It’s now three months since we broke ground on this build way back in May. Half of the time we’d allotted has been consumed with the big stuff: earthworks, wells, foundation and basement, framing, roofing and chicken coops.

The remaining months are, to put it poetically, like a fat Geordie in a lycra dress: squeezed in way too tight and at serious risk of collapsing in an ugly mess the minute things get too funky. Or, to put it another way, tight enough to make your heart stop.
Windows, polished concrete floors, bathrooms, kitchens, electric and plumbing, plasterboard, even stairs need to be done. There’s the outer sheath of steel siding and stucco to put on, a wood stove to install, internal doors to hang, heating and the small matter of a septic bed to lay.

I suggested to Emma that Dave The Man and his Merry Crew could work weekends and evenings but that went down like a liberal manifesto at a Tea Party rally (bit of politics there for my American readers). So, reluctantly I have to accept the odd day slipping here and there for vacations, plumbers that fail to show up and lightweight jessy concerns that it’s too hot to work on the roof when the thermometer nudges 40C.

For all that, I’m not alarmed (even though I probably should be). At 50% time complete, we’re only 35% done with the work. But the reason for my unrealistic optimism is simple. It’s because what we have completed is unabashedly, unreservedly, unmistakably…astonishing. Like a pint of Guinness, the best things come to those who wait and we really have waited for this.

From the south it’s clean, box structure is clear. Unlike anything the Ottawa Valley has ever seen before, the south face is pretty much just glass. Every room will be flooded with brilliance and vistas. Then turn around to the west face and you are presented with a very different perspective. Here you can see the slope of the single pitch roof, the height and delicate stacks of the building.

This sounds like a little thing, but it’s almost as important to the design as the windows. Like the Tardis or your mother’s handbag, the space inside feels bigger than you know it actually is because there are no pillars to obstruct the eye. Every room is unified and part of the whole, no corner of it cut off or expected to be “low traffic”. So even though it’s smaller than our last home by 10%, we’re probably getting much more usable space.

That’s further reinforced by the views from every room that are open and draw the eye outside. When we have the money next year, I’ll be building a patio off these ground floor sliding doors / windows. That should add to the available living space and unify the inside and outside. Until then, we’ll have to be content with the view of fields and forest.