Southeast Cedar Home

Short VAST Paver Walkway

2010-03-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

We had a few pavers leftover from the driveway project, so we decided to put them to good use. Today was a good day to work on home projects, because we needed good weather to change a big patio door, so while it rained and blew the guys filled in the afternoon playing with the VAST Pavers. While I ran around looking over several projects around town Kurt and Jud woked on a short walkway that will connect our lower deck to the stairs that lead down from the upper deck.

While Jud was finishing up a bit of window trim on our latest weatherization job Kurt got the ground ready. Here is a birds eye view of Kurt laying out the gird.

Along with doing our best to build as green as we can we love to use local woods, so it seemed appropriate to use Alaskan yellow cedar to edge this walkway. Of course the deck is all Alaskan yellow and red cedar so connecting the stairs to the lower deck with yellow cedar edging was the right thing to do.

Jud lays the last of the pavers.

Jud has a way of putting in the extra effort to finish a job. So, minutes before quitting time he marks and gets ready to cut the last paver. Well not the last, because we are going to do a small inlay in this walkway too. More photos will follow soon.

Pavers are Done

2010-03-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

On Sunday in pouring rain Connie and I finished the pavers for our parking area on the street side of our home. After working with the VAST Pavers I’m very impressed with the thought that went into the design of this unique product.

The inlaid compass rose

When people find out that these pavers are made from recycled plastic bottles and rubber tires they tend to be as impressed too.

It was a lot of work, but well worth it.

Recycle Center

2010-02-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

In early January Jud helped me finish a project that I started about a year ago. At my age I like to sit down to put on shoes and we needed someplace to store recyclable stuff before taking it to the recycle center. So, I decided to build a bench that would open up where the recyclable stuff could be stored. Better yet the bench was made mostly with left over wood from various projects.

I love aromatic red cedar, so I have to admit that I did give into an impulse buy urge at the lumber yard. Other than the cedar and the maple that lines the lid all the rest of the bench was made from left over wood.

Jud installs the trim on the bottom of the bench.

The main part of the bench is made out of a leftover sheet of ¾ inch teak plywood that we had left over from the boat the we built. I have been storing this plywood since 1990. So, it was about time I found a project for it.

Getting Ready For Gardening

2010-02-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

Last summer I grew nasturtiums in the far box. At the end of the season I found out that nasturtiums are eatable and I’m told they are very tasty. So, we added another box and this year we will not only grow nasturtiums for the beauty of a flower box, but for food too.

The best place for sun on our property is at the lakes edge, hence the new yellow cedar garden boxes that are mounted on the side of the dock.

New Truck

2010-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of the new truck parked on the VAST Pavers

People are still stopping in to admire the pavers. When I tell them that the pavers are made from recycled plastic bottles and tires most people are very surprised.

More Pavers

2010-01-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

This past week we had several interruptions but we did get more of the VAST Pavers laid. Below are some photos from the past week.

Kurt lays more grid in preparation for the pavers.

As is often the case with me, I changed my mind in the middle of a project. I had planned to do more concrete work, but the pavers looked so good I figured why not do an additional 200 sq feet of them? So, the project is now on hold until more pavers arrive and time and weather let us get back to the job. (This time of year our days start getting longer very quickly. In fact we are gaining more than 3 minutes a day right now. By the time the pavers get here there will be enough light for me to work a couple of hours each evening on the project.)

The compass rose is done. Several people have stopped by to say how much they think the compass rose adds to the project. And, I agree. It was a lot of work, but well worth it.

Grandsons Nate and Blake stop in to lend a hand laying paver. Both boys had been by the week before and both boys had lots of fun putting pavers down. 3 year old Nate had a little trouble with the herringbone concept, but 7 year old Blake caught right on and was soon laying pavers as fast as the rest of us.

Nate shows off his new pink backpack, that he will wear on the kids upcoming 6 week trip to Malaysia. I have never seen a little boy who loves to play with trucks more than this kid, but he also loves pink. He says it is his favorite color.

My trusty 2001 Toyota Tacoma stands ready to deliver one last load of tools to a job site on Monday. As of Monday, my new 2010 double cab Tacoma will be in town and this great truck will transfer into the trusty hands of Jud. (Now that is the way to keep the truck coming to the job site, sell it to one of your employees!)

Connie stands in the middle of the compass rose and shows off her new Lady Bug clogs.

VAST Pavers

2010-01-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I have updated anything on this blog. I guess I got too busy, and possibly I was a tad bored with blogging. But, this latest project of doing our parking area in VAST Composite Pavers has me excited enough to take some time on this rainy Saturday afternoon to upload some photos from the project.

One day while reading an online article about Green Building I came across an advertisement for VAST Pavers. When I saw that the pavers were made out of recycled tires and plastic bottles I got excited. Not only do I love the look of pavers, but here was a Green paver, which is in contrast to the more traditionally concrete pavers. Connie and I knew we wanted to do something attractive with our parking area and here was the solution of doing it in a green way. I got so excited I asked VAST to be their dealer here in Sitka and the agreed. In fact Southeast Cedar Homes is now the 1st dealer in Alaska and this is the first time VAST Pavers have been used in Alaska. I’m going to be working hard to make sure that it is not the last time these very cool pavers are used here in Alaska!

The D-1 gravel has been removed and 1" minus drain rock has been added.

Forms are being built and rebar is being added.

Almost ready to pour.

We ordered brown dye for the concrete so I was a bit surprised to see that is was red. Here is how we get the wrong color. When I ordered the dye Stacy at Sitka Ready Mix told me to look online and get the number for the color off the color charts. So, I did and told her that the number was 160. So when the wrong color showed up I went back online to see who’s mistake it was. Can you believe that the website showed two #160’s? Yip, you guessed it there is a mistake on the website and if I had to bet I’d guess the real number should have been 1600. Oh, well once the concrete was mixed and we were ready to pour I figured the red would be just fine. And, I think it is.

Fortunately my son Zach in the red shirt showed up to help us pour. And, of course it was raining.

I have to give praise where praise is due. Sitka Ready Mix's driver Daryl is the best!

I have poured a lot of cement over the years and I have to say that I use to hate it. I think that was because the cement truck driver’s always were putting pressure on everyone to hurry up and get the job done. In fact I’d have to say that most of the past drivers I have worked with were usually total jerks. But, not Daryl. He is by far the best cement truck driver that I have ever been around, and I’d have to say the hardest working one too. Daryl takes all the pressure off the guys that are pouring and he makes the job go smoothly. I’d also bet that he is more efficient than any of the Hurry Up Drivers. In fact I know he is.

Speaking of giving praise where praise is due I also have to say what good employees I have. Here you see Jud and Kurt stacking all the pavers in the garage in readiness for installation.

Jud is the guy with the stack of pavers and the big smile on his face. Jud is not only one heck of a nice guy, but he can out work 2, maybe 3 guys any day of the week. He is one of those very rare guys who thrives on hard work, and seems to love it.

Now that is one heck of a stack of pavers!

The first pavers are starting to go down on the interlocking grid work. Note that the grids are on top of a permeable ground cloth. This will keep the fine sand from eventually leaching into the drain rock. Which could keep the drain rock for doing the job of draining the parking area.

This is the progress of laying pavers after the first 6 hours of laying them.

We are starting to cut out the compass rose .

Jud glues down the pavers on the edge of the cut. And, in the background you can see one of the other Sitka contractors stopping in to see what the heck we are doing.

The compass rose is starting to take shape.

I’ll be posting more photos as the job progresses.

2nd Woodshed

2009-04-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

With a small lot and limited space it was a challenge to find a location to build an additional woodshed. As you will see from the photos the new woodshed was built on rough cut yellow cedar 4X4 posts.

I ran out of deck sealer, so I still need to get a bit more sealer on the yellow cedar post and stairs, etc. These stair treads like all the stair treads on our decks are mortised into the stair jacks.

This is the view looking down on the old and the new woodshed as seen from the entry deck that runs from out garage to our house. The door in the photo is the door to our guest apartment that is located under out garage

Since the new wood shed could not be built parallel to the garage because of the terrain I decided to build the roof of the shed parallel to the garage roof. Rough cut red cedar 2X6’s make up the roof decking in both sheds. This keeps roofing nails from sticking through as they do on a plywood roof.

As they say firewood heats a person more than once. Since both of our wood sheds are down a set of stairs from our living area that means that the wood needs to be carried first down then back up the stairs. Of course there is also the chore of splitting wood. As you can see in the photo I keep my exercise equipment near were it will be used. Who needs to go to the gym when you have a wood stove?

Since it can take a good year to truly “season” firewood so that it is dry enough to get the maximum btu’s out of each piece of wood I wanted 2 woodsheds. This will give me enough room to keep ahead of the curve of supply and demand.

Yellow Cedar Dock

2009-04-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

Before we started construction on our home we had already looked into building a dock. Since Swan Lake is a shallow lake that is mostly surrounded by what I’d call a marsh, it is very hard to launch a boat from the shore. Hence, the dock that extends over the marshy area into water that is deep enough to launch and tie up a small boat.

I had always heard that getting an Army Corps of Engineers Permit was nearly impossible. But my experience has not shown this to be true. We of course consulted with the Corps when we built our house and found at that time the guidelines to build were simple to follow. When I applied for a permit to build the dock I again found it very easy and the Corps responded quickly and issued a permit for the dock.

The dock was build under Army Corps permit POA-2006-33

We hand dug holes through the grass and other organic material until we hit a layer of fractured rock at about 3 feet of depth. We then hand drove 1 inch galvanized pipe another 4 to 8 feet through the fractured rock until it refused to drive any further. Then Commercial Sonotubes were used as forms to pour 1 foot diameter concrete piers to support the deck girders. All in all we pour 2.5 yards of concrete for the project. The first yard of concrete was transported by wheelbarrow and the remainder of the concrete was carried in 5 gallon buckets.

Jud drills a pilot hole for one of the last spikes that holds the dock bull rail.

I though it would be fun to cast the shape of a duck and a swan into the concrete bulkhead that holds the dock to the shore.

We had never planned on using any pressure treated lumber because I did not want any toxic chemicals leaching into the lake. I was pleased when I read the Corps Permit requirements that banned the use of most treated lumber for any dock on this lake.

I of course am a very big fan of Alaskan Yellow Cedar. In my experience yellow cedar will out last most pressure treated lumber, it’s less expensive than pressure treated lumber, it grows locally and it is much less toxic to work with, so why in the heck would I use pressure treated lumber anyway!

When we applied for the permit we were told we were the first people to ever apply for a permit to build a dock on Sitka’s Swan Lake. This means this is the first legal dock to be built on the lake. Of course there is only a hand full of dock on the 22 acre lake anyway, but it’s nice to know ours is a legally built one.

The Boys

2009-03-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

It has been ages since I uploaded anything to this blog. So, here are 2 recent photos of grandsons Blake and Nate

At 7 years old Blak shows us the latest tooth that he lost a couple of weeks ago.

Just before the boys along with their parents flew to California Blake gave Nate this extra cute hair cut.

One of these days I will get around to taking photos of recent projects on the house and post them too.

Guest Apartment

2008-08-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

The area under our garage has gone through several incarnations during the finishing of the area. What started out as storage area evolved into an office/ family room and then into a guest apartment. In time the area still might be an office and I’m sure we will still use it as a family room too. But for now it is functioning as a guest apartment.

Below are a few photos taken a week or so ago right after I got the final inspection from the city building inspector.

Building codes and zoning codes are sometimes weird things. You will note the top of the Kitchenette has had the burners removed. This is because with burners the area would be considered another inhabitable living area and by zoning we can not do that since we are zoned R-1. Now, if I wanted to connect the house and the garage together then it would be ok because then our home would be a duplex. Or, I can put a hot plate on the area that is now a breadboard and that would be legal. All I have to say is “Go Figure.”

Guest bed and closet. The carpet is an industrial grade carpet tile. This is the first time I had laid carpet tiles and I have to say it was not only easy but I like it too. If I’m ever looking for a project I’ll build a headboard for the bed.

Very empty bookshelves will be filled with books as we dig them out of storage and off our overflowing bookshelves in our house. In time I will build a table but for now a card table will do.

A very small shower.

The heat in this 420 sq. foot room is from the 4kw heater you see in the photo. The countertops are granite tiles and the backsplash is stainless steel tiles.

Because of the concrete pillars that hold up the 2nd floor garage the walls are a full foot thick. The walls are double insulated with 2 layers of R-11 insulation. The sub-sheeting is left over plywood from cement forms and the framing is left over 2X4’s from cement forms. The inside paneling is 1X4 vertical T&G Sitka spruce, and western hemlock. The horizontal paneling is 1X8 T&G western red cedar.

Building Green

2008-05-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

Building Green

By: Marcel LaPerriere

Sorting fact from hype is not always easy. Building green is no exception. Over the last couple of years I have been doing a fair bit of research on building green both because I think it is the right thing to do and because I’m working with several clients who want to build green. Recently I was working with a woman who had a very nice modern home designed. The architect was encouraging her to build this home using steel. And, in fact he had even recommended a steel home manufacturing company that not only claimed to be Green, but even has the LEED* endorsement. Sorry, there is no way you will ever convince me that you can build a residential home using steel and consider it green. Here is why:

10% of all greenhouse gases admitted into the atmosphere come from the manufacturing of steel and concrete. Not to mention that 1/3 of the steel produced globally comes from China, where there are few environmental laws. This doesn’t even take into account the amount of fuel required to transport steel to this country from half way around the world. Even though most steel produced today comes from about 40% recycled steel, massive amounts of iron and other minerals have to be extracted from the earth to make steel. Steel of course also requires tons of coal to manufacture. Even well insulated steel walls will never be as energy efficient as wood walls. So, I have to wonder how any manufacture of steel homes can make the claim of being Green.

In my opinion one way to build green requires the builder to substitute wood whenever possible. This is just one of the reasons I’m fond of the Pan Abode Phoenix System. Solid wood walls greatly reduce another product that requires mining and vast amounts of energy to produce, and that is sheetrock. Did you know that 17% of all sheetrock manufactured gets thrown away without being used because of cutouts for windows, doors and hanging sheetrock to minimize seems? The Phoenix System also reduces the amount of fiberglass insulation that is required, thus saving the mining of silica and massive amounts of energy to produce the fiberglass insulation.

All too often I hear that solid wood walls are not energy efficient. I beg to differ. By making walls air tight and doing a good job of insulating in areas of high heat loss like the floor and ceiling, installing good thermal doors and windows and taking advantage of the thermal mass of wood, a truly Green home can be built.

With few exceptions wood is the only building material that will regenerate its self. And, while it is regenerating it is absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Producing a steel stud requires 9 times more energy to produce than the equivalent wood stud. Not to mention that wood has over 400 times the resistance to heat transfer than steel. In my book there is no better way to build Green than using wood. In fact a study by the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management (ECCM) found that by substituting wood whenever possible in the construction of homes that an 88% reduction in greenhouse gasses can be accomplished.

To truly build green you have to take into consideration: resource extraction, product manufacturing, transportation, installation, heating and cooling, longevity of the material in the building, and the eventual disposal of the material when the building is torn down. Through the whole life cycle of the building from resource extraction to disposal no building material has a lower overall carbon footprint than wood.

My motto is “Build Green, use wood!”

* Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design a standard set by the US Green building Council.

Jenn's Birthday

2008-05-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our daughter-in-laws birthday. This is a picture of
Blake writing Jenn and two hearts in the icing of the Birthday cake.

