Janne's sense of snow

I talked to Janne, who reports a lot of snow on Aspö right now, he said there were drifts up against his house! I also filled him in on my power drill gambit, with the US drill and the UK charger. That might work out well for him as he'll be spending more time in Florida and a world-wide power tool would be handy.

Janne's also going to check out the temperature in our bathroom on his way to the dock today just to be sure it isn't too hot or too cold.

He and Margaret may well be on Aspö for Christmas, it depends on the weather and Marg's schedule. We'd really like that, but I agree the appeal is less if it's really cold or snowy on those days. (Although Grant still hasn't seen the island with snow, so he'd be more likely to go in a snowstorm!)

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving today in the US, but a normal work day in the UK. I had posted last year about the contrast between the day's celebrations in America and Europe. This holiday is extra odd for us, as Grant is in Minnesota with his grandmother, and we're in London, with a house full of boxes, preparing for a move.

The day is also the anniversary of Ollie's surgery. It's been two years since his back went out. What I wrote last year holds true: he remains happy and gets around well, just a bit slower and more easily tired. I'm still enormously thankful he's with us to enjoy this Thanksgiving day. He'll get a bit of extra turkey, I think!

Further Fungus Follow-ups

Stefan sent me a informative reply, which I can boil down to:

• Our spots are fungus, caused mostly by exposure to a humid environment
• The jarn vitrol colors the wood but doesn't protect it from fungus, algae, etc.
• The splotches are cosmetic and do not impact the structure of the wood at all
• His own house has a few areas much like mine
• There's a specific product I can use to remove the fungus if I wish
• Stefan provided me the name and phone number of his fungus advisor and I've asked Rutger to give him a call on my behalf

I also received an email from Scott Hedges, a contributor to the LamiDesign blog. His advice was much like Stefan's, and he gave me some specific advice on what kind of paint/stain product I might use.

So the bottom line is that we don't have to do anything at all, the problem is just cosmetic. If we want a different look (other than splotchy), we'll need to paint. We might need to treat the house before painting; that's still an open question. But at least we have a good line to get a final answer on procedures and products.

UPDATE 1: Rutger spoke to one expert today who said it's very hard to tell if we killed the fungus with our previous treatment in September, and in any case, it could well regrow by next spring anyways. We can leave it and see how the house looks next year with no harm, but if we want to paint, we should scrub it again before painting. The good news it's only the one exposure of the house, not the whole thing.

Tools

I've accumulated a few tools during all my trips to Aspö over the past couple of years. I haven't splurged on anything overly high quality but so far I've been happy with what I have— with one exception.

My simple cordless drill gets more use than everything else and it is showing the strain. I need a new one for sure. Janne and I had been talking about the huge price difference between a good drill in the US and the same one over here.

I believe the only difference is in the voltage; when I went to Home Depot in Dallas, I found their chargers only worked on 110 volts. I have hit upon a good idea, though. If the charger is the only real difference between US and EU versions, if the batteries and the drill itself is the same, why not just get a charger in the UK?

Sure enough, 220 volt chargers with the exact same model numbers as their US counterparts are easily available here for around £35. I should be able to buy a US drill, and just use my UK charger. That would get me a nice power tool for much less than the EU cost.

I'm in the US this week getting started in my new job. I've bought a very nice Makita drill with two batteries (along with a new car, but I digress). I'll buy the charger when I'm back in London and I should be all set for many happy years of high-power drilling!

A documentary sighting

Ronnie sent us a message about a documentary he recently watched on SVT. It's called "Den Nya Tiden" and the program guide says: "What choices do we make in our daily lives? We follow seven people in Sweden for some years. They live side by side, but their lives are completely different. Does the new age of choice really give greater freedom for the individual?"

The most interesting part of the film for us was a sighting of an X-House. The movie's available online until December 7; scroll ahead to the 32 minute mark to see the segment with the house. I've added a shot from the movie. It does look a lot like ours, that's pretty fun to see!

Watching the film, though, was a bit worrying. As best as Sooz could tell, the homeowner was saying she loved her house but was annoyed by having to deal with fungus. Fungus! I called Stefan right away.

He was aware of the movie, and said the fungus mentioned in the film was like the spots we had on our roof panels. It's just cosmetic, and in our case, the spots were covered by boards on the overhang. We did get to talking about the discoloration we have on the front of our house. Stefan asked for some photos and said he'd consult an expert.

I emailed him a chronology and also made a webgallery out of a dozen photos over two years. I'll be sure to report back what Stefan says!

