Here is the continuation of yesterday’s post on carpentry terminology I’ve learned as a result of working on the log home build or will certainly need to know in the coming months as we work to complete our home.

Dormer window: The window that goes into the dormer. Duh.

Dovetail nailing: Nails that get driven through one piece of wood into another piece at different angles making it darn near impossible to ever pull them back apart – even if you wanted to.

Dowel: These are short lengths of round wood used to join timbers or plug screw holes.

Drip groove: A groove cut in the underside of a window sash to assist rain water to drip to the ground rather than running onto the outer wall of the house.

End grain: The surface of wood exposed after cutting across the fibres. We had to seal the ends of our logs that remained exposed. It has been said they are like straws absorbing moisture into the logs if left untreated.

Escutcheon: This is the ornamental and/or protective plate around the keyhole of a door.

Fibreboard: A lightweight, cheap and manufactured board that has next to no strength but can be used to cover large areas such as in ceilings or in attics.

Fielded panel – The raised centre area, often bevelled, of a door or panel.

Fish plate: I read this term somewhere and I know we’ve used these, but I can’t remember their name in Canada. We bought them at the same time we purchased all of our joist hangers. Anyway, they are steel plates that are used to join two pieces of timber end to end. The plates overlap both pieces and are secured using bolts.

Flush door: Doors or panels which have plain, smooth sides.

Fluting: Used to describe the decoration of the surfaces of stone, plaster or timber. Parallel concave channels.

French windows: Like a French door. A pair of narrow casement windows that extend to floor level forming a doorway to the garden or other outside area.

Hardboard: A thin manufactured board made from compressed wooden particles. Hardboard has one smooth side and one rough side and is used for covering subfloors.

I Beams: Manufactured joists comprising a thin vertical of manufactured board with wider timber fixed along the upper and lower edges. Provide increased loads over wider spans than can often be achieved using solid timbers. In our log home we had to use steel I Beams which are very expensive. I’m not sure if it had to do with the building code or the extra weight of a log home. We also had to paint it red.

Jamb: A door jamb. The vertical part of a doorway. I guess this term is also used for window frames.

Mitre: The type of joint in wood where two parts are each cut at 45 degrees so that when together they make a neat right angle and a tight fit.

Picture window: A window type that is one large, single or double/triple glazed unit.

Plywood: A manufactured building board consisting of a number of layers of wood veneer stuck together in such a way that the grain of one layer is at right angles to that of the previous layer.

Sash window: These windows consist of two main frames that slide vertically past each other.

Stile: The vertical part of each side of a framed door or window sash.

Stud wall: A non-load bearing wall placed to seperate rooms and covered in wall finishing such as drywall.

Subfloor: The surface beneath a floor covering, usually of concrete or timber.

Suspended timber floors – The joists supporting the floor boards or chipboard are themselves supported by small ’sleeper’ walls at ground floor level or wall hangers at upper floors. Older properties may have the joists built right into the masonry walls which could lead to the ends of the joists rotting.

Timber framed wall: A wall composed of structural wooden components, sheathed on both sides.

Tongue and groove: The way in which wood planks are cut along their sides to produce an interlocking, smooth surface when together.

Spring is coming and that can only mean that after a very long wait we will soon be back to building our home. It has been two years since the fire and our family isn’t back to normal yet. We were under-insured and without a fire department in our municipality we lost everything and didn’t have enough funds to pay a builder, buy a new home, or replace our possessions. But we’re strong and we’ve had some help along the way. The trouble is…we’re sick of building. We’re sick of commuting in to work on the house. We’re sick of being house poor.

In fact, that’s what we are. We could have moved into a full house over the winter but we ran out of money. Couldn’t buy insulation for the roof so we moved into the basement. If you think that might be a dreary place to be when you’re flat broke and the wind is howling outside your door, you’re right. It sucked. We were spared too much cabin fever however when a friend of less than 10 miles away asked us to look after her home for four months and once again we left our land and animals to suffer through one more hard winter without us.

I still came in every day for chores and my own work, but again we’re displaced – half living in a friends home without our ’stuff’, half living out of a basement. A mom of 46 who repeatedly slips into depression, a budding teenage daughter with many interests and activities and a dad/husband who has had months of trouble in his work and career due to the economy and just a lot of bad luck.

But Spring brings promise and hope!

The next step for us is to get some plumbing up to the main floor. We’re running Pex tubing that a local plumber gifted us with, if you ever want to return a favor for us and you need an excellent plumber in the Bancroft Ontario region look up Tony Bertucca of AJ Plumbing. Next time I find his phone number I’ll post it for you here. He does excellent work and I’m not just saying that because he is an acquaintance. He’s guaranteed to make you laugh too – he has an excellent sense of humor!

