Windows to the Soul

Yeah, we know. It's been a while. The thing is, we had a break from the blog in order to get a lot done on the house.  Now, consequently, we have plenty to write about. Let's start with the windows.

Here's where we are in the blog narrative: we have a house with great gaping holes in it. When it rains our interior looks like this:

More of a swimming pool than a dining room

When we describe our blog to interested persons, they often say to us, "so it's a how-to blog?" We're quick to correct them--this blog is more of a how-not-to.  Here's how not to do windows:

Do not cut window holes in your cladding before you've learned to install windows. 

Do not make the window holes in your cladding too large for the custom windows you have ordered, for you will have weathertightness issues.

Do not trust the professional who measured up your windows to inform you that you've made this grave error. 

With that in mind, here's how we corrected our window mishaps. The first step was to admit to ourselves that we had no idea how to install windows and that we needed help. We enlisted a professional builder to coach us and work alongside us so that we could eventually install a window or two ourselves. Here are some photos of that process.

Preparing a head flashing. This is installed above the window but behind the cladding to divert water away from the house-hole.

Attaching bitumen tape around the window corners--helps to weather-proof the window's weak points.

Steff framed in the unfinished window. Beware the tape's blinding reflective powers.

We originally built the framing for the following window around an old timber-framed leadlight jobbie. Its frame was wonky at best, so we ended up discarding it; this meant that we had to square up our framing so that the new custom window would fit. 

 

Steff secures some side-flashings (to cover up the oversized
cladding holes we mistakenly cut before window installation. Whoops).

Window installed and framing de-wonkified.

The side-flashings were tucked under the exterior window lip on bottom and sides and nailed in place.
They will eventually be covered by battens, in theory.

We had more framing changes at this point. We raised the window to accommodate a roof flashing. This flashing would be tucked under the window and would prevent splashback from driving rain on our low-angled roof. Regrettably, we can't specify the type of flashing as we've forgotten its name. We do know that it is not called a 'skirt flashing', or at least, we now know that's a phrase that shouldn't be Googled.

Yes, that's ice on the roof. Dry winter days made for frosty nights (but also maximum productivity on the house-building front!)

Back inside, we're poking styrofoam backing rod in the gaps between the window and the framing.
This stops our expanding foam from squirting through the gap and out to the exterior cladding.

Backing rod installation party

This is what we mean by expanding foam. It was chaos, and we were applying it without finesse. The foam came out at one speed only, and that speed was uncontrollably fast. There was much surprised whooping, and it was eventually tracked throughout the house. We started out trying in earnest to clear up our colossal mess, but ended up sculpting phalluses out of the foam instead.

More expanding foam glamour shots. After the foam has hardened, we cut it off flush
with a razor knife. Ignore the insulation; we'll get to that later.

Next up: we put a roof on this puppy!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

If I Had a Hammer

Now's probably a good time to introduce Nancy's Dad.

He'll be showing up a lot in these photos, as a valuable member of the tiny house team. He serves to be the voice of certainty while Steff and Nancy question whether they are doing things correctly. He also provides some much-needed muscle on occasion, and, as a left-handed person, squeezes into awkward corners with a dexterity that we wouldn't have. Thanks, Dad!

With a foundation of sorts down, it was time to move on to framing. This involved hammer, nails, timber, and a ton of elbow grease.

We built each panel of framing on the level surface of the trailer (like a giant work bench), erecting and bracing them as we went. We used tech screws to fix the panels to the trailer, and wood screws to fix them to each other. The process took a total of about a week, spread over one month.

Many hands make light work!

Starting the framing revealed instantly the difference between what we were doing and the work of a professional builder: our first framed wall took us just over half a day to construct. Between stopping to look at the plans, learning to put in skew nails, learning to take out the skew nails we bunged up, morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea, and stops to admire our slow handiwork, we simply weren't as efficient as the pros.

A quick boogie break

With that in mind, though, once we had mastered the first panel of framing, it took us one day to build the next three, and another day to build and erect the next three.
 Each time we put up another frame, we'd be excited and proud all over again, as it looked more and more like a house. We'd also scoff at the enthusiasm we'd felt at the previous stage.

