Due Diligence - Owen Kenney, of Creekside Log Homes, WindRiver Development Corp, Norkota Holdings Ltd

If you are considering entering into any business relationship with Owen Kenney, sometimes known as Brad Kenney, of Galloway, near Jaffray, British Columbia, I can give you my opinion concerning his competence, technical ability, honesty, integrity and reliability and other performance indicators in relation to work he undertook to do for me. You can contact me by using google+ or by posting a comment on this blog with details of how I can contact you. Alternatively, you can contact me on Facebook either under my name 'Christopher Walch' or under 'Carn Brae Cabin.'

Owen (Brad) Kenney

The Last Post

August started with another trip back to the UK, this time for my son Alexander's graduation from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  It was a great day for everyone involved with a splendid church service, parade and social events. An added bonus was the opportunity to make new acquaintances and renew many old ones. My trip was very short (only a week) and I would have liked to have spent longer back in the old country - maybe next time.

Day 1 of Alexander's career at Sandhurst, twelve months ago.

The Commissioning Parade outside Old College. Extra prize if you have noticed that it is a false front on the building, to hide the scaffolding, while renovations are carried out.

Alexander's last day (with BF Will Slinger) - again extra prize if you have recognised that they are both wearing the lanyard of the Sovereign's Platoon for best collective performance on the course.

Alexander and Megan at the Commissioning Ball in the evening. A very proud Ma and Pa.

GF Megan and sister George.

One of the reasons for the short stay in the UK this time was that Alexander and Will came out for a visit during their post Sandhurst leave. I put them straight to work on building the path from the cabin down to the lake. Good training for cavalry officers.

They worked really hard without complaint or reward and we managed to complete over 3/4 of the path before we ran out of materials and I gave them some time off and .....

..... we went down for a swim and ...... 

...... some fun at the lake.

They spent a few days with me before I drove them over the boarder to Spokane in Washington State, where they hired a car for their road trip down the West Coast to Southern California where they had a rendez-vous with other friends.

The only real work I have done during this period to progress the building of the cabin is construct the desk area in the bonus room of the North Wing. It still needs a draw and then finishing and that will take 2 or 3 days this week. After that it is only the galley kitchen and a few furnishings and the North Wing will be finished and ready for guests - paying or otherwise.

Having reached this point, I decided to ask the building inspector to come along and do his final inspection with a view to issuing the Licence to Occupy, which is really required for selling rather than actually living in the house. That is done at the owners own risk. It is therefore primarily a safety inspection but also ties all the other inspections together. I have to confess to a few nerves in case there was anything major that I had missed. In the event it went remarkably smoothly with only half a dozen minor things to put right, which took me four days to get done.

He wanted an additional smoke alarm on the main level. The was quite straight forward as I still had access to the first alarm in the series, which is in the basement. Access to this was critical because all the alarms have to be linked. I also had access to the panel where I needed to put the alarm, through the air intake for the furness (just visible at the bottom of the picture)

Secondly, he asked me to put graspable handrails on all the internal stair cases. Luckily I had anticipated this and had already bought the materials intending to do this anyway at some time in the future.

He asked for the same on the external stair cases and it didn't take me long (a morning) go pick out some pieces from the wood pile in the yard, strip them down and fix them in place and stain them.

The trickiest requirement was to install an extraction fan in the down stairs bathroom. This required cutting into the panelling on the wall and placing the fan, switch and ducting in the stud wall. Fortunately this wall was made using 2" x 6" lumber, instead of 2" x 4", which made it easier. The fan is vented through the logs to the outside.

Fitting a dead bolt to the front door was fairly straight forward .....

..... as it was for the kitchen door. 

Finally, he asked me to cover all the ICF polystyrene blocks in the basement which apparently give off fumes. This was the biggest job but, technically and physically, quite straight forward. The most difficult element was carrying the 21 (4' x 8') sheets of OSB board down to the basement.

No sooner had I done this than my next guest, Darroch Woodward, arrived. Darroch is ex RN and RCN now living in Canada and he has been an avid follower of this blog from its inception. We also have the same old school tie - Pangbourne College in Berkshire. He wanted to come and see for himself what I have done here with a view to doing something similar sometime in the not too distant future.