Nate is telling Grandpa how big a piece of cake he wants.

I think Jenn doesn't have a big enough spatula for Nate's piece
of cake, or a large enough cake.

Grandma is the Best!

2008-04-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Grandma taught Blake how to use the sewing machining and he caught on very quickly. They made the two hand puppets you see in the photo and Blake did all the sewing except the hemming. After the puppets were made the boys took the puppets down for a piano lesson with grandma. Blake named his puppet Smiley after Greatgrandma siad the puppet was smiling and Nate named his Mr. Green becasue of the green cloth.

Office/ Family Room/ Apartment

2008-04-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

When we first conceived the idea to put our garage on the street level or 2nd level we had no idea what we would do with the area under the garage. At first we figured we would just leave it open and perhaps put a play area for the grandkids under the garage. Then we thought we should at the very least enclose the walls and make it into storage. But like most things that Connie and I get involved with we never stop with the easy option. Hence the tri-purpose room; office, family room, apartment.

My business partner Fred was by this afternoon for a quick meeting and to see how things were progressing under the garage. He asked if I had been taking photos and I had to admit it had been a while since I had. So, after tonight's dinner I ran down and shot the photos that are posted below.

The back wall with Pan Abode Homes red cedar Phoenix T&G paneling. The 4 foot wide closet can also be seen in the photo. I will sheetrock the inside of the closet. The black ABS pipe is the floor drains from the garage above.

A built in bookshelf is on one corner of the room. Since the garage is supported on 14 one foot square nine foot high concrete pillars the walls between the pillars are over 10 inches thick. I left the pillars showing as I kind of like the look of the concrete between the wood.

The vertical tongue and groove paneling is 1X3 spruce and hemlock that was milled on Prince of Wales Island here in Southeast Alaska. The cabinet fronts are apitong plywood that is a marine grade but is a fraction of the cost of fir marine grade plywood.

You can also see the door to the restroom which will have a small shower. The restroom will be a combination of sheetrock, tile and wood.

Another view of the kitchenette and cabinets. The drawer fronts are made out of left over Hawaiian koa from a cabinet job I did many years ago. The counter tops will be granite tiles.

The electric sub-panel for this room and the garage is feed from the house power. So, I wired in a sub-meter to the right of the panel so that I can track the power separate from the house. This is incase I ever use the room as my business office, or a rental apartment sometime down the line.

To frame the inner walls I used the leftover lumber from the cement forms that we built to pour the garage. The plywood under the wood paneling is all leftover cement forms. Now that I’m better than ½ done with this project I’m happy to say other than the plywood for the cabinets all the other plywood on this project has been left over forms.

I still have many more days of work to finish this project with the sheetrock coming next. Then the restroom to finish with lots of tile work. The floor will be a combination of tile and commercial grade glue down carpet.

Even though this has been a ton of work I’m glad that we decided to finish the area. In time I envision a ping pong table in the middle of the room and a great place for the grandsons to play when they are here.

Helpful Grandsons?

2008-04-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

After practicing 1st aid on grandma’s fingers with blue masking tape the boys figured grandma needed lead boots. I get such a kick out of watching these two boys with their grandma because all three of them are extra silly.

Nate and Blake

2008-03-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

The boys were at the house last weekend and I’m just now getting a chance to look at the photos I took.

Before eating their afternoon snack Blake and Nate decided to put peanut butter on molasses cookies that Blake and Connie had made the prior weekend.

Sometimes I wonder if Nate gets more on his face than he does in his mouth?

Nate stuffs his cheeks full of popcorn while eating his cookie at the same time.

There is not a day go by that I don’t get a smile on my face thinking of these two boys. They truly bring joy to my life and I know they bring joy to Connie’s life too.

Let the Internet Help You

2008-03-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been asked why Pan Abode Homes over brand X? Without coming right out and bad mouthing brand X which by the way starts with an L I’d suggest that you read the advise I have given other folks in the past. Frankly after doing the searches as I have laid out this is just one of the reasons that Connie and I built a Pan Abode Home over brand X.

When deciding on a home manufacturer or products to use in your home it pays to do a little research. That is where the internet can be a big help to you.

For instance if you decided to build a home using a system built home it pays to Google the manufacture. Go to Google and type in Pan Abode Homes law suit. Check the results then type in other manufactures followed by the words law suits. You might want to also type in other criteria and see what you get. Check the results before you decide which way to build.

As a dealer and home owner of a Pan Abode I know I can safely giving you this advice. Would other dealers of other brand cedar homes feel as secure as I do? Find out for yourself and I think you will see why I not only built a Pan Abode Cedar Home, but am now a dealer

Nate

2008-03-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend Zach, Jenn and Blake went to a workshop so we were asked to watch 2 year old Nate for the 2 days. Of course we protested; as if the only thing we had to do was spend precious time with one of our beloved little grandsons. Just joking of course as there is nothing I’d rather do than spend time with the boys. Frankly, it just doesn’t get better than that!

Saturday was a glorious day so we headed to the playground with Nate.

He ejoyes crawling through the plastic tubes.

Why is it that every kid loves to get dizzy? Here grandma spins him round and round.

It is pure joy watching this happy little face!

Laughing and giggling all day long!

It totally melts my heart when he looks up and asks for my hand.

Sunday was a very rainy and windy day so it was inside playing. He loves to put on grownup cloths and be silly.

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day and the anniversary of my mother’s death. She passed shortly after my 7th birthday 48 years ago.

As I grow older I have a harder and harder time understanding how my father only saw his children as something to get work out of. He had no love for his own childern and he took zero interest in his grandchildren. I think my son only saw him a couple of times while he was growing up. To me I just can not imagine how any person could not understand the gift that our children are to us and how extremely fortunate we are to have grandchildren. I don’t think a person can truly understand deep family love until their grandchild looks up to them and ask for a hand, or runs over and gives them a hug. I know I’m truly blessed to have my two grandsons, and I cherish each minute I get to spend with them.

Happy Birthday to our Grandson Blake

2008-02-26T05:38:00.000-08:00

Blake is 6 years old today, and that makes

me feel like jumping too!

Working on the Office

2008-02-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I have posted any construction photos, so here goes. I have been working under the garage building the office / family recreation room. It seems like the project has been going on for months, and I guess it has. (When a guy is partially retried I guess he shouldn’t get it too much of a hurry!)

Thursday afternoon the freight company delivered windows I ordered from Pan Abode Cedar Homes, so I took advantage of good weather to install them. Since I have had so much trouble getting Milgard Windows to honor their warranty on a defective window I decided there was no way in you know where that I was going to purchase another window from them. So, on the advice of my contact at Pan Abode I ordered Weathervane Windows. And, so far I’m glad I did. In all the sliding windows I have installed or worked on over the years I have to say these are the smoothest.

Two of 4 windows cut out and nearly ready for the glass.

Windows installed

Another view of the same windows

More on the Milgard Window; as mentioned above I have installed a fair number of new windows over the years, both in new construction and remodel projects. I had always had good luck with Milgard, so when we decided to build we chose Milgard Windows. If you scroll back through the previous posts you will note between the house and the garage we needed 30 windows, and some of them are fairly big. The 30 windows were all their top of the line wood clad fiberglass windows. Anyway shortly after installing one of the bigger 4-0 X 6-0 Low E Argon filled windows we noted it was fogging, which of course meant a bad seal. Well that was a year ago and the window has still not been fixed. First we waited for months and months until they sent the 1st window, of course it was the wrong size. Then after a couple more months they sent the right one. That was last September. But as luck would have it the installer cracked the window as he was finishing the job. Now I don’t blame him, because working with glass there is always that risk. So a 3rd window was ordered and is supposed to be delivered Monday to be installed next month sometime. I guess we will have to see how it goes this time.

But, the long and the short if anyone finds this post via a search engine I could no longer suggest Milgard Windows. I heard they were bought out by a big company a couple of years ago and ever since their service has been poor. I have heard good things about Weathervane Windows, so I hope what I have heard holds true.

Serious Snow

2008-02-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

The last 10 days or so it has been snow, snow, and more snow! If it isn’t a record it must be darn near one.

Most people are complaining like crazy, but I like it, even though I’ve been shoveling snow like crazy. The forecast is for more snow through the weekend then rain on Monday; now that I’m not going to like.

A lady asked me the other day who was plowing our parking area. I think she was surprised to find out we have shoveled it all by hand. This photo was taken yesterday morning, 2/8/08.

This photo was taken this afternoon out our bedroom window.

Another photo taken from the bedroom window.

Heating a Home

2008-02-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

Heating Systems

All too many times I have seen heating systems that have been designed for homes more as an after thought than taking center stage as they should in cold climates. Way too often heating costs are much higher than they should be simply because the system was not well thought out. In today’s world of escalating energy costs before the ink hits the paper for the building prints you should have a good idea of how you are going to heat your home. By preplanning how you are going to heat, the house can be built in such a way that you are not only going to save on your heating bills, but the house is going to be comfortably warm too.

Keep in mind that heat is transferred in three ways, Convection, Conduction and Radiation. All of us are familiar with Convection and know that hot air rises. We also know that different materials conduct heat at different rates. However, many of us find that the movement of heat by radiation can be bit puzzling even though we experience it everyday when we feel the warmth of the sun.

By thinking about how heat is transferred and remembering that heat moves from warm to cold we can build a home that is not only comfortable but economical to heat. The fact that Pan Abode Homes are made of wood helps us in our quest for comfortable inexpensive heat. This is because wood has a low *U-factor. In other words wood does a good job of not conducting heat away from where we want it even though it has a relatively low R-value. Additionally the thermal mass of wood will help keep temperatures uniform within the living quarters through a 24 hour day by slowly absorbing and then releasing heat.

If we build the ceilings of our homes relatively airtight we can assure that the transfer of heat via convection will not rob our homes of the *BTU’s that we have generated to heat the home. If we not only insulate well but use materials such as wood that have low conductivity rates this too will help insure we keep the warm air where we want it. The same is true of our floors; lower conductive materials will help keep our home warm.

Now to that mysterious heat; radiation. Radiant heat is a form of energy that travels via electromagnetic waves. These waves do not heat the air they travel through. They release there energy when they hit an object, like people, furniture, floors and walls. In turn those objects release some of that energy in the form of convection or conductive heat. By properly placing windows we can gain significant heat in our homes via solar radiation. If those homes contain large masses of materials such as wood that have a low conductivity rates then the energy is stored for later use. If we then combing in floor radiant heat which works much the same as the radiant heat from the sun we can insure economical, comfortable heat all the time. By heating a surface such as the floor of the home heat is transferred via radiation until it hits another object. This is why people often feel warmer in a home with radiant heat even though the air temperature is cooler than in a home with other forms of heat.

As you can more than likely tell I’m a fan of in floor radiant heating. I’m certainly not a heating expert, but even with my limited knowledge I could nearly write a book on all the attributes of radiant heat. In my own Post and Beam Pan Abode Home, a custom Pan Abode Homes Cutter Design we used Warmboard to hold the PEX tubing for the in floor heating. Of course the design team at Pan Abode did a great job of working with us to insure that the Warmboard worked for our application. Since we were building in Southeast Alaska we knew we would be working in some very tough conditions so we elected not to install the Warmboard until the house was weathered in. This meant that all the rough openings for doors, ceiling heights and so forth had to be part of the design.

Now that we have been heating with the radiant heat for about a year I’m even more pleased with it than I thought I would be. I had read several times that ceiling fans were not necessary with radiant heated homes because there is not much heat loss via convection currents. I found this hard to believe so a ceiling fan was installed in our cathedral ceiling home because I was sure the 2nd floor would be roasting without it. Man was I wrong, as there is truly little to no temperature rise from the 1st to the 2nd floor. I find the only time the fan gets any use is when my grandson are visiting and that is because little kids find that turning off and on a ceiling fan is fun. So far the only problem we have had with the radiant heat is the fact that some of the zones don’t turn on very often because the woodstove more than heats the main living areas. And, because the house has a tight ceiling, convection currents of warm air rising don’t have anywhere to escape so even with the woodstove on, the 2nd floor is seldom much hotter than the 1st floor.

For anyone who is reading this and wants to know how a single 50 gallon hot water heater supplies the BTU’s for the in floor heat please e-mail me. I can be reached at southeastcedarhomes@gmail.com. I’d be happy to pass on what I learned designing and putting together our heating system. You can also see photos at this link: Heating System

* U-factor is a measurement of the ability of materials to conduct heat. The lower the conductance the lower the U-factor.
*1 BTU or British Thermal Unit = 1 degree Fahrenheit raise in temperature of one pound of water. Or about the equivalent of burning one wood match.

Deicing Wood Decks

2008-02-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

Deicing Wood Decks

After we completed building our 1500 sq foot Alaskan yellow cedar and western red cedar deck I knew I’d have to do a bit or research to find a deicer that would not harm the deck, or the house. Here is what I found.

In cold climates deicing of wood decks is often a necessity if the deck is going to be used safely. Selecting the wrong deicer can significantly reduce the life of the wood and fasteners in the deck. The most readily available and lest expensive deicer sodium chloride (salt) should never be used because salt is by far the most corrosive of all the deicers. Salt will be absorbed into the grain of the wood and will slow precipitate back out every time the deck is wet greatly reducing the life of the metal fasteners. Salt also attracts and holds moisture.

Deicers that contain potassium chloride are not as corrosive as sodium chloride, but they too should not be used on wood decks because they are still way too corrosive for metal fasteners.

Urea based deicers also known as ammonia sulfates are considered fairly safe around pets, children and are not very corrosive to fasteners. However, urea based deicers should be used carefully if your deck is located near streams or lakes because urea which is also used as a fertilizer releases nitrates. Increased levels of nitrates in some water bodies has increased the growth of both native and invasive species of aquatic plants to the point that the water losses oxygen and kills fish. So, urea based deicers should only be used in areas where water runoff will not enter streams and lakes. In some areas ammonia sulfates are banned so if you are going to use them be sure to check with local regulations.

Of all the various deicers it is clear to me the most environmentally friendly as well as the least corrosive is Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA). In fact some studies show that CMA is also a wood preservative because the calcium neutralizes acids and it inhibits rust and other metal corrosion by neutralizing salt’s natural corrosive properties. (If you live near the cost airborne salts will be partially neutralized by CMA) The biggest drawback to CMA deicers is that they are several times more expensive than other deicers. However, if you look at the cost of deck maintenance and replacement then CMA deicers are a real bargain. Luckily CMA deicers are becoming less and less expensive as municipalities and other large users of deicers are purchasing larger quantities each year. They are doing this because they are finding that using CMA deicers cuts maintenance cost on roads, bridges, and other structures.

Before I totally decided to use CMA as the deicer on my deck I had a few more questions to answer. Here they are:

1. How is Calcium Magnesium Acetate made? CMA is a combination of dolomitic lime (limestone), magnesium and acetic acid the same acid that is found in vinegar.

2. Is CMA safe around children and pets? In many tests CMA has proven to be as safe as common table salt to children and pets.

3. What temperatures does CMA work in? CMA works best above 15 degrees Fahrenheit but will work down to temperatures of -20 degrees or lower. (Check the manufactures label and recommendations.)

4. What is the environmental concern when using CMA? CMA like all deicers does have some concerns. It has been shown to deplete oxygen in water, but far less than urea based deicers. In many test CMA has shown to be the least harmful of all deicers to water quality.

