thoughtful touches for things you touch.

it's the bottom of the ninth. the end is near. we're dangerously close. there's nothing left but the crying. the fat lady is about to start warbling. yes, after finding witty ways to say it for what seems like months, we're officially in the final days of construction. the houses are almost* finished.

the final bits and pieces are coming together and every day there's a new surprise. most of which are shiny, smooth and smell like paint or sawdust.

one feature that's a family favourite already are the custom-made cabinets and vanities. the vanities are wrapped by a 3" thick border made of parallam, with the sinks placed on top.

in wood circles (where people, usually men, gather to talk about wood. ie: home depot) parallam is also known as timberstrand or lvl - laminated veneer lumber. it's commonly used for support beams and trusses because of its strength and resistance to bowing, twisting or shrinking.

it's not commonly used anywhere else. which is too bad because its actually quite pretty (wood circle note: the word 'pretty' is not often used in wood circles). we had it sanded smooth and given a high-gloss finish. so now in addition to being strong, straight and pretty, it'll be water proof.

not to be outdone, the cabinets themselves perform well in the "good-looking and useful" department, which is usually located adjacent to those wood circles we talked about before. they feature recessed finger grabs which were specially cut to fit your fingers like a glove. to tie the design in with the rest of the house we added an industrial metal backing in the recessed area.

moving out of the bathroom and into the closet, the folks in the wood circle are also excited about the closet and pantry doors. in keeping with our theme of reclaimed and interesting materials, we sourced vintage wood office doors from a downtown office renovation. we had them refinished and hung on industrial sliders that were sourced from the ufa. and you thought wood circles were just for city slickers.

up next we move in, forget about this blog, and spend our time in different circles that aren't so wood-related. and hopefully we get to do it with some cool new neighbours who love their house as much as we love ours.

*not to be confused with a commitment or firm date.

hardwood is hard work.

my dad started his career as phys ed teacher. and since it was the late 70s/early 80s there were a lot of short shorts, high socks and whistles around necks at our house. if you did things wrong you were told to return to the starting line and try again. shuttle runs were considered fun, and if he could i bet he would have installed a peg board and climbing rope in our house.

actor portrayal of my dad. 

i wasn't much of a gym guy in school, but i held my own at high school and junior high dances. i was a master of the close, but-not-too-close-in-case-there-was-activity-in-the-nether-regions, slow dance. to this day i can't hear guns n roses' november rain without starting a side-to-side hipsway.

this kid should be at least 9" closer. 

my wife on the other hand was a school sport phenom. somewhere in northern alberta she still holds records for all the quadruple-doubles she posted in high school basketball. i don't know what a quadruple-double is, but at starbucks it would cost a fortune, so it's got to be good.

with this rich history and connection to gym floors it seemed only fitting that we install reclaimed gymnasium hardwood. our designer had it installed in another house and we fell in love with the idea. add to the fact it was a way to re-use and preserve wood that would otherwise go to the landfill and it was a no-brainer. we were lucky enough to find a company in town who specialize in building materials like this and they had just completed a huge reclamation project with 30,000 sq ft of hardwood.

our wood comes from the talisman centre for sport + fitness. it travelled less than 5km to get to us.

the floor was taken out in the fall of 2010 when the talisman underwent a complete renovation. it's birds eye maple and was in pristine shape, having never been sanded. the wood was divide into 5ft x 6ft pallets and stored in a shipping container after being removed from the centre.

our crew went above and beyond to remove the hardwood from the subfloor. this involved pulling the individual pieces off the subfloor, without damaging them, and then removing the staples that had secured the hardwood to the subfloor. to say it was a hugely time-intensive project is an understatement. we owe them beers for years to come for the extra effort they put in.

after removing the wood and staples, the pieces were bundled together and moved to the rooms they would be used in. the wood was then laid out in place, and finally secured to our subfloor with a new round of staples.

we tried our best to preserve the lines and markings of the floor, but once the heat and friction of the sander hit them, the oil based paint spread and smudged. we were sad, but as my dad would have said, "stop your crying and get back out there on the court." so we carried on.

after a few passes of the sander to smooth out the bumps, we're left with beautiful, brand new floors that also have a history to them.

hopefully the perfect setting for buzzer beaters, new attempts at canada fitness testing, slow dances, impromptu floor hockey games or whatever else might happen after dinner.

bricks and mortar. and cement board and reclaimed wood. and industrial steel.

after 5 months of taunting and teasing the neighbourhood with plywood and moisture barrier we finally gave the people what they wanted - exterior materials.  

