Can you ever have too much wood?

Wood! Jim's passion is working with wood and there's nothing like really getting to know your wood!   Over the last couple of months we've worked with local wood guru and mill owner Greg Williams to get our pine wood together for our ceiling project.  And it smells amazing. So fresh! Greg and Jim speak wood together.

Of course you have to bring the wood home, clean it off and stack it.  We pack, we unpack.

We got this stuff stacked at 9:00 at night because we were leaving on the 8:00 a.m. ferry in the morning.  It was a really zen like evening of quietly working away at it.

I carried clean boards from the driveway across the porch and then slid them down the outside
of the railing to table we set up below.  Jim's stacking the boards by flood light.

The drying process takes quite a while so Jim built this breezy but shaded structure to protect it over the coming months. 

Not only is wood outside but our house's lower level is now full of beautiful wood panels stacked and covered and waiting til they become part of our home.  Sometime in the next few months we'll be putting the panels and trim up in our living / dining / kitchen space above and around our windows.  Not much drywall in this house!

You may recall we also have the cool figured beach log waiting for us to go and get it to create something amazing.

Scoping it out. 

Tricky cutting the end off it and turning it but we're getting there.  Now we need to drive
our truck down the beach, strap it up and use a come-along to hoist it into our truck.

Rocks and Trees! Always rocks and trees.

Life is good!

Tricia and Jim

The saga of the cedar soffit

The saga of the cedar soffit began some months ago when we visited the local mills to find cedar for our soffit.

A soffit is the 'ceiling' that is below the roof on the outside of the house.

Many homes choose a metal or vinyl soffit to finish the space off and that's just fine but we wanted to try something more local and organic.

Here we go....

November 2018 - Planing the cedar for consistent thickness of all boards.

This was HARD work since the boards were covered with sawdust, some of it damp.
Equal amounts of pushing and pulling was required. 

We spent two whole days outside in perfect conditions planing the hundreds of boards.

Boards were then brought inside to finish drying before being cut to specific lengths.

I'm using the jig Jim set up to push each board through with precision accuracy.

A router was used to add a 'bevel', or angle, on all the edges.

The boards were then cut to length using a well thought out spreadsheet listing dimensions. 

After cutting the boards to length Jim checked them for knots that might fall out as the wood continued to cure.

Jim cut grooves on the backs of the boards around any suspect knots.

Hot glue was added, filling the grooves and securing the knot.  It's never seen from the front and works great!

Then we sanded all the boards before Jim coated them with a stain / preservative.

Labour intensive work!

This was after dinner around 9:00 p.m.

Jim painted on the coating then passed each board to me.  

 I laid them out on a variety of shelving to dry for a couple of days before moving them.

Each board was carried upstairs then sorted, identified and labeled by row and position. 

Our small house looked more like an old frontier fort!

The individual boards were nailed up by a professional crew.  Jim and I were  not interested in working on top of 20 foot high scaffolding.  You can see the vent strips which allow air circulation above the insulation and keeps insects out.

The finished product. Sumptuous Cedar Soffits!

Next!

Until then...

Jim and Tricia Bowen

Night Sky

April 28, 2019
Last night I felt a strong connection to this beautiful piece of property we own.  Of course we've spent a year getting to know it - we started gardening, planting, pruning, imagining and creating our outdoor spaces. But that was working with the dirt, the plants, the trees.  Last night was different.
It was almost midnight, and I’m usually long asleep by then, but last night I felt antsy for some reason. Jim was sound asleep as I tiptoed over to our bed and grabbed my favourite blanket.  I turned off the lights and carefully made my way to the black mesh steno chair perched at our little glass table, overlooking our terraced land. I swivelled, snuggled in, covered up and gazed out... taking in the peace, tranquility and silence around me. The only sound was Jim’s steady breathing and the comforting call of a close-by loon, likely floating on the ocean only a few dozen feet below our lot.

The absent moon was still behind the treed mountain directly across the road to the east but the sky was still bright enough to reveal shapes, shades and shadows.  The large picture window made an instant frame for me to view the night sky from.  I made out the jagged edge of a tall spruce on the left, its branches draped slightly as if bowing.  I was soothed watching the shimmering sea between us and Port McNeill. I enjoyed the glow from the amber street lights, reflecting as golden ropes laid out on the tranquil waters of Broughton Strait.   As I stood and stretched I heard the chug, chug, chug of a lone fisherman motoring past Rough Bay. Time and tide wait for no man.

That was ‘a moment’, as they say, that I will treasure for a long time. As summer approaches,  I’m positive that many warm evenings will be spent outside, sitting in our second hand folding camping chairs ,watching the night sky while we contemplate our good fortune and blessing in finding this beautiful land on Malcolm Island.