Once the tubing is in place we can head into the township office to get sign off on our Framing Permit. After that we’ve got to find $4,000 somewhere to put into the ceiling, pound on the siding for the gable ends and dormers and well, I guess we’ll worry about the rest if we ever get to it. That $4,000 sounds like a mountain we’ll never climb given our current work situation and the economy.

But I’ll keep dreaming. Carpentry work is in my list and I’ve got a kitchen to build! I’m planning on building my own cabinets – yes, that’s right a geek doing carpentry – but I’ve got two capable and able girlfriends to jump in and help me when Eric gets frustrated working with me and a lot of great ideas. The cabinets must be sturdy and tall. Tall because I don’t want to hunch over to cook and chop anymore in my life and sturdy because I’ll be making my own countertops out of concrete. If you think that’s odd, just wait until you see them! Concrete countertops are gorgeous and can even be made to simulate the finest granite.

I’m getting far ahead of myself here. Back to the cabinets – but first I have to learn a little more about carpentry! Here’s what I’ve learned so far and what I still need to absorb:

I won’t need a lot of this terminology, but I’ll include it for later reference or in case you need it when you build your own log home like we’re doing.

Architrave: The moulding used to surround doors, windows, arches or wood panelling.

Bay window: A window that extends out from the wall of a room. If you’re ghetto country you’ll recognize this to be similar to a tip out of a trailer. That’s a joke – poking fun at ourselves.

Beading: The narrow strip of wood with a half round profile used as an ornamental edging. If you’re really incapable you use it in place of quarter-round and hope no one notices.

Bolster chisel: Broad-bladed chisel used mainly for masonry work but useful for lifting floorboards. Hoping I won’t need it. I did enough chiseling to last a lifetime while putting these logs in place.

Brace: This one is going to come in handy building those cabinets. Braces are placed diagonally and used to prevent structures from buckling and sagging.

Casement windows: We have most of these in place and I love them. These windows have vertically and/or horizontally hinged openings.

Caulking: We’ve done a pile of that and have a pile more to go. Caulking seals joints and cracks, it is a flexible compound that has many uses so if you don’t know precisely what you need – ask or you’re sure to bring the wrong stuff home and it’s a long ride back to town.

Chalk line: Length of string, coated in blue chalk dust and used to produce accurate straight lines for many building anddecorating tasks. The line is held at both ends and ‘twanged’ against the surface to create a mark.

Chipboard: Chipboard is a manufactured building board made of compressed and glued wooden particles. I don’t like it and Eric hates squeeky floors so we used plywood for almost everything where chipboard might have gone.

Counter-bore: The insertion of a screw into the surface so that its head does not protrude above that surface. If the counterbore is deep enough, it may be plugged with a piece of doweling and fully hiding the screw head.

Counter-sink: The insertion of a screw into a surface so that its head does not protrude above that surface. Didn’t I just say that? I did, the difference between counter-bore and counter-sink I guess is all about the tool used to create the hole.

(continued in the next post…)

On Saturday I stayed home to write but Eric and Veronica went into Boulter to get some work done on the house.

Eric managed to frame the bathroom walls, closet walls and hallway walls right up until the nail gun bounced and sent one flying through his finger, out the other side and into the next finger. In true Eric fashion he bandaged it up so it wouldn’t bleed everywhere and got back to work.

The trouble with 3″ spikes going through your finger when it’s coming out of a pressurized nail gun is that it has a tendancy to crush bone. The nails are also coated in a glue that heats up as it passes through the gun for better adhesion. Hot glue and adhesion in 2×6 framing is good – hot glue and adhesion inside of flesh is not.

Later in the evening Eric went into Emergency and in the morning went back for X-Rays. Sure enough – splintered the bone. One splint and a tetanus shot later he was back in Boulter building stairs.

Sunday it was far too windy to be balancing on a 40′ ladder with large sheets of Tyvek in your arms and a splinted, broken finger – so Eric built stairs from the main floor to the top floor and laid out the front hall’s closet.

It always amazes me what he can get done in a day.

While he worked upstairs I cleaned out the basement (we have to move into it in a few weeks) and sanded down an old cast iron tub Veronica and I had picked up dirt cheap at the ReStore. The ReStore is a product of Habitat for Humanity. They sell everything of possible value to the public at super discount prices – new and old.

Some friends of mine had been down the week before and purchased a massive galley kitchen, brand new, with those lovely turny cupboards (can’t think of a better word right now) for under $1,000. It was an overstock or floor model kitchen that a company couldn’t sell (or didn’t have room for anymore).