5. What does CMA do to floors and carpets? Like most deicers CMA is water soluble so it will clean up easily and does not harm most floor surfaces.

6. Does CMA harm vegetation? CMA of all the deicers is one of the least harmful to most vegetation.

There is one last thing to consider with all deicers when used on decks. Make sure you check that the deicer you select doesn’t include dyes that could discolor the wood. I ran out of CMA deicer and substituted a deicer with potassium chloride that contained a green dye; now I have some permanently green stained wood in portions of my deck. Of course read and follow all the instructions on the packaging.

Paradise

2008-02-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

As we walked on the frozen lake yesterday afternoon and we looked over at our house I once again realized that we live in paradise. The last couple of weeks the lake has been good and frozen so we have taken many walks on the lake. This morning we walked to the library via the lake and then Connie walked to the grocery store. Both were interesting shortcuts.

Considerations When Choosing a House Design

2008-02-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

Considerations When Choosing a House Design
By: Marcel LaPerriere

Esthetics: Will it look good and be a home we are proud to call our own?
Function: Will the house fulfill the needs of my family? Will it provide the shelter and comfort that we need in our home?
Cost: What will it cost to build?

Many design classes will teach you that there are 3 things that must be consider when designing or choosing a design. They are; Esthetics, Function, and Cost. After many years of working in the building trades I will argue that a 4th should be added and that is Serviceability.

Many years ago an architect told me his primary goal was to design a home that the owner would always be proud to say they owned. He said it was important that each and every time the owner saw their home amongst the other homes they would proudly point to theirs with no hesitation. This architect demonstrated to me how important esthetics is; especially considering that a house is part of what makes a home for your family.

Obviously when we decided to build our dream home we all want the most value for our money. We want our home to not only look nice but we want it to be comfortable and function well too. Balancing a budget to build a functional house while still making our home look good, can be a challenging task. Add in the fact that we want a low maintenance house, and then the task can become even more of a challenge. However, I would point to red cedar as being one of the most ideal building materials to help us achieve our goals of functioning well, and be esthetically pleasing while still being easy to maintain. By incorporating red cedar into our family’s home balancing all of the design criteria lessens our challenge.

Red cedar functions very well in most building environments and is an especially good building material in our rain forest environment. Red cedar is also a very affordable building material that is easy to build with. And, who doesn’t like the looks of red cedar? Now for the 4th consideration that I have added: Serviceability. Red cedar is known for its longevity. It is extremely rot and insect resistant and hold finishes well making it an easy material to maintain over the life of the home.

Yes, we could all live in tarpaper shacks. They would fulfill our need for shelter. Even with heating costs that tarpaper shack could possibly be economical. However, ascetically a tarpaper shack would not be very pleasing to our eye, and would not function well for our family. I will stick to my assertion that you will have to look long and hard to find a better building material than red cedar. It functions well, it is very economical, it is very pleasing ascetically and best of all is easy to take care of. Short term and long term you will get more value for you’re our hard earned dollars with red cedar than any other building material.

Boogey Monsters

2008-01-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I call them the Boogey Boys and sometimes the Boogey Monsters. This morning they were being play monsters growling at Grandma and me. So for sure they were little monsters today. Nate was being a dinosaur and Blake as was being a tiger. I just wish I could catch all those special moments with the camera.

Blake builds and operates an elevator up a 3 story building. Note the little pipe cleaner men on various levels.

Grandma shows Nate how to make a pipe cleaner man.

Nisqually

2008-01-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, another story. And a long one at that. The good news is this is the last one that I can retrieve from many stories I have written over the years. This story has been published a couple of times in climbing magazines and journals both in print and on line.

Some year ago Readers Digest contacted me after an editor of one of the journals this was published in submitted the story to them for me. They were interested in printing it for their Drama in Real Life section, but I was not willing to submit to their demands. They wanted me to rewrite it and say that I had been saved by praying and that I had been saved by the lord. I am person who believes each person has the right to worship and have their own religious beliefs without being told how think or what to write. So, I was not willing to compromise my beliefs to suit their printing demands even though I woul dhave been paid. (Frankly it's not that well written anyway.)

Nisqually

By: Marcel LaPerriere ©

Falling into a hidden crevasse wasn't what we had in mind when we started our 1974 winter ascent of the Nisqually ice fall on Mount Rainier. Then again we didn't plan on the rain, whiteout conditions, or the 100 mile per hour winds either. Gee, how lucky could we get? Not every 4 day weekend can turn into an epic adventure.

After checking in with the park rangers my climbing partner Mike Humphrey and I started out Friday afternoon from the Paradise Visitors Center. We snowshoed towards Camp Muir, and setup our tent in the last vestige of trees. The sun was setting shooting a spectacular array of reds across the horizon. Perhaps it was the lack of city glow, the higher elevation, or the reflection of the sunset off the crusted snow, which made the sunset so spectacular. I remember Mike and I both commented it was one of the nicest sunsets we had ever seen from the mountains.

After an early dinner we crawled into our down bags, B-S'd for a few minutes then fell deeply asleep. To our surprise we woke a couple hours later to the sound of a pre spring rain baptizing Mike's new JanSport tent. The rest of the night it alternated between rain, and snow.
My body's internal alarm clock woke me at the appointed hour of 4:00 am. I poked my head out of the tent to try and make an assessment of the weather conditions. In the beam of my flashlight all I could see was very large wet snowflakes falling in a light breeze. Mike and I made a quick decision to continue up the mountain, after all the forecast was for clear skies, and moderate winds. If the conditions worsened we could always turn around. Within an hour we had eaten, melted snow for our daily water, and broke camp. We strapped on our snowshoes, hefted on our overweight backpacks and started towards Camp Muir.

Previous climbers had placed plenty of bamboo wands in the snow to mark the way. The abundance of wands made it easy for us to navigate our way up the mountain. If we couldn't find the next wand I would precede ahead until one was located then I would yell to Mike. As he came towards me sometimes he would place an additional green wand in the snow at what he judged to be half way between the last wand. By making sure one of us always kept a wand in sight we had little fear of getting lost.

The snow continued to fall, but as we gained altitude it was no longer as wet as before. This made going easier because the dryer snow didn't bunch up under our snowshoes. After a couple of hours of hiking we estimated we should easily make Camp Muir by midday. Once there we could wait out the storm in relative comfort.

Eventually we couldn't find anymore wands. The other climbers must have turned around short of Camp Muir, or the snow was now getting deep enough to totally bury the wands. Either way we had brought with us plenty of wands and by following a compass course we figured we should still be able to make Camp Muir in a couple more hours. Mike and I now started hiking side by side. We alternated watching the compass and placing wands.

Evidently, our determination to get to Camp Muir was so great that we failed to recognize the conditions were dramatically worsening. Soon, we were hiking in a near zero visibility whiteout, and the wind was blowing much harder than before. We started talking about heading back down the mountain, but decided the hut at Camp Muir was now closer. We continued onwards and upwards in spite of the weather.

I don't know when we first realized that we were lost. Trying as hard as we could we couldn't find our last wand, in the now zero visibility we could be missing it by mere feet, or a mile for all we knew. Shortly after admitting the fact that we were lost, Mike saw that my back was bare and exposed to the elements. As we hiked along all my underclothing, and down jacket had worked their way up under my backpack leaving four inches of my back exposed. I have no idea how long my back was bare, but one things for sure I was loosing body heat rapidly. Between the exposed skin, wet clothing from the earlier rain, and the wind, both Mike and I were getting hypothermic fast. We decided the prudent thing to do was find someplace out of the wind and set up the tent. However, we were now on the Muir Snow field, and finding someplace out of the wind proved impossible.

We settled on a small dip in the terrain, possibly created by a snowdrift. We set up the tent, which proved nearly impossible in the wind that we figured must be blowing over 100 mph. Anchoring the tent was impossible, we would have to rely on our weight to hold it down. With the door of the tent to the lee, and our packs tucked under the fly, Mike and I took off our boots and crawled into our sleeping bags laid on top of foam pads. The noise from the wind against the tent became deafening, but that was still better than being out in the weather. Then the wind started really picking up. With every guest we wondered how long the tent would last. We didn't have to wait long to find out.

As we braced our backs against the tent wall we heard another gust coming. We felt it hit, and then all hell broke loose. Mike and I were rattling around inside the tent like two peas in a pod. The tent was being blown across the Muir Snow field with us in it!

What was left of the tent stopped after traveling who knows how far? Was it 50 feet or was it 200 feet. We certainly weren't going to get out a tape measure to find out. In the tangled up mess it was all we could do to get our coats and boots back on. After fighting our way out of the tent the conditions that met us were even worse than we feared. The tent fly was gone, and many of the poles had broken. Our backpacks, climbing gear, and snowshoes were still back on the snow field someplace beyond our view. We knew the first thing we had to do was find our packs, our survival depended on it.

Mike wrestled with what was left of the tent with the sleeping bags still inside. I pulled the tent poles out of the sewn in tubes that ran over the roof of the now useless tent. We walked hunched over directly up wind Mike dragging the tent, while I placed the broken tent poles as wands. Fortunately it didn't take us long to find our packs, snowshoes, and climbing gear that had been left outside the tent. We gathered everything up, strapped the snowshoes to the back of our packs and started down the mountain without the aid of the compass. Why we didn't use the compass can only be attributed to poor judgment brought on by hypothermia.

Being lost in a whiteout is something I had never experienced before, and hope I never experience again. Mike and I found our selves walking in circles. We didn't even recognizing the fact that the wind was hitting us from different sides, or that we were sometimes going up hill and sometimes down. As guest of wind would hit us we often ended up on all fours crawling to gain another foot or two. More than once the wind blew us over, and threw us around as if we were nothing more than rag dolls. Several times we thought we had found someone else foot prints, only to be surprised, and disappointed that they were our own. The more we traveled the more lost we became. All we knew was we had to get out of the wind.

The first clue as to where we were on the mountain also potentially gave us shelter. I was leading when I saw a crevasse a few feet in front of us. This meant we had to be on the Nisqually Glacier, or possibly the Cowlitz. I yelled to Mike that I was going to see if there was some way for us to get inside the crevasse and out of the wind. Mike just yelled back "ok," and off I went. I never made it to the first crevasse we had seen, within the next two steps I found a different one. As I struggled to stay upright in the wind I accidentally stepped through the roof of a hidden crevasse falling straight down about 60 feet.

As I fell I remember thinking this is it, but evidently this was not my day to die. I ended up tightly wedged between the two walls. My arms were extended above my head, as if I was a mugging victim, not a fallen climber. I was literally hanging by my armpits from the bottom of the pack straps. My face was plastered into the wall ahead of me, and it felt as if I had ran it over a cheese grader. I could feel, and taste warm blood running from my nose. Both my hands had the mittens torn off them never to be seen again. Fortunately my ice ax was still strapped to my right wrist. My upper clothing was pulled so tightly around my neck it felt as if I was wearing a Wall Street necktie. I could feel the chill of my bare back against the glacier ice. Surprisingly, nothing felt broken, or sprained.

Seconds after I fell, Mike yelled down to me "is it windy down there?" I yelled back that it wasn't. Over the howl of the wind I again herd Mike yell, "I'm coming in then." Looking back it's obvious that we were suffering from prolonged hypothermia. Our judgment and decision making skills were so severely impaired by the chilling of our bodies that we were forgetting all of our mountaineering training. Fortunately, I still had it together enough to yell back to Mike, "No, for god's sake don't jump in Mike." Had he, I am sure that crevasse would have been our everlasting resting place. Our bodies would have most likely never been found.

When I was sure Mike wasn't going to jump in I started assessing the environment around me. The crusted snow lid of the crevasse I had broken loose was wedged to my right, about shoulder high. I could feel my legs were straddled over a small projection in the wall. To my left the crevasse got wider, possibly 20 or more feet wide. To my right the crevasse sinuously twisted out of sight. When I looked down there was no bottom insight. Somehow I would have to get my pack off to get un-wedged, and in the process not drop further into the abyss.

While I struggled to un-stick myself Mike drove his ice ax deeply into the snow, and then tied an end of the rope to it. Taking advantage of the natural adrenaline shot I had just received I was able to take my pack off and set it on the wedged snow lid. Then I managed to climb up enough that I was no longer stuck. With my ice ace I dug a small ledge that I could comfortably place my feet on. By this time Mike had sent the rope down to me, I tied my pack on, and he pulled it to the surface.

Prior to sending my pack up I had dug my crampons, and spare mittens out of one of the inner compartments. I tried to put the crampons on in the tight quarters, but unfortunately I ended up dropping both of them into the seemingly bottomless crevasse. Had I been following proper mountaineering practices I should have already been wearing the crampons but I wasn't.
After Mike sent the rope back down the first method I tried using to get myself out of the crevasse was just hand over handing up the rope. This proved impossible, even though I was in top physical condition. The rope was just too small and my hands were much to cold. In my chilled condition my brain still wasn't working. Next I asked Mike to tie knots in the line, so I would have something bigger to grab onto. Mike obviously wasn't thinking either, because he did just that. With each knot he had to pass the entire length of the 150 foot Perlon rope through the bight.

Time was nearly meaningless to me. Was it taking Mike hours, or minutes to tie all the knots? As I waited for the rope to come back down the words from the Blood Sweet and Tears song, "I ain't afraid of dieing, and I don't really care," kept going through my mind. I even started singing it. Truly I wasn't afraid of dieing, but I did care. I kept thinking of my young wife Connie and our infant son Zach; it wouldn't be fair to them for me to die. I had responsibilities, if for no other reason than that, I had to survive. I vowed to my myself that I would get out of this mess, and that I would never be so stupid again.

Again the rope came down to me. Mike had tied hitches in the rope almost perfectly each and every foot. Now I was able to climb a few feet up the rope, but there was no way I was going to climb the entire length. Being out of the wind and the exercise must have warmed me up, because I finally started thinking. I remembered in the top compartment of my pack there was a pair of Jumar ascenders (mechanical devices that grab the rope). I asked Mike to send the Jumars down. I also asked him to untie all the knots so that I could easily slide the ascenders up the rope.

While I was again waiting for Mike I started thinking about asking the little men who live inside Mt. Rainier to help us. No I wasn't hallucinating. Just prior to leaving for the Rainier climb a temporary labor who was working at the machine shop where I was employed told me that little men lived deep in caves within the bowls of Mt. Rainier. He told me they where good little guys and that they would help us if we needed them, all we had to do was ask. He said he frequently telepathically spoke to them, and that I would be able to do the same. At first I thought the guy was putting me on, but he was dead serious. Maybe I should have taken his advice, but I didn't even try, I wasn't that far out of it yet.

Try as I know Mike did his nearly frozen fingers couldn't untie the knots. I yelled up to him to just send the Jumars down anyway. As the rope came back down I grabbed the end and tied it around my waist. Climbing harness were new in those days and not often used by us poorer climbers. I clipped one Jumar into the rope around my waist and the other already had an etrier attached for my feet. Finally I was making my way up and out of the crevasse, crossing each and every knot on the way.