As you all know well, you have to earn your keep when you visit me and Darroch was no exception. It is time to start thinking about making sure I have enough fire wood for the winter and so I put Darroch to work with the chain saw and ......

..... stacking all the wood he cut underneath the North Wing Deck where it will be more accessible, via the kitchen door, than the wood was last year out under the trees overlooking the lake.

However, it was not all work and no play. We did find time to have a look around the place, which included going down the lake as far as the US border where the water was several degrees warmer than it is at the top of the lake where I am and the beaches are sandy.

We did some beach combing and I took note of all the drift wood, some of which may be very useful for making furniture.

The humming birds have flown south already. It is a bit early and I am wondering if it is a sign of the early coming of autumn or a harsh winter ahead - maybe both. The weather has changed, we are getting a bit more rain than we are used to in August (which is not unwelcome) and the temperatures at night are beginning to cool down. The eagles though are still out in force and Alex and Will were fortunate to see Ospreys, Bold Eagles and Golden Eagles fishing in the lake while they were here. Darroch wasn't quite so lucky but, the birds were still about.

You may have noticed the name of this posting 'The Last Post' and so it is. I have decided to call it a day with the blog. The main reason is that I have now almost finished the cabin above the basement and there will be less and less to post about in the coming weeks. It is not however the end of your opportunity to follow what I am doing or to follow progress on putting the final touches to the place and, of course, to see what I do with the basement and the garden (yard).

I can be found on Facebook under 'Christopher Walch' and I have created a separate page devoted to the cabin called 'Carn Brae Cabin' where you will currently find two photo albums. The first is the current state of the cabin, which contains over thirty of the latest photographs of the cabin. The second consists of over 130 photos of the making of the cabin. You will find the page a very convenient way to keep in touch with further progress and also a much more user friendly way to show others what I have done (should you so wish). With the FB page, there is no need to wade through pages of posts to find the photos you are looking for and I will inform you on Facebook when I make changes to the page. The blog will remain available as an historical record in two parts.

It is not really yet the right time for serious analytical reflection on what I have achieved here. Lessons have been learned to be sure and in time I will share these with you. The time has come however to move into a new phase, to start to make time for doing something other than just building this place. So I will be splitting my energy and resources from now on to achieving this.

I still have quite a lot of minor things to do in the cabin, which will keep me occupied for much of the autumn and winter while allowing me time to pursue some sport and leisure. Next year will be the 'Year of the Yard' when I shall get to grips with the garden. I have plenty of inspiration for this and one friend in particular is helping me to plan it. I anticipate that the yard work will still leave me some capacity for other things and I have decided that it is pointless living on such a large and fabulous lake without having a water craft or two. I have decided therefore to build a boat and at least one canoe and I will plan these projects over the winter.

I thank every reader of this blog for your support over the last three years. It hasn't told the whole story, as I am sure you will appreciate, but it has given you some idea of what all this has involved. If you have any aspirations of doing something similar and would like to know more then please contact me and I will be very happy to let you benefit from my experience.

The Wizard of Aus

With the week's delay in posting, I suspect that you will have gathered that I was serious about taking things a little slower and taking time out to do some of the things I came here to do.

The highlight of the last three weeks was the visit of some special friends from Australia. Actually Steve and Charmaine Rule are currently living in Maryland, USA, working on an Australian military procurement project. They decided to pay me a visit during their tour of Western USA and Canada with their son David (16). They started their amazing trip in Anchorage, taking the cruise down the coast to Vancouver and then venturing overland to visit me via Seattle. They spent the best part of a week with me before continuing on down to Denver, from where they will fly back to Maryland. On route they are visiting all the great national parks and other sites between here and there.

Before they arrived, I did some reconnaissance of places to take them which as we all know is time never wasted.

On the first day I took them to the Heritage site at Fort Steele near Cranbrook. It exceeded all our expectations and we spent five hours there looking at all the exhibits. This one was behind glass, hence the glaze and ghost figures.

This was the officers' quarters and ….

…… this is where the mounties lived.

To be honest, I could fill this blog with photos we took but, that would spoil it for guests coming later in the year whom I shall also take to Fort Steele.

