It’s a labour of love to build a house from the ground up
When it comes to houses, there are two ways to look at things. You can see a house simply as shelter and a place to keep your stuff, or you can see it as an energizing, beautiful refuge of comfort and security that you work to make your own. And while there’s nothing wrong with managing your home as basic accommodation only, my passion has always been to try to create a little bit of heaven on Earth in my home place. Strangely enough, this has led to a realization.
By the time you read this, I’ll have reached a major milestone. Back in 1987, I laid the first stone in the basement of the house I’d build using limestone I quarried and shaped from wherever it poked through the ground.
My vision was to build the way the old-timers did, using only local materials cut and shaped by hand into a 24-inch thick wall. Last month, 31 years after I began, I laid the last stone in the last peak, 30 feet off the ground. To be honest, I’m embarrassed it has taken me this long. In my defence, my wife and I have raised five children over the years, we’ve brought our little farm property into production, and spent a little time on Sundays enjoying our rural life.
My experiences with the house have also left me with a realization I didn’t have before.
Back when I started, I was a 24-year-old guy with an idealistic homebuilding dream and no sense of how quickly life rolls along. Now that the last stone is laid, I realize I don’t really own the house I’ve built. It has just let me build it and live in it for a while.
I may have 30 years left in this place or 30 days. Whatever it is, I’m thankful for the chance to create beauty with my hands and thankful when I meet other people who have had the same privilege.
Jim and Connie Dalrymple are two people with the same ideas of home that I have, and they’ve got an interesting story, too.
Three hundred feet above the strikingly blue waters of the North Channel of Lake Huron, Ont., on the largest freshwater island in the world, you’ll find a region the locals call Scotland.
It’s high and rocky and looks out over what you’d swear is the ocean, just like the other Scotland. This place isn’t a town or village, just a beautiful area that’s close enough to a small town to make it easy to get groceries and medical care, yet far enough away that you’re definitely in the country.
Back in 2004, when Jim and Connie decided to build their dream home, they chose this high lookout for their luxury log house.
They’re both the kind of people who work just about as hard during retirement as they did during their working years, except now a lot of that effort goes into their house and property.
It shows, too. The place is not only spotlessly clean, but it’s designed and built like it was made for a king. Houses live longer than people. Jim’s getting on to 80 years old now, and when I talked to him last, he mentioned something I couldn’t understand when I began building, but I certainly can now.
“I had no idea how fast these years would go,” he explained. “I don’t want to move on from this place, but how much longer can I stay?”
Visit BaileyLineRoad.com/ house-and-home to see the last stone being laid at my own place, and to catch a glimpse of Jim and Connie’s home.
Do you invest yourself in your home or just live in it? Either way, the older you get, the more you realize that life isn’t as long as it used to seem.