Falling into a crevasse isn't what I would have chosen to do to get out of the wind, and warm up, but it worked. By the time I reached the rim of the crevasse only my extremities were still cold. Poor Mike on the other hand had been exposed to the all the elements. He didn't even have the benefit of the exercise I was getting to help generate some body heat. How long did it take me to extract myself is anyone guess, but it must have been well over an hour, possibly two, or more.
Pulling myself over the rim of the crevasse, I noticed it was just starting to get dark. Mike was so several hypothermic he could barely talk, or walk. I knew we need shelter quick. I contemplated fixing a rope and rappelling back into the wider spot of the crevasse, but I still had no idea how deep it was. Would our rope be long enough? How would we rappel around all the knots? Would Mike be strong enough to make the rappel? I decided the best thing to do was dig a snow cave. We started back up the mountain away from the glacier, this time roped as we should have been before. I was in the lead nearly dragging Mike as we went.

As soon as I was sure we weren't still on the glacier, and we had stumbled onto a steep snow bank I started digging the cave. After the first couple of shovels full of hard wind packed snow the new aluminum snow shovel we had brought along broke making it worthless. In a fit of madness, a stream of foul words spewed from my mouth, I tossed the shovel as far as I could. The shovel had been strapped to my pack when I fell, possibly it had been damaged then, or possibly it was just a cheep shovel. Either way digging a proper cave was now out of the question.

As darkness slowly over took us the storm howled on, even more vicious than before. I started madly chopping into the snow with my ice ax, stopping to scoop out the loose snow with my mitten covered hands. Mike sat and watched, staring blankly at my meager progress. As I dug I kept talking to Mike, encouraging him to also dig, and from time to time he did.
After digging for what must have been near an hour, or possibly more we had a hole straight down into the snow. It was now too dark to see; this hole would have to do. The hole measured about seven feet long, four feet wide, and three feet deep. We lined the hole with the remains of the tent. By standing our backpacks up inside the tent at either end we managed to get a roof over our heads. As we finally crawled into our inadequate shelter, I wondered if this was going to be our end.

We laid our sleeping bags out this time zipping them together. Mike and I stripped to our under shorts and crawled into the bag, placing all our outer down clothing over, and around us. I dug out the MSR camp stove, reached out the door of the tent and scooped up some snow, then made us a cup of tea. I had to keep coaxing Mike out of his apathetic state, even to drink the warm tea. After we finished the tea I made dinner. Even though it was our fist food since breakfast, I had to again coax Mike into eating. I knew the warm liquids, and food was what we both needed, especially Mike.

The warmth from the stove felt good, but melting snow or cooking in our tight quarters wasn't easy. I had to balance the stove, and the pot, plus keep any nylon away from the heat. The added heat was a double edged sword. On one hand we cherished the external heat source, but that heat melted the snow around us, and the steam from boiling water added moister to the air. Staying dry now became an additional burden.

The agony of my feet re-warming kept me from falling asleep, plus I was worried about Mike. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Was he sleeping or had the hypothermia progressed to a point of inevitable death? I decided to add some additional heat. Again I lit the MSR stove. This time I placed it between Mike and me, inside the sleeping bag. I had to be especially careful to keep the bag lifted high enough that it didn't melt. I also worried about the fumes, and carbon monoxide poisoning. I made sure we both had our heads outside the bag. The wind was still blowing hard enough that I could feel a draft, so I hoped we had plenty of fresh air inside the tent/cave. I kept the stove going inside the sleeping bag until I could no longer stand the heat. Then I balanced it on my lap outside the bag for another hour or so.

The night passed slowly. I slept for a while, and then re-lit the stove. I had to keep knocking snow from the tent roof to keep it from crushing us. That snow then gravitated into every void that wasn't filled with our bodies, or equipment. Our little hole kept getting smaller, and smaller. On top of our other problems all night long we could hear the frightening sound of avalanches. Some sounded way too close for my comfort. Morning finally came but the storm raged on.
Mike woke up all chipper, and hungry. I was overwhelmed with relief that he was ok. He had saved my life, and I believe I his. Had Mike not made it I knew it would have been my fault for being stupid enough to approach the crevasse in the first place.

All that day the storm raged on. We never even left our little hole. We urinated into one of our empty water bottles, and then threw it out the tent. Each time one of us would scoop new snow for water we tried avoiding the yellow stuff. All day we kept being frightened by the sound of avalanches, some sounded so deafening that it sounded like we were sitting next to a 747. Sometimes it was only minutes between the avalanches, and then there would be a spell of more than an hour. We spent the day eating, drinking tea, sleeping, and worrying about avalanches. But at least both of us were now toasty warm, in our cramped quarters.

During our third night on the mountain the storm finally eased off until it died. We poked our heads out, and to our joy we saw stars shining with the brilliance that is only possible when seen from higher elevations. I poked my head all the way out and could see the lights of the cities below. For once in my life civilization looked good to me. I thought of my wife Connie laying snugly under a pile of blankets, and oh how I wished I was there curled up next to her. The temperature dropped that night, and to our relief we heard far less avalanches.

As the day dawned with the first rays of light we dug ourselves out of our little hole. Had someone been there to witness our exodus I'm sure they would have not believed their eyes. All they would have seen was two nylon blobs emerging from a sea of snow.

The sky was perfectly clear, and the air crisp. With each breath we could feel the insides of our nostrils freezing. I took this as a good sign; it should be cold enough that the avalanche danger would be lower. Mike looked around and recognized a landmark, the Fuhrer's Finger. Now we knew where we were just off the side of the Nisqually Glacier. In fact we could see much of the glacier spreading out below us. Not surprising we also saw we had camped on a small ridge between two avalanche shoots. Fresh avalanche debris fanned out directly below us not more than a few hundred feet away.

Anxiously we packed up; we wanted to be sitting in a restaurant eating a juicy hamburger by lunch time. Pulling the tent out from within the hole proved challenging. I wondered if it was even worth it, but we had already left enough of our past belongings on the mountain. No doubt Mike's brand new tent was a total loss.

We had learned our lesson this time we decided to do everything by the book. Mike dug out his crampons. I of course didn't have any, or did I? It ends up I hadn't dropped just my crampons, but I had drop one of mine and one of Mike's. After the tent blew down, and we retrieved our gear, somehow I had grabbed one of Mike's, and he had grabbed one of mine. Now we each had one crampon each.

We tied into either end of the still knotted rope and headed for the Muir Snow field. Our fist obstacle was to cross the avalanche shoot, a scary proposition indeed with all the new snow. This we did with out incident. Then within a short distant we came to an immense headwall, up it got very steep, and down it would put us back on the glacier. With good visibility we could see no easy way around it, and no sensible alternative. We had to somehow cross this 200 yard wide 60 degree ice. With one crampon each this was going to be fun.

Mike gave me an ice ax belay as I lead the way chopping steps for almost every step I took. When I found a good indention in the ice I belayed Mike to me. An hour, and 3 or 4 pitches later we were back on steep snow, and off the ice. In our stumbling stupor two days earlier how had we crossed this area was it below, on the glacier, or higher up? Neither Mike nor I had clue.
To our relief we reached the Muir Snow field almost immediately after crossing the ice fall. Then we found one of our wands, then another, and another.

As we neared Paradise there were a few people skiing that Monday morning on the newly fallen snow. To the skiers the new snow was a heaven send; to us it had nearly been our death. Watching them ski seamed like such a contrast from our previous two days.
At Paradise we checked out at the ranger station. We didn't tell them the ordeal we had been through, only that we hadn't successfully climbed the Nisqually Ice Fall. I would have been too embarrassed to tell them, and we didn't want to take the time. After all we still wanted that hamburger for lunch.

Mike and I now had a unique bond between us. A bond that can only be founded on an experience such as the one we had gone thorough. Mike and I continued to do a few less serious climbs together over the next couple of years, opting more for backpacking, hiking, and sailing.
One of the biggest shocks in my life came four years after our epic adventure. Mike's sister called me one afternoon to tell me Mike had committed suicide. During the time Connie and I had known Mike, he had suffered debilitating depression off and on, but we thought he was doing better. Shortly before his death Washington State Mental Health had place him on medication that was helping him live a normal life. Then his medication ran out, and the state would no longer help him. He must have felt the only alternative he had was to end his life. So, he jumped off the Aurora Bridge in Seattle ending his life in his mid twenties. To this day I still wonder if I could have made a difference. Could I have saved Mike from his tragic ending? Why didn't Mike seek my help? But mostly I wonder why I wasn’t there when Mike needed me? He had been there when I needed him.

Nate and Blake

2008-01-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

The most special time of the week for Connie and me is Sunday when we play with our grandsons. This Sunday was as special as ever.

As we walked up the trail from the boy's house Nate decided to stop and hug a tree. He is wearing a coat that his mother and grandmother made Blake when he was Nate's age. This coat is filled with mountain goat hair that Zach found stuck to a tree after a goat had rubbed it off. It is made from one of Zach's old wool shirts, and since the Boys have Canadian roots the red coat with the maple leaf is appropriate.

Blake was getting too hot running around so he said it was refreshing to lay on the snow and ice.

A Tail of two Caves

2008-01-19T19:12:00.000-08:00

As promised I did some digging and found a couple more stories I wrote that have been published. The good news for you readers is that most of my old writings were done on computers that are now long obsolete and the only backup was on old floppy disc that I can not read even if I could find them.

A Tail of two Caves
Marcel LaPerriere © 1999

Being stuck in a cave isn't something to be overly concerned about, usually it's just a matter of time, and you can wiggle your way free. However, if your 40 feet underwater, cave diving, with a finite amount of air strapped to your back the consequences can be fatal. That's exactly the predicament I found myself in a couple of years ago diving a saltwater cave in Alaska. All my diving partner Alan Murray could do was watch as I tried to extract myself. Fortunately my cave diving training came back to me, and I knew the answer to survival was don't panic.
As I struggled to free myself, and keep calm, my mind drifted back more than 35 years to my first caving adventures. An experience that was just as life threatening, but I didn't know it at the time.

I envisioned myself as six year old playing with my best friend, Jimmy Hughes. At that age the two of us were inseparable. Our friendship was even closer than the blood brother bond we had initiated upon ourselves by pricking our fingers and commingling our blood. We often shared the same thoughts, which got us into trouble, and surely worried our parents to death.
Like most six year old boys growing up in the late fifties we were constantly building forts, and playing mock war games. We weren't satisfied with your run of the mill forts. No, we needed authenticity, and the endless war movies of that era were our models. We dug trenches as our Grandfathers had over in France during the 1st World War, and fox holes like our fathers had done during the 2nd world war. I guess it was just a natural progression that we would start digging caves.

Jimmy and I grew up in the middle of Colorado cattle ranching country so there was plenty of open land for us to do our digging. The place we chose for much of that digging, including the caves was a 20 foot deep washout about a 1/2 mile from Jimmy's house. The sand in that washout was the ideal consistency for digging deep and fast. Two very important criteria for young boys with little patience. With empty tin cans in hand we started digging caves about halfway up the embankment of the washout.

As cattle grazed five to ten over our heads we dug parallel caves until they reached a length of fifteen, or twenty feet. Then we decided to connect the two caves with a large Head Quarters room, just like we had seen in the movies. The inner room was big enough for us to stand up, and included built in seats molded from sand. Little natural light filtered in so our light was provided by candles sitting on shelves that we had dug into the walls. Now we had a real fort, secure from any enemies. Surely it would protect us from any mock Nazi, or Jap invasions.

After our 3rd or 4th full day of digging we decided just telling Jimmy's parents of our daily progress wasn't enough, we had to show them. That night we again went home to Jimmy's house and told Mr. and Mrs. Hughes of our days work. As usual they complemented us "that's nice, so glad you boys are having fun, keep up the good work, etc" But this time we also got Mr. Hughes to promise he would accompany us in the morning to inspect our handy work.

No two boys more anxiously awaited the morning as we did. We lay in bed excitedly talking about how amazed Jimmy's dad was going to be at our superior skills as cave diggers. We knew as a WW II veteran Mr. Hughes would be proud of the redoubt we had built.

The next morning after wolfing down our breakfast we held Mr. Hughes to his word. The good man that he was, Mr. Hughes enthusiastically hiked along with us. Soon we were talking about the great battles we would fight from the mouths of our caves, and how we would ward off any invaders. Mr. Hughes played along encouraging us boys to use our imaginations.

Finely the caves were in sight. We both anxiously looked up the full length of Mr. Hughes's six foot six height to receive his approval. To our surprise he started to tremble, and exclaimed "my god you boys really did dig some caves." Looking back on it Mr. Hughes just about passed out there on the spot. He and Mrs. Hughes had assumed that the caves we had been telling them about were like the caves we dug in Jimmy's front yard sand pile. Those caves were never more than our arms could fit into, and a collapse would have only buried a few plastic army men.
After a quick inspection of the caves from the outside only, we went back to the Hughes's house, were we retrieved three shovels, and then we headed back to the caves. The three of us spent the rest of the day filling the caves back in, burying everything that we had left inside. Mr. Hughes concerns that the sand caves would collapse kept us from even retrieving the candles and few goodies we had left within the bowels of our bunker.

Both Jimmy and I promised his parents we would never dig caves like that again. But that didn't stop us from doing many other things that were just as stupid and dangerous. Like rock climbing without protection or digging open collapsed mine tunnels. I wonder do young boys have guarding angels, or for that matter adult cave divers?

As I struggled to free myself I knocked my mask up onto my forehead and pulled my regulator most of the way out of my mouth. That was after I snagged my weight belt, and it had fallen off. With each breath I was getting about half saltwater, and I couldn't see, but at least I was making progress. After what seemed like hours, but could have only been a few minutes I was free. With Alan's help I got my diving gear all back in the proper places and we ascended to the surface.
The gentle waves rocked us as we floated 40 feet above the cave. The nightmare of being permanently stuck was now only a bad memory. True to form Alan made some ribbing wise crack, and I'm sure I rebutted with one. While we were analyzing my stupidity of entering too tight of an opening we both came to the conclusion that it was a good thing I didn't panic. Had I, it would have been certain death.

While swimming back to the boat I contemplated telling Alan my method of staying calm was to let my life flash before my eyes back to my earliest caving days, but I didn't. It was just too complicated to explain. I rolled over on my back and watched the clouds drift by. Again I let my imagination drifted back and I saw Alan as a grubby little boy digging caves with Jimmy and me. Somehow I knew, if Alan had grown up with us, he too would have been wielding the digging can. I even envisioned Alan teaching Jimmy and me how to place black powder charges deep within our sand caves. As I came back to reality there was no doubt in my mind, Alan was just as crazy as Jimmy or I had ever been. What more could a guy want from a friend?

Sunset From the Deck

2008-01-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

The sun was setting as we came back from a walk. I already had the camera in my hands so I snapped a shot across the lake before going inside. (note the 2 chains are for Blake and Nate's swing that is hung between two trees.)

The only view of Mt. Verstovia we have from our house is over the neighbor's roof. I shot this photo outside our front door.

Learning from a 2 year old

2008-01-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

You can learn a lot from a 2 year old.

Just in case you ever want to look between your legs this is how it is done. First you get down on your haunches then you spin 180 degrees around, and then just bend over and look though your legs.

Nate talked me through this the other night, of course I understood what he meant when he said “em-gaghezeas jrachmuga timsasia belgerjuer.” I may not have spelled it right but that is what he said while showing how it is done.

