in assembling architectural walking tours of the city.