Veronica and I found piles of stuff there – doors, countertops, ceramic tiles, lighting fixtures, submersion pumps, toilets – the list doesn’t end. Not all of it was worthy of floor space, some items were well beyond repair and others were of too small a quantity to do anything with. Imagine a Salvation Army or Goodwill for builders and you might be able to picture it.

As for that old tub – it is truly an antique but it has been well taken care of. I bleached it out, sanded off the rim, touched up the paint and it looks like new. I just need to give the outside and the claw feet a paint and we’re good to go.

We’ll keep it in the basement bathroom for now. The heated floor will help keep the cast iron warm so not too much heat will be lost to the tub while we fill it up.

Since we have less than two weeks to move in, we’re going strong now trying to get a few items in order with the log home build. The most immediate concern is hydro.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love camping and I don’t mind roughing it (some) but I don’t like living in a home, while working on building that home, and not having running water for more than a day’s time.

This discomfort escalates when you consider it is black fly season here. The minute they bite, your skin starts to crawl and you just feel dirty. Of course they’re biting inside as well as out…we still have holes where windows are supposed to be!

Here’s the skinny on Hydro One, Ontario…what a fiasco!

Two weeks ago the Hydro guy came out. A sweet and charming fellow who said all the right things to make a girl think getting hooked up wouldn’t be a problem. Bah! Nothing but false promises and downright shenanigans.

1.) He said, “Everything looks good here. Just get ESA (Electrical Safety Authority) approval on the buried wire and panel and we’ll be back to hook you up with a new transformer.”

A call to ESA netted a $500 charge for three necessary inspections. (1) Pre hookup. (2) Wiring (3) I forget already.

When ESA did come out, we were told that (a) our pole was too short and (b) our pole was too old.

Now I’m wondering why the hell didn’t the cute and charming Hydro One guy know that?

Poles can’t be more than 10 years old for new transformers. Our pole definitely was stamped 1984. Hmmm, 2009-1984, not hard for me to do the math, is it for you?

In the end this wasted the ESA guy’s time (our shanty isn’t exactly on the beaten path) and got us all off on the wrong foot. Fortunately our ESA guy is an old timer who knows the ropes and Hydro shenanigans and takes it all in stride.

2.) Hydro One said: “Within 4-5 days you’ll receive a package in the mail stating what you need to do and what we’ll be doing.” Ten days later, we had to go into the Hydro office, find someone friendly (a chore in itself) and get them to tell us what was required. One week later (now 2 1/2 weeks late, the package has still not arrived in the mail).

Phone calls and messages and waiting on the daily mail. Eventually having to spend close to $2,000 to get a new freakin’ pole in (thankfully we have good techs nearby who understand our plight and had the pole up in a few days time)…

Now here’s the joy with the new pole…it’s installed, in, ready for hookup…ESA just has to come and look at and approve it.

Except ESA needs to see a permit in the system for a pole before they’ll come look.

Did you know you have to have a permit to put in a freakin pole on your property?

Our permit had been submitted by fax but then it sat on some government-unionized worker’s desk day-after-day while we waited for it to be entered into the system.

All the while our deadline grows nearer – and my fear of bugs and no baths is growing…

When Suzie Secretary finally got to it, our ESA inspector came right out and approved us for hook up. I’m starting to like this Ed Goulet guy.

What is it they say about building a house? It takes $50,000 more than budget and every step takes twice as long to complete.

Tomorrow I’ll let you know how my conversation with Hydro One goes – they’ll probably tell me that the approval from ESA hasn’t been entered in their system yet! Geesh.

On a personal note, the more I work through this crap, the more I think about creating an Ontario Advocacy for People Who Have Lived Through A House Fire.

Honestly, it would be nice if someone stepped up here – it has been a year of exhaustion and red tape in one form or another. Maybe someday I could help someone else with their government and insurance beauracracy and hoops.

People seem to think that we are loaded because “it’s an insurance job”, they also seem to think that I don’t work because I’m available to take calls during the day. That’s simply not the case for everyone and certainly not the case for us. We were seriously under-insured which is why we have to build our own home, on our own sweaty backs. As for my work, take a look at some of the posts here…quite often they are written at 4:00 am – the end of my work day that often starts at 9 a.m.

If it wasn’t for companies like Freymond Lumber, Eager Beaver Excavation, Kawartha Credit Union (Bancroft Branch), ICF Solutions, Lynval Construction – personally Dave and Lucille Burke, Wayne and Rhonda and Brittany Minnie and many, many others in the community, we’d be homeless for a long time yet. Big hugs and thanks to all these people and companies – I’ll be paying it forward, some day, some way.