An Elementry Lesson

2008-01-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

I was talking on the phone to my sister this evening and I was trying to tell her how to find this blog on the web. I suggest that maybe she should just Google my name as I was sure this blog would come up. After all I have a very unusual name so it’s not like I have lots of competition on Google. Anyway as we talked I typed in my name on Google and sure enough there it was, but I also noted that I was mentioned as one of the authors in a book of short stories that was published in 2004. So, I decided to post that story here on line from Growing up on Memory Lane. I might post a few other stories I have had published too if I can find them. Here is the story:

An Elementary Lesson

By Marcel LaPerriere
copyright 2004

Back in the 60’s when I was incarcerated at the Sedalia, Colorado Elementary School every cowboy I knew chewed tobacco. Chewing tobacco was as much a part of being a cowboy as his boots or hat. There was nothing I wanted more than to be a cowboy. I dreamed of riding the range amongst a big herd of cattle. I dreamed of being part of a big roundup riding my old trusted horse Paint. I dreamed of sleeping out on the ground next to a campfire with nothing but a bed roll between me and the earth. I dreamed of waking up in the morning to the smell of cowboy coffee, bacon and fried eggs cooked over a pine fire. Yes, I wanted to be a cowboy. I already had the hat and boots, now all I needed was a plug of tobacco in my cheek. My friend Mike Martin could help. His dad was a real cowboy, working as the foreman for one of the largest ranches in Douglas County. And, Mike’s dad chewed tobacco. Just before music class started Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out some of his fathers Pay Day chewing tobacco. It looked and smelled like a candy bar to me. No wonder that cowboys liked tobacco. If it looked and smelled like candy it must taste like candy too. So, when Mike said “bite off a bit and give it a chew,” I did just that, taking an extra large bite. Yuck, it didn’t taste like candy; it tasted worse than anything I had ever put into my mouth. However, if I was going to be a cowboy I had to chew. Immediately the tobacco kicked our saliva glands into high gear. Suddenly our mouths filled with water faster than Plum Creek did during the spring thaw. We couldn’t just spit on the floor of the music room. Leaving the room was not possible. So we swallowed. That’s when the music teacher asked us, “Why aren't you boys singing?” Both Mike and I simultaneously answered with a gulp, swallowing not only the saliva but all the tobacco. Less than a minute later we both ran for the bathroom. The tobacco must have affected my eye sight too, because I noticed that Mike had turned green enough to make a leprechaun jealous. And talk about dizzy, nothing would stand still. Not even the toilet bowl that I was puking into. For the first time in my life I was sick enough to wish I was dead. Mike and I both claimed we had instantly been overcome with flu, a very bad flu. The teacher knew exactly what we had done, but she never said a word. She didn’t have to. She knew the tobacco had punished us more than she ever could. It might have been that day that I decided I wasn¹t cut out to be a cowboy. Or maybe it was years later after I had been thrown from a horse for the umpteenth time that I heard the sea calling me and I moved to the west coast be near the ocean. Sedalia Elementary School may not have prepared me for adult life, or even given me the skills for higher learning. However I did learn a valuable lesson that day in music class. Never again did any tobacco product pass my lips. Maybe every Elementary School should offer a course in chewing tobacco.

Baby Sitting

2008-01-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

As grandparents we love it when we are asked to baby sit. In fact I hate to call it baby sitting I’d rather just call it fun time with the grandkids, because we do have fun.

Blake and Nate help grandma make dinner.

After dinner it is time to blow bubbles!

Blowing bubbles at 2 years of age is not easy.

But stomping on bubbles is easy and fun!

More stomping and blowing bubbles. Note you get red hands when you play with food coloring at home before you come to your grandparents house.

It is sure fun to eat the whipped cream off the beaters, and when you drop it on the counter, no problem just have grandma hand you a spoon.

It pays to be grandma's #1 helper. After you bake the brownies you also get to make whipped cream.

2008 & Grandma’s Keyboard

2008-01-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

Having the boys over on New Years Day was a great way to start 2008! Most especially since their mom made lasagna.

Nate sees his brother Blake being silly looking for dinner so he has to be silly too!

Yes, this is extra silly Blake.

The boys love Grandma and her keyboard. I’d tend to not let the boys play with an expensive keyboard but Grandma lets them play and experiment with all the different settings, and they love it.

I hope this early experimentation helps them gain a love for music. Both boys already seem to like it and will often ask me to put on opera when we are driving. Even 2 year old Nate said he wanted opera over more modern music that was playing on the radio the other day.

Nate adjust the various switches while Blake listens on the headphones.

Christmas Day

2007-12-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had as good of a Christmas as we did. It was extra fun for us watching our grandsons, the real joy of Christmas for me.

Nate offers me a present that he wrapped

Nate Shows Great Grandma our present from the boys; a 2008 calendar with their photos on each page.

Blake shows Mamma his new walkie-talkies, the hit of the Christmas gifts. I’m almost surprised the batteries lasted the whole day!

Nate unwraps his present. He has always been fascinated with cordless tools so how could a grandpa resist buying his two year old grandson his own cordless screwdriver. Older brother Blake will give him a hand using it.

Nate shows off the cordless screwdriver

Blake shows papa and Nate his new book. The book is a popup book that is all about the human digestive system. Of course it has all the gross stuff that a 6 year old boy would think is way cool.

Everyone stands around looking at Blakes book.

Grandma and Nate Dancing

2007-12-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

When you are two years old it sure is fun to have an extra silly grandma!

Sun and Snow

2007-12-19T20:33:00.000-08:00

As I sat at my desk this afternoon and tried to work this view of the sun and snow kept calling me.

I finally grabbed the camera and went out on the deck and took this photo.

Then I walked down to the lake to look at the beauty of the sun on the snow and ice covered lake. As I walked back into the house I snapped this photo of the sun on the deck.

Grandsons and Christmas Cookies

2007-12-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

It was a cold day with rain and snow so it seemed like a good day to stay inside a bake gingerbread men with the grandsons. 5 year old Blake really got into; mixing, rolling out the dough, cutting and then decorating the cookies. 2 year old Nate was excited about it too, but didn’t understand that you don’t have to use all your weight when pushing in the raisin eyes. So his cookies were a little deformed, but they sure did taste good. Of course the fun thing was spending time with the boys.

We always feel like we are extra lucky to have two great boys for our grandsons. All the long hard hours of building our dream home were worth it when we get to spend some good quality time with the boys!

Blake making the dough

A little molasses on your face is ok when you are the person in charge of quality control

Nate inspects his coookie while grandma looks on

Nate points to his cookie, just before grandma pulled it out of the oven

Heated Wall

2007-12-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

Today I finished tiling the mud room’s heated wall. Here in Southeast Alaska one frequently comes in from outside with a wet coat. Since Connie rides her bike to work most days and home again for lunch that means she is out in the rain about 30 minutes each day. So she not only has wet rain gear but a wet backpack. So, I figured a heated wall that is hooked to the radiant heat source would be a good idea.

What wasn’t a good idea was that I originally had just a layer of sheetrock over the PEX tubing that delivers the heated water to the wall. Well I can now tell you that sheetrock is a very poor thermal transmitter and that the thermal conductivity of ceramic tile is much better by a factor of several times. So, the tile will now transmit the heat to the coats and wet gear to more efficiently dry them. The added bonus is just before you go outside you put on a nice warm coat.

I had never seen a heated wall before I built this one into our home, but I have to say I got the idea from heated towel racks that are common in many European hotels. I can now say that I highly recommend radiant heated floors and why not heat at least one wall in a mud room?

I only hung one coat on the wall so that you could see the tile. The wall is only 3 feet wide and the tiling is 4 feet high. That is big enough to do the job. The water that run through the PEX in this wall and in the floor is heated to around 90 degrees.

Christmas is Coming

2007-12-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. But, it’s the 1st tree we have had in our new home so it is extra special to us.

Living in a rain forest surrounded by thousands of evergreen trees I just can’t bring my self to purchase a farm grown tree. (I also don’t buy drinking water in a plastic bottle when we get over 100 inches of rain a year.)

This little tree was soon to be cut down anyway as it was right in the path of some underground utilities that are about to be ran. I hate cutting trees down unless there is a reason too.

4 generations work together decorating the tree. Great grandma, grandma, momma and Blake putting the decorations on the tree.

Blake was getting into the tree decorating.

When you are not quite two years old its tough being told you can’t be at the top of the ladder with your 5 year old brother at the same time. But, it helps to have a loving grandmother.

Grandma holds Nate on the lader while I go outside and take a picture through the window.

Concrete and Christmas Cookies

2007-12-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

Yes I know that Christmas cookies and concrete don’t go together, but I like the title.

I went out this evening to take a couple of photos of the concrete after I finished stripping the forms from the garage floor a couple of day ago. As I was coming back in I looked though windows to see Connie baking.

I took this photo through the window and as you can see Connie didn't know I was there.

I accidentally hit the lenses on the window so she caught me taking this shot.

Below are the photos of the concrete after the forms were stripped from the garage floor. I finished the job a couple of days ago after putting it on hold because it was too cold to work in an unheated area.

I’m very happy with the results. After finishing stripping the forms the concrete looked about as good as it could except in one small area. So, I’m very happy and proud of the job we did.

The black ABS drain pipe is the floor drains for the garage floor. The area below the garage will someday be a family rec room and my office.

Another Day on the Lake

2007-12-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

I saw my daughter-in-law Jenn out on the lake today with the boys. So I walked out to see Jenn and Blake on skates while Nate was going skating the easy way.

Frozen Lake

2007-12-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

The last few days it’s been cold and clear in Sitka so Swan Lake is good and frozen. My mother-in-law Millie and I had surprise visitors today when my daughter-in-law and two grandsons came walking across the lake. When the left I joined them on the ice and the Connie and I went back on the lake this evening for a short walk.

The view from the front deck of the frozen lake.

Daughter-in-law Jenn and grandson Nate on the ice in front of our house. I tired to get 5 year old Blake in the photo, but do you know how hard it is to get a 5 year old to stay still when there is a frozen lake to run on?

Looking back at the house from just a short ways out on the lake.

Connie is trying to stay warm as we cross the lake to get a look at the house, which is in the middle of the photo.

Stripping Cement Forms

2007-11-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

Nearly 20 months after we poured the concrete for the garage I’m finally getting around to stripping the cement forms that held up the garage floor. As you can see in the photos this is all overhead work so a hardhat is a must. Between wearing a hardhat all day and working overhead my neck feels like it’s been ran through the wringer. But, it’s been worth it to finally see how the concrete pour turned out. I have to say so far I’m very happy with the quality.

One portion stripped down to concrete and the joist pulled off the plywood just prior to the final stripping. Even though it’s overhead and gravity is working in my favor the ¾ plywood form is a bearcat to pull. But, when it lets go you better move out of the way fast!

A closeup of one of the grade beams. Note the round circles are the plastic shoes that held up the rebar.

I'll post more photos later when I get further along or get done with the job.

Sitka Daily Photo

2007-11-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

I was cruising around the world of blogs the other night and I came across a blog called Sofia Daily Photo. This is a blog that features daily photos from Sofia Bulgaria. I then noticed a link to a whole bunch of blogs that feature daily photos of cities all around the world. The idea of sitting at my computer and checking out interesting places to visit all over the globe intrigued me and a spent a couple of hours just traveling to cites I had been to and cites I want to go to someday.

Living in Alaska I know this state and area of the world is interesting to many people so I decided to sign up for a daily blog to feature Sitka, Alaska. I know I’m a little biased but I think Sitka is just about the most beautiful place on earth and I’m very thankful that I get to live here with my family. So, if any of you readers of this blog want to see more photos of Sitka please visit my new blog at this address: http://sitkadailyphoto.blogspot.com/

I’m sorry I’m not a better photographer, but maybe I’ll get better as I take more photos of the wonderful city of Sitka and post them on Sitka Daily Photo.

Grandson Blake came with Connie and me on Sunday when we went to Sitka’s National Historic Park to take a walk and to take photos of the many totems in the park.

More Thanksgiving Day Photos

2007-11-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

Nate runs everywhere he goes

Nate is always intrested in what big brother Blake is up to

Blake likes the loft

I guess I like the loft too. I set my dinner aside long enough to take this photo. I didn't have a wide enough angle lens on the camera to fit in everyone so poor Nate is not in the photo.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2007-11-22T20:47:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday and it was extra special this year with 4 generations of my family sharing diner in our new home.

I think I have always like Thanksgiving because it is the one holiday that is dedicated to being thankful for all the wonderful blessings that I have been fortunate to experience. I of course am most thankful for a great family.

Nate likes to play peek-a-boo on the stairs

Blake discovered that he can slide down the stair jacks. It’s hard to say don’t do that when I know how much fun I had doing it when I was a kid.

Connie as always put at one heck of a good spread of all the traditional Thanksgiving food.

Pan Abode Homes

2007-11-20T21:06:00.000-08:00

I came home over this past weekend with my head swirling with all I learned in just a few days of training at the Pan Abode Homes office in Renton Washington. I also came home even more impressed with Pan Abode.

Not only has Pan Abode been putting together home packages here in the USA since 1952, but I like their business philosophy and integrity. They believe in charging a fair price for a high quality product and strive to always make improvements in their designs. One way I judge a business is by what the employees say and how long they have been employed. I found the employees to be happy and 20 to 30 years of employment at Pan Abode is the norm. This says a lot to me and I’m proud to now be a small part of the Pan Abode Team striving to make dreams come true.

Pan Abode designs and builds 3 types of homes: The Cassic Timber, The Phoenix Timber Home and Post and Beam. Below is an example of each type of construction.

Pan Abode Homes Classic Red Cedar Home style that they have been designing and supplying material for in the US since 1952.

The Pan Abode Homes Phoenix Home system utilizes laminated red cedar logs to build a strong and very beautiful home.

Our home is a Pan Abode Post and Beam style house.

Silly Boys!

2007-11-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

I’m heading out of town for a week but before I leave I figured I’d post these two cute photos of Blake and Nate from this past Saturday.

The boys showed up Saturday morning just as I was putting away some of my ties that Connie had been drying on the folding table after washing. I’m not sure Nate even knows what a tie is but he sure wanted to put one on. Then he wore it all day long and all around town. Silly boy!

This window that Blake is poking his head out of looks out onto the great room from the loft in the spare bedroom. It was Blake’s idea to put this window into the loft and he and his grandmother out voted me because I wasn’t going to. I guess this is a vote I’m glad I lost because it’s sure has been fun for me to watch the boys have fun in the loft.

This is the boys play loft in the spare bedroom and one of their favorite places to play.

Honoring my Father-In-Law On this Veterans Day

2007-11-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

The USS Gambier Bay

Veterans Day is of course a day that has been set aside for us to pay our respect to the many brave Men and Women who over the last 2 centuries have given so much for us. I have to admit that sometimes I find it a tad hard to be patriotic in today’s world where we the USA no longer seem to live up the high standards that many of those brave folks gave their lives for. When I hear our President dodging the question of torture and when I look at the toll this never ending Iraq War is taking on our county I have to wonder.

However, when I think back to all my father-in-law George Durkop gave for the US and the high standard that he set I can not help but feel pride. I’m not only proud of my wife’s father, but I have to be proud of what he and so many others stood for.

George’s served active duty in 3 wars. The 2nd World War, Korea, and Viet Nam.

During WWII he was aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gambier Bay on the fateful day of October 25th 1944 when the only US aircraft carrier sank during the 2nd World War went down. George was serving as Gunner’s Mate 3/c on the Gambier Bay when she was hit by several 8” shells fired by the Japanese War Ship HIJMS Chikuma and at least two other Japanese ships during the Navel Battle in the Leyte Gulf. He spent over two days swimming in the ocean before being rescued. This was when he earned his 1st Purple Heart Medal. He finished the 2nd World War Serving on the USS Hubbard.