"Yesterday, this was only a trailer. Now it's a trailer with a wall on it!"

At the end of each day of framing, we were tired. I mean tarrrrrd. Fully exhausted. But we all agreed the work was fulfilling, and that it was a really positive kind of fatigue. The work was sweetly gratifying.

Hanging out in our future bedroom

NANCY: I very briefly worked in an office when we got back from the van-trip. I was mostly cold-calling and doing data-entry. Actually, I was mostly pretending to be busy after completing all of my tasks within the first few hours of the day. At the end of my requisite eight hours, I was really tired, but it was a lethargic, what-the-hell-did-I-achieve-today? lethargic. I think a lot of jobs are like this. Building, on the other hand, is draining, but at the end of the day, you can plainly see the fruits of your labour, and it feels great (luckily, I feel the same way about piano tuning).

DAD: You really get a buzz out of doing something a little bit unconventional, apart from the mainstream.

STEFF: What is the most fun for me is just seeing the stack of timber turning into a house. Every step of the process is new, and each stage of completion is fresh to us. This makes every day interesting, novel, and fun.

And the last beam is in!

So what did all this gratifying work actually amount to? This.

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Ventura Highway in the Sunshine/Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

We have been without the interwebs for a few weeks, but we have returned! More photos, readers. Or shall we say, viewers. Before we continue, however, we'd like to issue a formal statement: we have been alerted to the fact that it's a common misconception that doughnuts are a breakfast food. Don't believe this! The cakes are a lie!

Onto the photos:

First stop, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve:

Here's Nancy looking wary about the precariously perched camera.

Here's Nancy freaking out about the camera, which is falling off its dubious perch.

Let's just hold the camera.

This was effectively the only poppy we saw in the poppy field. Isn't it gorgeous?

That's right, we went to the poppy fields just before poppy season and saw only a handful of poppies. We weren't quite as miffed as some of our fellow poppy-viewers. We overheard an elderly Chinese gentleman with limited English language skills haggling with the ranger about the $10 parking fee.

"No poppies! Two dollar!"

We were impressed with the park ranger's response:
"Look, dude, I don't charge you $30 when the fields are full. It's $10, non-negotiable".

We were equally impressed with the old man's retort. "Two dollar. No poppies!"

The Joshua Tree. Unique to the Antelope Valley. And Israel.

We finally found one of these little buggars. They made SUCH a racket at night, but were impossible to find.

And finally, we bid our farewells to Palmdale, CA and hit the road! Special thanks to our hosts in the AV, for hosting us as long as they did!

A street in Ventura

We made a brief stopover at Pacific Coast Highway. We had intended to journey from Ventura straight through to San Francisco on the PCH; unfortunately, part of it had collapsed into the Pacific Ocean. Then again, perhaps this was a good thing, as it took us just under 23 hours of driving (spread over three days) on the shortcut routes.

Just past Ventura.

We picked up a scruffy vagabond hitchhiker on the way. Just kidding, Mum and Dad! We do know her, and she didn't have any communicable diseases!

Before the clothes came off. Nothing like skinny dipping in the Pacific.

We drove through a swarm of bees. Upon stopping, we found the bus covered in fragments of bee bodies. This one was in the windshield wiper. 

Five hours and too many hills later, we successfully made it to Santa Barbara. Extra special thanks to Archie, Ralphie, and our other hosts in SB, for being immensely hospitable hosts, providing us with a shower and a safe place to stay, and, most importantly, introducing us to Cajun cuisine!

The van comes to rest ("Thank God," says Willie) in the hills of Santa Barbara

The harbour

Santa Barbara was a beautiful city, friendly with a laid-back feel. It would be a wonderful place to live, were it not for the fact that it is a huge fire corridor... Alas, we could not stay forever. Although we decided to stay an extra day, the time soon came for us to take to the road again.

Preparing our maps

Goodbye, Ralphie and Archie!

We ventured from Santa Barbara inland, to the Hollister State Vehicular Recreation Area. The site was $10, a good $20 cheaper than anything else in the vicinity. We could not comprehend this discrepancy, until we realised that the "Vehicular Recreation" referred to dirt biking. Jet skis on land, just as irritating. And so, coupled with the beautiful ecological diversity, the deer, the owls, and sundry other fauna was the constant bzzzzzzzz of dirt bikes and heavy-duty 4X4's. Fortunately, our campsite was far enough away from the bike tracks that we were able to sleep.