the sides of the house are hardieboard, a fibre-cement product we cut to into 24” rows and painted dark grey (as you'll recall from our interior, grey was a popular choice). 

the boards are bolted to the house using black bolts and feature a black metal drip edge under each row.

on all of the exterior walls we've incorporated sections featuring reclaimed and recycled hardwood flooring. this wood was pulled from our last house along with other homes in the area that were slated for demolition.

on the back of the house we cut the hardieboard into 6” columns and hung them vertically. we didn’t go with grey in the back…because that would be boring. for the north side, we chose a dark green. and for the south side we went with purple, because i love my wife and want her to always be happy. 

industrial steel edgings will be used on all the corners. these edgings will naturally rust and patina over time. 

and finally, the front of the house will feature brick walls along with the reclaimed wood siding. we chose harvard modular brick because we already had harvard-branded shingles, and it just seemed like a nice piece of cohesive branding to match the two. plus we liked the colour. 

all of the materials and colour palette were chosen to reflect the history of the neighbourhood along with the new developments that are defining bridgeland.  


up next, gym floors. 

grey vs gray vs off-black

let’s cut right to the point. there are way too many colours in the world of paint. we came to this conclusion when we started deciding on interior colours. it’s not that we’re against the vast selection. in fact we were quite happy to see how many ways we could slice grey. but it’s when we started looking at the names for these colours that we realized things had gone too far. if i was running the paint company it would be grey, a little bit greyer, much greyer, almost black, and so on and so on.

instead we went with tulle white and something esoteric silver. those are the main house colours. although I refer to them as grey 1 and grey 2. to the naked eye you can barely tell the difference. but if we ever do a magazine article or have particularly fancy dinner guests over we'll be able to talk eloquently about how grey 1 picks up the morning sun especially well at our latitude and how grey 2 reflects on the urban environment and our desire to help transform it. 

grey 1 picking up said morning sun. 

grey 2 reflecting the urbanism.

the upstairs rooms will each have some bright coloured feature walls to add some more fun. so far we’re leaning towards morning dewdrop and overripe eggplant. but you never know.

dry walls and wet pants.

'here comes the rain again' has been the official song on the 'ole boombox at the house this spring... which is surprising for a building site with a lot of tough construction dudes. but i guess it just shows that even burly handymen have a soft spot for 80's synth pop. luckily for us, we were able to get the shingles and eavestroughs up before the wet weather got too bad. we went with black eaves and soffits, and a dark grey shingle called harvard slate - chosen because we're tough but also because we believe in post-secondary studies.

as the rain pitter-pattered on the tough yet smart roof, the interior work continued. we insulated with a combination of roxul and certainteed sustainable insulation for the walls and ceilings.

both products provide better insulation than typical pink fibreglass and are produced with reclaimed and recycled materials - roxul with slag stone while sustainable insulation contains 70% renewable content and an organic plant-based binder that has no formaldehyde, acrylics or dyes added.

it's the kind of product you wouldn't be surprised to see advertised with pictures of smiling children running through construction sites.

once the insulation was in and the children were home nestled in their beds, the drywalling began. the rooms really took form and we got our first true experience of the how the spaces would feel. lots of natural light on the main floors.

the vaulted ceilings on the second floors gives them an open feel.

and with 9ft ceilings even the basement feels not so basementy. 

up next: drywall needs paint and we compile the longest known list of adjectives used to describe grey

we've been framed. and electricaled. and plumbed. and hvac'ed.

first things first. apologies for the title. we've come to realize that the most difficult part of this blog is actually coming up with the headlines. if nothing else, this process has taught us that the guy at the sun newspaper who crafts those delicious puns everyday is a genius. a true modern hero.

but onto the actual reason for this post. the continued inner growth of the houses! it's been a flurry of activity lately, with all sorts of professional builder-type people scurrying around with supplies and tools and ladders and tims coffee.

the framers were in first, laying the groundwork for the future walls. after a few months of just wide open spaces, it was nice to see the rooms – and planned wide open spaces – take shape.

the framers were quickly followed by the electricians and plumbers, who benefited from having the two houses side-by-side. this way the different trades were able to be on-site at the same time without getting into any michael jackson-style gang dance-offs. (as an aside, how can one performer seriously have two videos featuring dueling dance gangs? that's just lazy.)

the lack of choreographed fighting means the electrical, plumbing and hvac have all been roughed-in with minimal blood being spilled or ligaments being strained.

next up... windows, doors, insulation and shingles. we'll be accepting title suggestions along with dance fight challenges via the comments section below.