At the end of the 2nd World War he joined the US Air Force.

During the Korean War he served active duty in the US Air Force in Korea and somehow earned another Purple Heart. I never heard how he earned this one.

In 1968 during the Viet Nam war he was called up for active duty from the Colorado Air National Guard during the Pueblo Incident . He was sent back to Korea for a 2nd time. During this duty he was one of 2 Air Force NCO’s who was stationed on the DMZ to work as an air support spotter. He spent 13 months on the DMZ during this Hot time in the Cold War.

George Retired as a Chief Master Sergeant from the Colorado Air National Guard in the 1980’s.

George was a very humble quiet man who seldom talked of his time at war. Once shortly before his death I felt honored when he recounted the full details of the sinking of the Gambier Bay to me. After hearing how he watched men be blown up, burn to death and then some of them get eaten by sharks I could understand why he didn’t like to talk about some of the darker things he had seen in his life.

To me George was a real American Hero!

George I salute your memory and thank you for all that you gave to the USA!

Kitchen and Laundry

2007-11-09T14:53:00.000-08:00

When Connie and I started thinking about building a house we knew that we wanted the kitchen and living room to not be separated by a wall. The idea of a peninsula with the sink in the middle so that we could wash dishes while looking across the dinning area and then out the front windows appealed to both of us. I don’t know about you, but if I can have a great view and talk to my family while doing dishes it doesn’t seem like such a big chore.

In the design phases of the home we were extra pleased that Pan Abode Homes was so very willing to work with us to locate the kitchen where we wanted it. And then when we asked them to add additional windows in the kitchen they were more than happy to do so. Connie and I were both willing to give up some cabinet space to get more sun light into our home.

We put the windows above the stove counters becasue our only view out that side of the hosue is of the neighbor's house, and this gave us room for stuff on the counters under the windows. The other window was installed lower so that we could have a full view of the lake while working at the stove.

A few folks have given me a hard time about mounting the microwave hood vent so high above the stove, but I didn't want to knock my head on it ever time I bent over the stove. That is why there are two microwaves. Sort of a "His" and "Hers". I usually use the upper microwave and my 5'1" wife usually uses the one on the countertop. But, I have to confess I like having two microwaves, because when I cook it’s almost all done the fast and easy way with a microwave.

This is the view we see as we come in the back door and through the laundry room.

The shelves in the pantry are built extra heavy out of fir so that Connie can climb them like a ladder. If you note the top shelve you can see the hand hold that is cut into the shelve. The two below this one are cut the same way.

Connie picked out all the appliances when we were furnishing the house, but I insisted on a mop sink. And, man or man was I glad we had this when we were doing the sheetrock mud and painting! You will also note the big jug of hand soap right over the sink, this is so I can wash up as I come in the house from doing some dirty job outside.

Wide Angle Shot of the Front of the House

2007-11-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

I’d been having problems with my wide angel lens focusing so I had not taken any wide angle shots of the house until this morning. I was pleased when I figured out the only problem with the lens was a UV filter that made the shot look like it was in focus until it was downloaded. Anyway I removed the filter and I was happy with the results.

The House From the Street

2007-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

The garage and the back of the house. Yes, the back of the house faces the street.

The lot is only 75 feet wide so we had to be creative to get the garage and house to fit within the city setbacks.

I took the above 3 photos as I walked up the sidewalk across the street. I think we are lucky becasue there is no sidewalk on our side of the street.

A view of the ramp that leads to the house from the parking lot and garage. The deck and ramp was my design, but the superb workmanship on the deck was done by my son Zach.

Steel and Concrete

2007-11-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

I know there is little rhyme or reason as to the order in which I have posted photos. But, the last couple of days the subject of concrete and rebar has come up few times, so I figured I post some more photos of the concrete work that we did. I’ve elected to highlight the garage since it was the bigger of the two projects as far as concrete work.

After the helical piers were driven, pier caps were poured. Each cap is 1 foot thick. The larger pier caps are where double piers have been driven.

Rebar was placed on 1 foot centers and perimeter grade beams as well as interior grade beams were formed. The blue board is 2” of foam insulation placed onto the plastic vapor barrier. The vertical rebar is where the pillers that support the upper floor will be formed.

The 20' X 22' pad has been poured and again you can see the dowles where the pillers will be formed.

Three sides of the piller forms were built at Zach's shop. They were brought to the job site and placed around the pretied 5/8" rebar. The forth side of the form was put in place after the forms were in the proper location and the rebar was tied into the center of the forms. Note the tent we built over the project so that we could work in rainy weather.

2x4 stud walls were built on 16" centers to hold the plywood forms for the upper deck. Note the steel strapping around the vertical forms. This kept them from "blowing out" when the concrete was vibrated.

When you are going to pour a concrete floor that weighs over 70,000 pounds you better place lots of cross bracing.

The upper deck is formed and the first lawyer of rebar on 8" centers is sitting on top of plastic rebar shoes that keep it 2" off the form. Note the grade beams again around the outside and down the interior.

A typical corner where rebar not only ties into the pillers but ties the corner grade beams together.

In this photo you see Connie tying rebar. Connie, Zach and I all tied hundreds of pieces of rebar together. Zach tied the lions share with Connie and me tying in the evenings and on weekends.

I'm finishing tying the last of the rebar just prior to pouring. One side of the forms had to be left off so that we could push 22' long rebar through the grade beams to tie both the upper and lower layers of rebar into the grade beams and pillers. The upper layer of rebar is on 12" centers and the lower is on 8" centers.

A close up view of the 2 layers of rebar for the upepr deck of the garage.

A slightly out of focus look between the layers of rebar.

After the pour the tent came down and the forms were stripped. With the forms off we were pleased in the job we had done pouring over 45 yards of concrete for the garage. We were extra pleased at the finish and were told by the inspecting engineer that this was some of the best concrete work he had ever seen.

Card Catalog

2007-11-06T17:02:00.000-08:00

When I worked at Sheldon Jackson College, one day over the inner-office e-mail the college librarian advertised that she want to get rid of some surplus furniture. One thing she had for sale was an old card catalog. I knew it would be a couple of years before we would have the house ready for such a piece of furniture but I figured it was unique enough that it was worth storing in our storage locker. Yesterday I finally got around to converting the drawers so they could be used for something beside the Dewey Decimal System.

60 drawer card catalog

I pulled out the inner guts that use to hold cards and put 1/8" thick plywood in the bottoms. Yes it did feel a little sacrilege to pull out the guts and remove all the indexing, but I took comfort in knowing that the computer has replaced this piece of furniture. (However, with the closing of the school the library closed too. )

When I purchased the card catalog I figured it would be a good storage system for Connie's sewing stuff. So this is what I had in mind all along.....

But Connie also figured it would be a good place to put little toys for the grandsons to find. If nothing else it could make a good memory game!

Millie’s Panoramic View

2007-11-05T14:20:00.000-08:00

This morning I picked up from the framers the panormamic photograph of the view Millie enjoyed from her Colorado home before moving to Sitka.

Millie stands in her room admiring the photograph that her good friend Teri gave her as a going away present when she moved from Colorado to Southeast Alaska.

Millie and Connie had already decided the photograph would hang above the closet doors in Millie's room. So as soon as I walked in with the newly framed photo I hung it.

I wish the photo of the photo did justice to the view that was out Millie's window. Millie lived in the same home for around 45 years and over the years she watched the view change from seeing very few homes to many, many homes. Out these same windows she watched her children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren play. The gift from Teri helps keep those memories alive.

Grandson Sunday

2007-11-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

Connie and I love Sunday mostly because we spend extra time with both of our grandsons. Usually we pick Blake up at this home and he comes to town with us. Later in the afternoon Zach, Jenn and Nate come to town and pick up Blake. So we get to spend a good part of the day with both grandsons.

Blake and Grandma enjoy the Sitka Cross trail in the glorious sun!

Nate enjoys a homemade organic chocolate chip cookie and hot tea which he drinks with a bombilla (straw). Grandpa just enjoys watching the little guy have fun. What a pleasure it is to be a grandparent!

Spectacular Sunday

2007-11-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

The weather was grand today so we took some photos of a few of the mountains that can be seen from town.

This is the back side of Mnt. Verstovia as seen from where we park our truck when we visit our son Zach and his family.

This Mnt. Verstovia as seen from the muskegs on the Sitka Cross Trail near Indian River.

This is the Sisters as seen from the muskeg on the Cross Trail. I always love the peaks when they get fresh snow on them!

Working on the Rock Pile

2007-11-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

One of the real problems with building on a small lot is all the hand work that has to be done without the aid of machinery. I have to give credit where credit is due. Connie has been moving yards and yards of rock and gravel by hand. She figures there is more than one way to stay in shape. (See why so many guys have asked me if Connie has a sister. She doesn’t. SORRY!)

40 yards of mixed rock and gravel was dumped under the main entrance ramp.

After already moving 30 some yards of gravel by hand we had another 40 yards of shot rock, drain rock and gravel delivered. We hired a young man who was on his summer break from college to move the rock. After moving about a 1/3 of it he quit. So, Connie who is 35 year older than he and about 40% small than he is took over moving the rock and gravel. And, she had to move it further.

Connie moved this rock in 5 gallon buckets and then neatly stacked the rocks.

The big rocks were stacked with the tractor before we started building. All the smaller rock and gravel was moved by hand.

Two Early Morning Photos

2007-11-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

I’m reposting two photos taken early in the morning. One with a flash and one taken without the flash. I had posted these before, but I removed them after I received a SPAM Comment in Portages none the less. I’m hoping this was a fluke because I hate to put restrictions on this blog.

Tiger’s Come Trick or Treating and Stay for Dinner

2007-10-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yes the house was over ran by TIGERS! Good thing they are not as mean as they pretend to be!

This tiger put more chilly on his face than in his belly

This tiger was more interested in playing with a toy airplane than eating. It might have had something to do with the 3 muffins he ate at the neighbor’s house or all the fruit leather he ate at the other neighbor’s house while on his earlier trick or treating adventures.

Sheldon Jackson School

2007-10-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

There are not enough superlative to define how honored I felt to work at Sheldon Jackson College until it closed this past summer. But working at SJC was also often like an abusive relationship. Most of us who loved working there and loved the school loved it in spite of the fact it was always beating us up emotionally and physical. I say physical because most of us dedicated employees worked 60, 70, sometimes even 80 or more hours a week. And I say emotionally because we knew how financially strapped the school was. Always being strapped for funds made it very, very hard to do our jobs.

But, we worked hard and long hours because we loved working with the kids that went to school at SJC. And, I loved working at SJC because I had great boss, great employees who worked for me and I was the person who worked with the most volunteers. Since I was the head of the maintenance department and since management estimated we had about 35 or more million dollars in differed maintenance there was always plenty to do. And, a very large percentage of the work was done by volunteers.

During the summers workgroups from various Presbyterian Churches from all over the nation would come and help with major building projects, summer painting, grounds keeping, and you name it. In the 4 summers I was at SJC I was privileged to oversee the work of nearly 1000 volunteers! Yes, working with volunteers can be a challenge, but I found 99.9% of the volunteers to be wonderful people who had a strong will to do good things. With just a little supervision people who had never picked up a hammer, power tool, or even a paint brush can do fantastic work. Not only did the volunteers do this hard work, but they paid their way here to Sitka, paid to sleep in a dorm room and usually funded the project they were working on. So, yes I loved working with these folks.

And, I haven’t mentioned the VIM’s. VIM stands for Volunteers in Mission. These folks would come to SJC for extended periods of time, some for a school semester, some for a year or more. Once again, good hard working folks who gave of them selves with the only pay to them being the knowledge they had done something good. I found the VIM’s to the cream of the cream.

The pay at SJC was never what it should have been, but the people more than made up for all the other deficiencies. When the school closed this past summer it was not only the loss of a 130 year old institution, but the loss of so many good friends. It’s been hard watching some of my fellow workmates from SJC struggle to find jobs in a small town and it’s been even harder to see some very fine folks have to leave town for other work. I know I was one of the lucky ones who wasn’t hurt financially as hard by the lay off as some of the others were, and I’m grateful for that.

Founded in 1878 the school was the oldest educational institution in Alaska. Sheldon Jackson founded the school to help Alaska Natives and that was the school primary mission for 130 years.

The main entrance sign to the school was built by VIM Vern Boyer in 2006.

I loved the variety of work at SJC. I built this flag pole which is 60 feet high. The flag is 12 feet high and 18 feet long. The flag and materials for the pole were donated by one of the SJC Trustees

The yard arm on the pole was built by one of my employees Jay Schrader and was the 1st time he had ever weleded aluminum. (I enjoyed watching my employees and volunteers learn new skills!)

This tree house at the SJC Childcare Center was built from Alaska yellow and red cedar. Most of the construction was overseen by VIM Cathy Barnes. In fact this tree house was mostly built by women.

I’m very pleased to say that long time childcare director Lolly Miller along with many of the parents of the kids in the childcare center formed a non-profit corporation and it looks like they will be able to keep the center open.

This tricycle track was primarly built by VIM’s Marv De Jong and retired physics professor and John Kleis a retired middle school science teacher. Neither one had ever done concrete work before.

My favorite part of the track is this sinuous section.

A Little Respite in the Weather

2007-10-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

The last two days it’s rained and blew hard. So, this morning after breakfast when it stated getting light we could see that the lake was up a couple of feet from the normal level and there was actualy some blue sky.

While running a few errands this morning I figured I’d drive on out to Sandy Beach to see the waves coming in. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can also see Mount Edgecombe in the background trying to peek out of the clouds.

Thanks!

2007-10-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

I was honored when Mary of the two blogs linked below passed on the Friendly Site Award to me yesterday. Thanks Mary!

Mary's Writing Nook
Treasures to Me

I have to confess that I had seldom looked at a blog until the day I started my blog a couple of weeks ago. I was so busy working and building our house the last two years that other than work e-mail or some research for the house I seldom went on line. Many folks from around the country were asking to see photos so I figured the easiest way was to build a website. That’s when I discovered blogs that I had been hearing so much about.

Now I have to admit I’m getting a little addicted to the many blogs that I have been cruising. It’s kind of fun to go to Mary’s blogs and not only read her well written blog, but click over to see the blogs of others who are posting on her site.

Wind Rain and a Nice Fire

2007-10-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

As is often the case in Southeast Alaska today was a rainy and windy day. It’s days like this that we especially enjoy our woodstove.

The wind and rain blew across the lake all day while the radio kept issuing high wind warning with guest over 50mph. This is when it’s great to be inside looking out at the lake sitting next to the fire in the stove.

The stove we chose for our home is a Woodstock Soapstone Stove. We chose the stove for the following reasons; the soapstone radiates an even heat, the stove burns clean because of the catalytic converter, and the beauty of the soapstone.

The Ecofan helps move the heat around the room. We find with the soapstone and the fan that we can easily heat most of the house off wood when we want to. It sure helps save on the heating bill!

For those of you that don't know the Ecofan uses the heat of the stove to generate the power that operates the fan

Dining Table

2007-10-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of guys would hate having their mother-in-laws living with them, but I’m one of those guys who has always liked my mother-in-law Millie and I’m glad she is living with us now. Since Connie and I lived aboard a boat for so many years we obviously didn’t have any furniture to put into our new home. So, when Millie moved here from Colorado she brought with her enough furniture to furnish the house. I think the piece of furniture we all enjoy the most is the dining room table. Millie’s father purchased this table in the late 1920’s and interestingly enough the table at one time belonged to Civil War General Frank Wheaton.