 

...And build fires!

Preserving a tradition that began over 200, 000 years ago: man make FIRE!

A note to other motorists.

We arrived safely in the Bay Area, after a fruitless visit to Santa Cruz (all the rides were closed for the off season on the Boardwalk. We probably should've called in advance to let them know we were coming...). On our first night, we attended an art show called Art Murmur. Also attending were more indiekids ("hipsters" for the Californian demographic) than you can shake an ironic mustache at.

Our original plan was to spend a few hours in Berkeley, then make our way to Alameda. However, we were met with more enthusiastic and warm hosts, who were happy to show us the East Bay sights. As such, we ended up at the Berkeley Farmers' Market (the Bay Area is supremely supportive of community agriculture, sustainability, urban farming, and local business, we soon found), and at Dolores Park.

This is Dolores Park. Rather, this is the gay side of Dolores Park; so we were informed by our all-knowing Berkeleyite tour guides.

Just look at that line for the toilet.

The above picture reveals a lot about the park. For example, there was a 40-minute wait for the bathroom (as shown by Nancy's indignant facial expression). Behind us was an extremely camp gay man who complained bitterly for twenty minutes about a woman who had cut in the men's line to the bathroom, inciting a catfight. This, we were today informed, is what is known as a "hyphy" situation (Urbandictionary.com defines "hyphy" as "crazy, high-energy, temperamental". A word that comes straight outta Oakland). While we at first sympathised with the man behind us, when the time came for us to stand in line, we began to understand exactly what frame of mind that girl had been in when she ran into the men's.

More New Zealand-made wares

After Berkeley, we headed to Alameda. It is a lovely area, almost quaint, but really too close to San Francisco and Berkeley to lose its edge to suburbia.

An example of Alamedan architecture

Later in the week, we marched in defiance of war! Allegedly, there were 3,500 of us, chipper and outraged, aged from toddlers holding Crayola-scrawled peace signs to the octogenarians toddling next to us. Our involvement in the protest was to use our voices. We used our voices to sing loudly and raucously, to the twiddly-twanging of an unnamed jovial banjo player: our very own radical musical Santa Claus. We covered such golden oldies as "We Shall Not Be Moved", "We Shall Overcome", "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", and "Give Peace a Chance". 

Note our banjo-playing companion

The gentleman leading the chants had a very strong accent, which, oddly, made him sound a LOT like The Count from Sesame Street, especially when he said r-r-r-racist! THREE r-r-r-racist wars! Heh, heh, heh...

1, 2, 3, 4! We don't want your r-r-r-racist war!

It seems we have acquired a taste for protests! Next up, protesting nuclear power plants on fault lines, Thursday at 12.

Later that afternoon, we ventured into the Castro, into the heart of Gayville, USA.

Nancy: It was a very, very strange experience, because heterosexuals were the minority. Suddenly, I felt that I truly had nothing in common with everyone apart from our sexual orientation. And while I maintain morally, ethically (spi-i-iritually, physically, for those of you who have seen the munchkin song performed live) that this relaxed, "it's nothing" attitude towards sexual identity should be the norm universally, I missed the momentary glimpses of recognition, of shared experience in the faces of our fellow queers (reclaimed word, Mum and Dad!). It almost didn't exist. It has been barely 40 years since SF gay populations faced serious persecution, but it has receded in memory as have the hairlines of those who lived it. Homosexuality simply is in the Castro. It defies and simultaneously does not crave definition: it just exists, and in abundance. 


I don't even know true persecution, I suppose. Auckland is hardly a judgmental city, but hell, we saw genitals on display on 18th St. that day (hence the lack of photographs for this segment). Auckland blushes conservatively by comparison.


I found that everyone else's experience was one to which I could scarcely relate. Paradoxically, I felt almost alienated, surrounded by so many other gay people. I was in a crowd of individuals who I didn't know. A good thing, I maintain, but different.

We have a packed agenda for the weeks to come! We will endeavour to update as frequently as technology allows!

Ta-ta!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.