Little House in a Nutshell

Other than the outdoor/garden bathtub and shower, the house is pretty much done.   I say 'pretty much' because also on the 'to do' list without a line through it is the water filtration system but that's boring and not nearly as important as an outdoor bathtub.  

A year ago only hay, elk and eagles lived in our field.   When we decided to join them, we promised to be good neighbors.

...and yes I know...

1. we already had a house so building another one wasn't a very 'green' thing to do. 

2. that any structure we would build would be more intrusive than building nothing.

Anyway.  Playing with designs was overwhelming but easy because it was noncommittal.   Deciding on a final design caused more stupidly self-inflicted stress than I could have ever imagined.    Putting a house on a site is such a one-shot-deal.  

Now.  Did we leave a scar?  Since a scar is in the eyes of the beholder, (ask someone that thinks Mt Rushmore is beautiful) you decide.

We now have a perfect little house 

• that has a 2:12 pitched roof to match the slope of the hillside it shares

• where we can go outside from every room

• that is 966 square feet

• where we use every room every day

• made from mostly local materials (stone, concrete, lumber and subs)

• made from natural materials that blend in with the site...

and that's what we wanted.

We did Energy Star whenever we could:

• Summit Stainless Steel Counter Depth Bottom-Mount Refrigerator 

• White Rogers programmable thermostats

• Eagle window and doors double glazed, tempered Low-E 

• Insulation Master high density closed cell spray foam (5" in the walls for r35 and 7" in the ceiling for r49) 

• Emerson ceiling fans 

• Air King range hood - 30" Stainless Steel  

• Asko clothes washer 

• Asko clothes dryer 

pictures top to bottom:

Looking west at the master bedroom (left), entry (center),  and kitchen (right).  I LOVE THIS PHOTO.  Mt Linton is in the background and supposedly houses mountain goats that I've never seen.

Looking northeast at the office (left), bathroom (center), and master bedroom (right under the pergola) Crap, I fogot...the pergola's not done either.

Looking east (with the mountain goats behind me) at the living room and covered deck (left) and office (right). 

Looking north from the office into Britsh Columbia.

Looking at Vin thinking the ladder is right under him.

An International Event

The Selkirk International Film Festival is July 6 at the Cutter Theater in Metaline Falls.  The festival will be the Metaline Falls premier of 'You're Not Cindy'.   Vince and I will be there so at least we know the theater won't be completely empty.

Follow The Yellow Stone Walk

Two days after we rented a flatbed truck pulling a trailer and picked up a pallet of local stone in Canada (I know it's Canadian... but only 25 miles away....so I decided it was OK to call it local), we had a walkway.  

It connects our perfect little shed with the fir walkway to the front door and inches us closer to completing our western oasis. 

Vince said it was for my birthday. I said thank you but it didn't count.

Me Without Nelson

We moved out of the Nelson house last week.  It was sad for me but not for Vince.  He's good at not dwelling on stuff that is the way it is.  

Me? I'll miss being able to walk to the food co-op or to get a cup of coffee or organic french fries.   I'll miss being able to walk to rent any movie ever made, purple money and nearly free healthcare.  I'll miss crossing the border every week into a thriving economy where no one is not a hockey fan. 

We probably should have either built a house OR gone to film school, but we didn't know that until weekends when we were editing in sheet rock dust in front of a space heater.

Learning filmmaking was way harder than I'd ever imagined.  My life-experience edge wasn't the advantage I'd imagined. 

The distance I was out of my element was similar to when I took the bookkeeper job a the local grain elevator in 1974.  I don't know why they offered it to me, why I took it or why I thought I could do it.  I quit after one day which I'm sure which I'm sure was less time than it took to fix their books.  They insisted they pay me and I insisted they didn't.  

As of today, my new degree hasn't opened any doors in Hollywood.

Photos:
Coffee heaven.  Oso Negros railings crafted by a local metal artist

French fries on wheels.

Reo's made renting a movie even more fun than it normally would be.