Millie sits at the table on a very rainy day working on a needlepoint project.

The table is solid oak and as you can see in this photo has some very ornate carvings. The table is 54” wide . The table is capable of holding 6 leafs. In the photo below only one leaf is in. 2 crossword puzzles from the local paper sit on the table awaiting Connie’s expertise.

Instant Hot Water

2007-10-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

More than likely many of you reading this blog could care less about domestic hot recirculation. But if you live in a house where every time you turn on the hot water you have to wait and wait and maybe wait some more for hot water, then maybe you should be interested. Most especially if you live in an area where water is a precious resource.

Even though water is not scarce here in Southeast Alaska I still decided to install a recirculation pump on the hot water for 2 reasons. 1. You don’t have to wait for hot water to wash your hands or take a shower. Now that’s nice. 2. It is less expensive to recalculate the hot water than it is to reheat the 2 to 5 gallons that would otherwise run down the drain every time one wanted hot water.

Maybe it’s because I have worked construction and maintenance on many commercial buildings over the years that I was already familiar with recirc systems. Anyway I knew we would install one in our house before we even started pouring the foundation.

I asked a few of the local plumbers here in Sitka and they tell me that they never install domestic hot water recirc systems in residential application. One plumber looked at me like I was crazy, one said he remembered installing one years ago and another guy said why waste my time and money. But, I’m sure glad I did install the simple little pump and the extra ½” copper pipe to make it work.

If you are interested in installing your own recirc system Grundfos Pumps has a great resource at this link: Hot Water Recirculation

This is a photo of the pump and check valve on the system. I used a standard Taco hydronic circ pump that draws around around 20 watts of power. Far less than would be required to reheat the water that normaly would run down the drain.

One of the great things about an eight foot high crawl space under the house is it let me build a mechanical room. Since the room is primarily plumbing I now have my own plumbing repair center as you can see in this photo.

2 Photos of Sun Shinning on the Prow

2007-10-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

People ask why the cables on the trees. The cables keep the trees from hitting the deck when the wind bows hard. They have been wind tested and so far they work great.

Rain Gutters and Downspouts

2007-10-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that one of the most important systems on any building when you live in a rain forest is the rain gutters and downspouts. However, I sometimes think I’m alone in this thought. In my over 25 years of doing building maintenance here in Southeast Alaska I have seldom see gutters, flashing and downspouts done right. In fact I find it is almost the norm to have gutters done in my opinion totally wrong.

All too often I see gutters mounted perfectly level or worse yet slopping away from the downspouts. One commercial building I use to take care of in Ketchikan had 7 long running gutters with each and every one of them sloped the wrong direction. These gutters had been professionally installed, so I had to wonder if the installer didn’t know that water seeks its own level, runs down hill and only in extreme wind will water run uphill. Again this all seems to me to be common sense, but I tell you I have seen too many gutter systems installed backwards to think it is just a fluke. On a brand new building that was built when I worked at Sheldon Jackson College over half the gutters were again installed by pros and ran backwards slopng away from the downspouts.

I have always liked copper gutters over other types of gutter systems, so in spite of the fact they are much more expensive than the alternatives we decided to do the job right. Not only will copper outlast any other gutter, but I think they look better too.

We purchased copper gutter components for the gutter system except I had to build custom gutters for the prow. I built these with 1X2 copper channel and then soldered on copper brackets to mount the gutters

In this photo if you look close you can see that I sloped the gutters about 2 inches in 26 feet. When installing gutters I always snap a chalk line with the slope that I want I then follow the line when installing the gutters.

Below are 2 photos of the same gutter system on the house next door

I hated picking on the neighbor’s house but here is a classic example of gutters that are sloped the wrong way. Of the 2 gutter systems that we see on their house from our 2nd floor both are sloped the wrong way. Whenever it rains hard more water spills over the side of their gutters than goes down the downspout.

Fall and Trees

2007-10-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

It turned into a very nice fall afternoon today. The sun was shinning so I had to take a few photos from the deck and around the house of the fall colors.

Looking up the lake from our front yard.

Looking down the lake into town from the front yard.

My ignorance of the proper names of various plants doesn’t keep me from enjoying the colors that are right in our front yard.

Many people thought we were crazy to build the deck around an alder tree. Here is Southeast Alaska alders grow like weeds and many people hate them becasue they do make a mess and can be hard to control. Even though it adds to the work of keeping the gutters clean we love having this alder right out the front door.

I love walking just a couple of feet out the front door and looking up at the branches with or without leaves.

And I love looking at the moss and lichens that grow on the alder trees.

I think what we love the most about our new home is that we can enjoy the outdoors even though we are just a few blocks away from downtown. When we designed and built the house we worked hard to save trees. Too often people cut all the trees down, build the house and then replant trees. We figured that was a tad crazy so we did our best to save as many trees as we could. And, we are glad we did, even though they were sometimes a pain to work around.

Terra Nova

2007-10-26T18:53:00.001-07:00

As many of you know Connie and I lived on sailboats for about 25 years. Our son Zach was raised more on boats than he was on land. I know that some of you that are reading this have never seen the last boat that we lived on for 21 years. The name that Connie and I gave her was Terra Nova; which is Latin for new lands or unexplored lands. Terra Nova was our love and joy because not only did we build her from the hull up but she took us to many new lands here in Southeast Alaska. She gave us much joy and it was very bitter sweet to us when we put her on the market. But, we figured taking care of a yacht and a house was too much.

Terra Nova sits at anchor at Baranof Warm Springs on the outer coast of Baranof Island

A couple of the great students who attended Sheldon Jackson College while I worked there and before the school closed in 2007

Terra Nova on the hard as they say getting a new bottom painting.

Looking aft out the companionway. We sometimes felt guilty about all the teak we used inside Terra Nova, but we got a great deal on it when a large yacht manufacturing company on the east coast went out of business. The teak we used when we built our house was left over teak from Terra Nova that we had stored for over 20 years.

The all electric galley of Terra Nova

We built Terra Nova for cruising the waters of Southeast Alaska, so an inside stearing station was a must when you consider that many areas of the Alaskan Panhandle get over 200 inches of rain a year.

As mentioned Connie and I built Terra Nova from the steel hull up. She was designed by Grahame Shannon and built by SP Metal Craft of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and we launched her in the spring of 1986. After motoring an almost empty hull north to Alaska we spent the next 4 + years years doing the wiring, plumbing, mechanical and woodwork in the interior. Connie and a good friend from Ketchikan also did all the canvas work including making the sails

Siding and Finish

2007-10-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Siding is stacked and drying after the 1st coat of sealer.

The first thing people see about any home is the exterior finish or paint. I know we get more inquiries and complements on the finish of the siding on our home than anything. So, I guess I should have posted something sooner.

1st off the house is sided with vertical ship-lapped red cedar siding. To me there are few things prettier than red cedar, so we knew we had to leave it clear. As I have posted before this home was designed and the materials were supplied by Pan Abode Homes a company with over 50 years designing red cedar homes. On their recommendation we used Sikkens Cetol Log and Siding Sealer. I did a little research too and I could not find any product that had an overall higher rating. Of course here in Southeast Alaska the finish will get a real test, so I also asked around town. I found out there are at least 2 homes here in Sitka were the Sikkens has been on for over 10 years, and both homes still look great.

We applied one coat before the siding was put on the buildings and then another coat after it was hung. We did not back-prime or finish as I’m of the school that cedar needs to breath and finishing both sides would inhibit the woods chance or expelling any water that will be absorbed.

It’s not very fair that Connie isn’t in this photo because she did at least 75% of all the finishing. But, she also took most of the photos. Here she caught me doing the 2nd coat on the high stuff that she didn’t like doing. The 6 foot step ladder is sitting on ladder jack planks. Something she wouldn't do.

Low Voltage Wiring

2007-10-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

When designing the house I decided it made good sense to “Smart” wire the house. So I ran structured wire to each room in the house. The structured wire consists of 2 Cat-5 wires and 2 Coax wires all bundled together. I also ran speaker wire throughout the house too.

Now if I can ever get GCI to hook up the phone I might be able to join the 21st century with this unique low voltage wiring system.

Swan Lake

2007-10-14T17:09:00.001-07:00

As I have posted before we feel lucky to have been able to build and now live on the shores of historic Swan Lake. I say historic, because it is. When Russia still owned Alaska they hand dug and built the lake primarily for ice. Believe it or not some ice from the lake was transported by sailing ship as far south as San Francisco. As I understand the venture was never very profitable, and after a couple of warm winters the venture failed. However, one of the more interesting things about the lake was that the Russians used it as a bargaining tool with the US. As I recall the price the USA paid for Alaska was raised by $200,000.00 because of Swan Lake.

Sunday morning the 14th of October was so nice I had to step out on the deck and take this photo of the lake. I love the reflections on the still water.

We have been so busy building the house that Connie and I have not had time in almost 2 years to go for a walk. So after breafast we were delighted to enjoy a walk around the lake. The photo was taken by the public park that is on Lake Steet and the view is looking up the lake.

There is always a ton of ducks on the lake, and especially at the park because people frequentaly come to feed then bread at that location. I think they were disappointed we didn’t have anything for then to eat, but I was glad the sun was shining on them to bring out the green heads in a photo.

This view is looking across the lake from Halibut Point Road and looks up the Indian River Valley towards the peaks called the Sisters.

In the center of this shot you can see the bracing and railing for the deck on our house. The house is hidden in the trees and unless one knows where to look chances are one won’t see it. We like being hidden in the trees and because of the Costal Zone Management Plan trees are no longer allowed to be cut within 50 feet of the lake shore.

At the north end of the 22 acre lake there is a delightful little park. Connie and I detoured through the park to get this photo looking down the lake.

Home!

2007-10-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

The house we built has become a home. Connie and Millie pose for a photo right after Saturday morning breakfast.

Zach and family came over Saturday evening for their 1st dinner in the house after it was completed. Blake showed up in last years Halloween costume . Of course he is often seen around town wearing this suit becasue he is a tiger! Guess what he is going to wear this coming year? Yep! Still a tiger.

Nate loves to be helpful, here he is helping Grandma wash the stuff that didn't get into the dishwasher. Like Blake he also loves anything to do with water.

Stairs and Railings

2007-10-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is a view of the 2nd floor loft that over looks the great room.

The stairs leading up. Another thing that is fun about building your own home is the little features one can build in. The handrailing is built out of a scrap peice of apitong that was left over from the bridge decking and the brackets that hold the railing is left over teak from the boat that Connie and I built over 20 years ago. Note the little window in the top center of the photo. This was grandson Blakes idea; it is a window that looks out from their lot that is built over the master bedroom's walkin closet and is accessed from the spare bedroom/ plyroom for the kids.

I thought the staris and railing looked kind of intresting from out on the deck so I took this photo through the window looking in.

Construction Photos X

2007-10-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

Well this will be the last post for now of constuction photos.

Nate invents a new tool to make sure that sheetrock is flat and the things that are round roll on it. Seriously one of the best things about having our son Zach help with the construction is that our grandsons were often on the job sight. Now, that’s a real bonus!!

Another great thing about building a house is getting to show it off to friends. This is a photo of our good friends Chuck and Jan Falconer from Oregon. While I worked at Sheldon Jackson College I had the honor of working with volunteers. Many of these volunteers were called Volunteers in Mission or VIM’s. Chuck and Jan volunteered their time at SJC for 27 months and Chuck was the 1st volunteer I was lucky enough to work with. So, it was extra great when Chuck and Jan were literally our 1st lunch guests when they visited town in May, 2007.

Building a home no matter how careful one is generates a lot of wood scraps. Since we built our deck with rough cut lumber that we purchased from a mill on Prince of Wales Island we generated more scrap than would typically be generated from a Pan Abode Home. Rather than send the scraps to the land fill we decided it made more sense environmentally to save them for the woodstove. So we built this woodshed with mostly left over materials.

Connie has always had a knack of being able to put twice the amount of stuff than should fit in any one spot. One of my good friends says she can put 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag. As you can see from the photos of the woodshed she did a great job stacking all the off cuts.

Construction Photos IX

2007-10-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

It seemed like the snow never stopped falling last winter. Zach couldn't even find one of this trucks as see you can see in this photo.

After we had the windows in and the deck started I could see the trees needed some limbs cut off to open up the view. We wanted to see the lake, but wanted to keep the limbs low enough so that we wouldn't see the couple of homes across the lake that otherwise would be visible if we limbed too high. The property on Swan lake is covered under a conveyance that no longer allows trees within 50’ of the lake from being cut down, not that we would have cut then down anyway.

It was sure great when we had all the windows in!

I had hired Charlie Thompson a carpenter from Wassila to work for me at Sheldon Jackson College and he also was helping us on weekends at the house. In this photo he had just parked his truck and heads into work on the sheetrock as it snows yet again. (The story of Charlie is also a sad one. He was not only a great carpenter but he was becoming a good friend. At 40 years old he had a massive heart attack and passed away the day after Easter in 2007. I wish I had some better photos of him!)

We decided to add an eyebrow awning over the south side of the house. It’s something we should have had Pan Abode design into the plans but we didn’t seen how important to was until the house was up and sheeted. Anyway it was easy to add it and I think you can see from all the bolts, strapping and nail plates that we didn’t want it to fall off the house. The photo below shows what the eyebrow looks like when it was completed.

Construction Photos VIII

2007-10-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

In spite of the snow Zach got started on the decks. We built temporary staging to hold the yellow cedar joist and then plumbed down for the proper post locations. Zach requited one of his good friends Karl and we hired him to spend many days hand driving 1 ½” galvanized pipe to refusal under each concrete pad. Most pads had 3 pipes driven under them some to as much as 20 feet in depth. The pipes were then tied into yet more rebar.

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It was good when we started seeing the ramp coming into shape.

We tried to be sticklers for organization and did our best to keep tools in order. As you can see from all the red boxes Zach is a big fan of Milwaukee tools.

After the Warmboard went down Zach started rolling out about 3000’ of Pex tubing. Note the heater pointed onto the PEX. It got down into the 20’s during the night so we would leave the heater on the PEX to make it more pliable. The woodstove also helped while were around to keep it going.

As I guy who can remember my dad using copper plumbing in the 50’s and because I like working with copper ewe decided not to use PEX for the domestic water. I’m also not convinced that there are not health issues to take into consideration when running domestic water through PEX in spite of what the manufactures say. In other words I think copper is a better choice for health domestic water. Sure it cost more than PEX, but isn’t your families health worth it?

The cast iron soaking tub was anther challenge since it weighs 500 pounds. Zach had the great idea of getting it up the 2nd floor using pump jacks and that worked great!

In Southeast Alaska one should do their best to minimize roof penetrations so all the waste drain lines are tied into one 3” roof vent. The cast iron utility sink was a must for me. It sure helped when we were doing the sheetrock and painting.

Construction Photos VII

2007-10-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Working 40 feet in the air on a 10/12 pitch is not for the faint hearted.

This was when we could see the house was going to be spectacular! We already knew it was going to be but this proved it to use and others.

It was great to get to the point when all the T&G was up and we could start drying out the house.