Next day, at Charmaine and Steve's insistence (David and I were all for rock climbing) we did some work at the cabin and over two days, separated by a trip to Montana, ……

we prepared all the timbers for the dining room table.

There was a lot of work involved and …..

…..  what took us just a couple of days to complete ……

….. would have taken me a week to do by myself.

Once all the timber was prepared we had to put it all together. As some of the timbers were warped …..

…… a little persuasion was required to get the table top flat. Even then it wasn't quite level but, on account of it weighing nearly 300 lbs, it straightened itself out once it was in place.

With it all together, just a few finishing touches were required before taking it apart and carrying it inside in manageable parts.

Then we had to put it all back together again and ….

….. voila, one dining room table ready for staining. We then set to work to make the first bench so we had something to sit on for  ……

…… the first supper.

As concurrent activity, while the dining room table timbers were being sanded by David and Steve, Charmaine and I made the bed for Bedroom 4 (The Matterhorn Room).

Subsequently, I have put in some rugs and hung the curtains.

Before they arrived, I had managed to finish all the cabinetry and trimming in the North Wing bedrooms and got one of the beds made, ready for David. I have since added the curtains and the picture in this room as well - Bedroom 3 (The Mont Blanc Room).

In between getting all this done we took a day trip down to Montana and drove around the Flathead Lake just south of Kalispell.

It was a long day but, the scenery was wonderful and we stopped at a typical country pub for a typical American lunch.

Next on the agenda, and the highlight of their visit to me, was a hike up to Bear Lake in the Rockies. Armed with a can of bear spray we took to the trail after an hour's drive up the Wild Horse Creek Forestry Road.

A steady climb of over a thousand feet, at first through the forest and …. 

….. then into more open country, eventually brought us …..

…. to a saddle overlooking Bear Lake, where we had a picnic and …..

….. a swim.

Despite icy, crystal clear water …..

…. the Aussies had to go in as well to avoid being outdone by a pommie bastard.

On our way home, we stopped off at the Bull River Inn for a drink and to see the spectacular collection of taxidermy .…

…. that adorns the walls in the bar.

Their visit came to an end all too quickly and before I knew it they were on their way to the next destination on their odyssey. It was great to have them at the cabin and good to see them again. All the photos of their work and our trips to Fort Steele and Bear Lake are curtesy of David, who is a wiz with the camera and whom I last saw when he was six years old.

David Rule - Intrepid explorer and Wizard of Aus.

After the Aussies left I set to work making a second bench and applying three coats of stain to the table and benches. Yesterday evening I had Rod and Candy Phipps over for dinner. I was hoping to have more people but, I chose a bad weekend to have my first dinner party and only they were available. I am very pleased with how the table turned out and very grateful to all the Rules for helping to build it.

It has been very hot here recently with temperatures reaching into the mid 30s and (except when the Rules were here) I have been swimming in the lake almost every day. The ground is very dry and there is a fire ban on at the moment and we are all very conscious of the risk and danger that fire poses to us. I have also been continuing my war against weeds in the garden and at last seem to be winning that particular battle. Next year however will be the 'year of the yard' when I really get to grips with the garden. It has the potential to really compliment the work I have put into the cabin and I am already giving the matter some serious thought.

There is still quite a lot of work to do inside the cabin and that doesn't include the basement, which I am going to wait a couple of years before I tackle. Not because I am shying away from the work but, because I have not yet decided what to do down there and I want to live in the cabin for a while in order to get a better feel for making the most of it. It is a large area, over 1000 square feet, and I want to make the most its potential.

The work still required above the basement is mostly finishing work but, includes the bar opposite the kitchen and the bonus room in the North Wing that still requires a desk area and a galley kitchen. I'll get on with this but, in slower time now so I can enjoy some of the fruits of my labours to date.

There is still plenty of wildlife about at the moment. We saw this moose on the way up to Bear Lake and ……

The humming birds buzzing around the feeder provide endless amusement with their agility and hovering skills.

At the other end of the aerobatic spectrum is the grouse, of which there are a large number about at the moment. They have to rival chickens as the most stupid animals on earth but they are a joy to have about.

I will publish again soon but, it will probably be in three weeks time as I am expecting more guests in August, which will be another welcome break.