Of course then the snow started and never stop. The 06/07 winter in Sitka set records for snow accumulations and dept. 1st we had one the wetest summers on record followed by a very snowy winter. It had to be our luck while we were building a house.

When working at this height we never ventured onto the roof without 1st being on rope. I think it was shortly before this photo was taken when Zach slipped on ice and fell off the roof. I heard a scrapping, then an O-sh*t as Zach went off the roof. Of course my heart skipped a beat, but Zach took it in stride and calmly stepped into one of the prow windows without a scratch. I was sure glad he was using a rope!!

Paul one of the carpenters we hired for a while and I work on the facia. Note Paul is on rope using a GriGri, a climbing belay device that works great. It's not OSHA approved but I'll trust my life to it any day! The copper tub that runs through the rafters holds a heat tape that can be turned on to melt the snow over the front door.

Every time we would try to do some roofing the snow would pile up. I think these roof jacks were covered with snow for about 4 months.

Most of our lumber was under one of the tents or inside the garage. We were darn glad because the snow just kept piling up!

Construction Photos VI

2007-10-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

Zach did most of the layout on the framing and I think he found the prow to be the most challenging. All in all he did a great job and it was sure satisfying to see both walls of the prow up and standing.

This photo and the one above were taken on one of the few occasions when it wasn't raining. During all the framing the weather was the worst ever, in fact there was at least one month when the all time rain fall record was broken. And, that's saying something for Southeast Alaska. Note the white around the posts. We made sure that the ends of all post and what they were sitting on got a coat of Anchor Sealto keep water from wicking up the wood grain.

All the beams had 2 coats of clear exterior urethane brushed on them prior to being placed to protect them from the weather. Note the plastic tents.

It was sure a good feeling to see the beams going up. Since we built on a narrow lot we could not get any equipment into help do the lifting, so all beams and other building materials were lifted by hand. The main beam was over 300 pounds and we knew it by the end of the day after lifting it 22 feet in the air.

Connie stands by to hand me something while I was working on the rafters for the 2nd floor of the house. In this shot you can see what a great job she did with the shingles on the roof of the garage. Yes, Connie did almost all the roofing with help from me doing all the packing and lifting of the shingles.

Rafters are going on prior to placing the insulation. Note the tar paper over the spruce T&G car decking. Becasue of the endless rain we rolled the 2 mil plastic vapor barrier over the T&G as we placed it. Then we rolled 3o pound felt over the roof prior to placing the rafters. The tar paper is also a lot eaiser and safer to walk on than the plastic. In this photo you can also the top of one of the tents we had to build.

Construction Photos V

2007-10-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Blake and Nate got very excited when we rented a forklift to unload materials from the 40' van Pan Abode shipped us.

This is why we built the garge first. When building in Southeast Alaska a person needs a dry place to store the building materials.

Of course the excavating is never done. Blake uses his road grader to help smooth out the D-1 gravel around the foundation.

I have been involved with construction since I was a little kid, and I can tell you I have never seen as much steel strapping on any building as the engineers required on ours.

I had never built a post and beam home before so I found the framing to be a new challenge, but lots of fun too.

More seismic bracing and tie downs than I have ever seen. The framing is tied down to the foundation in 35 places, not counting the tons all the 5/8" J bolts. In the photo you can see a couple of the big tie downs that use 5- 1 1/8" bolts through the posts and are cast into the foundation with 1" J bolts

Construction Photos IV

2007-10-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Basicly we only contracted out 2 things on the whole project. The 1st was the excavating and the 2nd was the driving of the helical piers.

In this photo the fill has to be dug out in just the right locations prior to the helical piers being driven to bedrock. This work was going on while we continued working on the garage.

After the piers were driven and the pier caps pourd we started pouring the stem walls which are 10" thick and 20" deep and packed with tons more rebar.

While Zach continued working on the house foundation I started building the bridge to the garage. The 4 main girders are constructed with 4 rough cut yellow cedar 3X12’s stacked together to make a 12X12 on 7’ centers and 3 mid span girders built with a single 3X12’s. The decking on top of the girders is rough cut yellow cedar 4X8’s and they are toped with rough cut 2X8 apitong boards for a long lasting wear surface. Apitong is a rot resistant hardwood from Malaysia and the Philippines. It is often used on the decks of commercial fishing boats and on the decks of equipment trailers. I figured if you can drive a D-9 on it, it should hold up for our application.

A view of the bridge girders from below. Note a moisture barrier was place on top of the girders prior to decking. Also note the bridge is designed to settle and float on the street side independently from the garage. The main girders have a 1” thick piece of UHMW plastic strip placed between the wood and the concrete foundation. This allows the bridge to settle, and expand and contract independent from the garage which is not going to settle since the helical piers under the garage are driven to bed rock.

Subsiding was done from the top down so that we could frame under the garage and tie the lower and upper walls together. All the lower subsiding is 1/2" pressure treated plywood.

Before we finished the garage it was already being used for storage of materials for the house.

Construction Photos III

2007-10-11T09:14:00.000-07:00

These are photos of the upper floor of the garage. The 1st shot is of all the rebar tied and ready for pouring. The 2nd shot is of me hand trowelling the newly poured floor. The 3rd photo is was taken right after the forms were stripped, and the last photo shows one of the four brackets that holds the bridge that connects the garage to the street. The brakets were built by my brother Fred and his son Lee at their fab shop in Sedalia, Colorado. The weather was often crummy during the construction so we usualy had reinforced plastic tents up over the construction area.

Construction Photos II

2007-10-10T21:39:00.001-07:00

Blake helps me clean off the freshly poured lower floor of the garage.

These are shots of the garage forming. The garage was done in 3 pours that totaled around 45 yards of concrete. The 1st pour was the helical pier caps. The 2nd pour was the lower floor with the lower grade beams. The 3rd pour was the upper floor, upper grade beams and 14 - 1 foot sq. concrete post that hold up the 2nd floor. The last pour was the largest pour at around 22 yards.

In the 2nd photo you can see the post forms and the supports that will hold the upper floor forms. #5 bar dowls stick through the post forms and will tie into the floor grade beams.

In the 3rd photo we are almost ready to start tying tons of #4 and #5 bar.

Zach, Connie and I did all the pours except the last pour we hired one guy and Zach recruited 2 friends to help. Connie and I did all the finish work on the pours.

Construction Photos I

2007-10-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Over the next several post I'll post photos of the construction of the house and garage.

One has to start somewhere when building a house. In this photo Connie stands on the property before we cut, trees and had many fires to burn all the debris. The phtos was taken around the 1st of October in 2005

In the 2nd photo Millie and I inspect the start of the rock bulkhead above the garage and the start of the undergound utlities for the house. this photo was taken around April 2006

In the 3rd photo the helical pier caps have been poured for the garage floor. Note the rebar dowls that the gradebeam and floor rebar ties into.

In the 4th photo rebar is being tied before pouring the grade beams and lower floor of the garage. Note the 2" blueboard foam insulation under the concrete.

Heating System

2007-10-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

I know it’s crazy to get excited about the heating system in a home, but I’m so happy with the one in our house I just have to share this with anyone who is interested in reading this blog and might be interested in our heating system.

Before we started building I knew we would install in floor radiant heat. Not because I knew all that much about it, but I knew it was considered to be a very comfortable heat. And, with a wife who always has cold feet the idea that she might actually go to bed without ice cubes attached to her legs was appealing to me.

What I found when doing research was that radiant heat is not only a comfortable heat but it is also very efficient. The other thing that really makes radiant heat work for our home is the thermal mass of the wood. Post and beam homes or for that matter all the homes that Pan Abode designs lend them selves to radiant heat for that very reason. Then when you consider that all the floors in our house are 2 5/8” thick that’s one heck of a lot thermal mass.

In the top photo note that Zach is laying the wood flooring over the Warmboard. Note the pex tubbing that is laid in the floor. If you are intrested here is the link to Warmboard's sight:http://www.warmboard.com/

In the crosssection photo note from bottom up the 3/4" plywood subfloor, then the 1 1/8" plywood Warmboard and then 3/4" of fir. The cross section for the tile floors is the same except the tile is 7/8" thick by the time backerboard and a a thermal expansion barrier called Detria is laid on top of the Warmboard.

The 3rd photo shows the heating with zone valves for 6 zones and 10 loops. The heat comes from a regular domestic hot water heater which circulates 130 to 14o degree water through a variable speed programmable mixing pump that delivers heated water to the radiant heat at a temperature of around 90 degrees. I say around because the pump can be programmed to deliver any temperature up to the heat of the heating source. I find that 90 degrees as about the right temperature to keep the floor toasty warm and the room temperature just right.

The 4th photos is the mechanical room which is located in the "Crawl Space" under the house. Note there are two hot water heaters; one for the heat and one for the domestic hot water.

Grandkids

2007-10-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Of course the highlight of our lives are our two grandsons! In the 1st shot Nate who is about 18 months in this photo sits on my lap while he plays with a cordless drill. The 2nd shot Blake who is 5 is helping his grandmother paint the loft that is located in the spare bedroom. Blake’s favorite color is blue and he picked this color which is appropriately called Peace Blue.

Both Blake and Nate are fascinated with tools there is not many woodworking tools that Blake hasn’t used at least once under the supervision of "Papa" or me. Nate, like Blake loves power tools; especially cordless drills. In the photo we have placed a broom straw into the chuck so that he can safely see the drill go round and round.

Swan Lake View

2007-10-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of shots of the view from the house. The 1st is looking out the upper windows from the desk where our computer is. The 2nd is the view from the main deck. Oh there is a bit over 1200 sq. feet of deck built from both red and yellow cedar. The deck excluding the ramp from the street is on 5 different levels. Connie jokes that we don't need a stair stepper. However the main house is built to handicap specifications with all the ramps from the road being ADA compliant (Americans with Disabilities Act Compliant)

Restrooms

2007-10-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of shots of 2 of the 3 restrooms in the house. The 2st is the quest restroom next to the kitchen and the other is the Master bath with the extra deep soaking tub. Kohler calls this cast iron tub Tea for Two.

The lower deck

2007-10-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of shots of the lower deck one looking towards the lake and one the street. This deck is on the south side of the house and is framed and decked with Alaska yellow cedar. Note the door in the lower photo. This door access the 8' high crawlspace and mechanical room.

More shots from the inside of the house

2007-10-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

Here are a few more shots. The underside of the open riser lamibeam stairs with Connie’s keyboard in front of Alaska yellow cedar wainscoting. Plus a detail shot of the teak cleats that hold the stairs.

Of Course a woodstove is a must here in Southeast Alaska. This one is a soap stone stove. During construction we heated the house with the off cuts from construction and we still have about 3 cords more of off cuts to burn.

A couple shots from the inside of the house

2007-10-08T20:55:00.001-07:00

The kitchen with Staron Countertop, less the backsplash that the supplier forgot to send on the barge. Oh, well that's life in small town Alaska. Yes those are packing boxes on the lower left corner of the photo. We are still unpacking.

The greatroom and dinning area looking towards the front door. The floor is douglas fir and ceramic tile from Europe with teak between the two floors. (The teak was lfet over from building out boat more the 20 years ago.)

Why did we build

2007-10-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

Building a home in Sitka

More than one person has asked me why did you build a house in Sitka. Well here is the story.

As some of you know Connie and I lived the last 20 some years on a 45’ sailboat that we built. We raised Zach aboard the boat and frankly Connie and I were very content to continue living in the boat. In fact if you had asked me 3 years ago I would have told you that we would live on the boat until we died or became too frail to live aboard. That was all before we knew that Connie’s mother would soon be moving from Denver to Sitka to live with us.

While on a vacation to visit family in Colorado a couple of years ago Connie’s father George asked us, and more importantly me if Connie and I would be sure to take care of Millie when he died. George had been fighting prostrate cancer for some years and he knew he only had a short time left when he asked me if we would consider purchasing house and move Millie in with us after he was gone. Connie’s double cousin Kay (George’s brother married Millie’s sister) had already moved Connie’s Aunt Ruth into her home and George saw that this arraignment was working well. Since Connie and her mother had always been so close it was logical that Millie would live with us after George was gone. Since George had asked me and since I had tons of respect for George and thought the world of him I knew I’d have to be part of his wish.

So, shortly after that visit Connie and I started looking to purchase a house in Sitka. At the time what we found on the market was frankly what I would call junk. Keep in mind I was working as the head of the maintenance department for Sheldon Jackson College trying to maintain 45 mostly old and poorly maintained buildings. And, not only was I not interested in coming home to fix yet another leaking sink, roof, window or whatever, I had been around construction to recognize cheep building practices. Since neither Connie nor I had any interest living in a cheaply built home it soon become apparent that we would have to build. So the next thing was to fins a piece of land.

Connie’s Mother had lived the last 40 some years in a house in Colorado with a nearly 360 degree magnificent view so we knew we would have to find a lot with a good view, or at least an interesting one. After looking at lots that were either not readily available, up too steep of a road for winter snow, too small, etc we found the lot on the shores of Sitka’s historic and beautiful Swan Lake.

When we fist looked at the lot it was apparent it would not be an easy lot to build on and it was also obvious that it was going to take “just the right house” to do the lot justice. Keep in mind other than an apartment over a garage a few doors down from us there had not been any new construction on the lake in around 20 to 25 years. Also keep in mind the lot was one of the last if not the last buildable lots on the lake. Being the crazy folks that we are and liking a challenge we made an offer on the property and the sellers accepted. So now we had to find the right design.

I can’t remember when I saw my 1st Pan Abode House, but it must have been well over 30 years ago when we lived in Seattle. I do remember that I was impressed with not only the design but the fact it was built from western red cedar. I also had recently been reintroduced to Pan Abode Homes while working at SJC because there as 9 Pan Abode buildings on the SJ campus. All of them were built in the lat 50’s or early 60’s and with little to no maintenance over the years they had held up very well. So it was obvious that we would look into a Pan Abode design.

When we went on line to check out Pan Abode we fell in love with many of their designs but could easily see that their Cutter style design would not only work well for our lot, but I had known for sometime if I was to ever build a house it would have to be a Post and Beam constructed home. We quickly ordered Pan Abode’s “Idea Book” and it arrived in the mail shortly before we left on vacation to Italy for a 3 week trip.

While on the flight to Europe I started making sketches of what we wanted and it soon become apparent that the Cutter design with some modifications would not only meet our needs but fit the rather skinny 75’ wide lot with the required 8’ setbacks from the side property lines.

Within a month from returning from Europe I mad a trip down to Seattle to meet with Pan Abode to figure out how we could modify the plans and build our home within a reasonable budget. I soon found it was a real pleasure working with Pan Abode and after a tour of their factory and meeting Tom in the main office and Pat at the factory I knew would HAD to build a Pan Abode. (And I’m glad we did!)

I’ll post more about the construction later but meanwhile here are a couple more photos.

I took these photos tonight becasue I think the house looks farily cool with all the lights on.

House on the shores of Sitka's Swan Lake

2007-10-08T17:27:00.001-07:00

I figured I'd post some photos of the house that my wife Connie, son Zach and I have been building for the past couple of years. Connie and I acted as the General Contractor on the construction and hired Zach to be the sub to do most of the carpentry work. I did all the plumbing and electric work while helping Zach with the carpentry work. Connie helped on all fronts from running errends to helping with the shingles. Not to mention the hundreds of hours she put in doing painting and finish work.

This is the house from the front looking towards Lake Street.

This is the house from the street looking towards Swan Lake.