Fungus redux

When Sooz and I went to the house a few weeks ago, I was anxious to see how well our fungus treatment worked. Would the house look different?

I can report now the house looks exactly the same, even the experimental patch I had scrubbed with a toothbrush and undiluted solution.

This doesn't necessarily mean our work was a failure, though. We could well have killed the fungus, and only the discoloration remains. I looked at the wood very closely, and the dark spots just seem to be colored in, almost as if it had been stained. There's no obvious coating or growth of any kind.

Janne told us about the paint he's using on the stuga he and Tony are building. It comes in two parts, first a primer which is thin and is absorbed by the wood to seal it. The color coat goes over the primer and is very thick and long-wearing, lasting 15 years, according to Janne.

So we've decided to paint, probably next summer. In addition to covering the dark blotches, I think the wood needs to be sealed better; there were a few wet spots inside after I hosed the house in September. This product should do the trick.

However, Rutger is worried about inadvertently painting over live fungus, and sealing in a bigger problem. I can see his point. When I'm out to the house at Christmas, I'll pry off a dark sliver and see if I can take it for analysis, just to be sure we're doing the right thing.

That leaves us for the colour choice, but I'll leave that for another blog post!

Moving away

I've tried very hard to keep this blog focused on building and living in a Swedish summer cabin. I think I've been successful to a large degree. Out of the 750 posts so far, about 15 of them have been off-topic, and almost all of those have been about Ollie or Manchester City.

I say this as a warning that I'm about to go way off-topic. If you're looking for building tips or observations on island life, you'd best skip ahead.

Regular readers know that we moved to London from Texas almost 12 years ago. That's a huge hunk of time. Grant has changed from a little boy into a university student; Sooz and I have gone from being thirtysomething well into middle age. When we left, Bill Clinton was president, and the big worry was the Y2K bug. I could fill paragraphs with how the America we left was comically ancient, but I won't belabor the point.

Over this past decade, people have often asked us, "when are we moving back"? As time has passed, I found it a harder question to answer, as I didn't really feel a "back" anymore. We've worked hard to make a comfortable life in the UK, and we put down roots in Sweden. Asking when we're moving "back" implies, to me at least, that we're away from where we should be: "Yankee Go Home".

We made a conscious decision to stay put until Grant graduated from school. I was hoping he'd choose a university in the UK or Europe, but he wanted to go to the US. I got over my disappointment and now realize why he wanted to, as his perspective is that of a kid who grew up in England and wants to experience American life in all its technicolor glory. And who wouldn't want to do that?

Now that he is away at school, though, Sooz and I found ourselves at a bit of a crossroads. Do we make changes here in London, perhaps sell our Texas house and all those left-behind possessions, and really commit to being Brits? That's an appealing prospect, to be sure. We're close to our stuga, and our friends here, and we get to stay with the way of life we've become used to and enjoy so much.

On the flip side, there are a lot of advantages to moving "back". I haven't done my career any favors being away from our headquarters for so long. Readers of this blog know I'm 51. If I was 61, it'd be easy to leave the career ladder and stay in my London job. But I'm a little too young, I think, to do that.

Practically speaking, I'd be a lot better off financially in the US. Recent and impending changes to UK tax law aren't in my favor, especially considering I have a college tuition bill priced in dollars! Plus, our parents aren't getting any younger, and it would be nice to be nearer to them, not to mention to our stateside college student. And we still have lots of friends in Texas, not to mention our house and the Shelby.

So it should come as no surprise at this point in my missive to report that I have taken a job "back" in Texas, in our headquarters, a very good and exciting job I'm happy to have. I'll start soon, and Sooz and Ollie will move just after the New Year. We will all still go to Sweden this Christmas, with the Wilhelmis again, and we'll go out to the stuga for at least a day visit. But after that, we're Americans again.

What does this mean about our summer house? Sooz and I have talked about this a lot over the years, even before we decided to build. Basically, our plan is to take fewer, but longer, trips to Aspö. We can't go for a weekend, obviously, and even a week will be a bit of a stretch. But the Texas summers are brutally hot, and the archipelago weather during July and August is quite appealing to us! I have 6 weeks of vacation every year, so spending 4 weeks on Aspö in a couple of chunks sounds good to me. Remember too, that I work in the airline business, so air travel is a bit easier for us.    

It's not going to be a easy transition. We've been away a long time, and lots has changed. Re-engaging with American life is going to take some work, and there will be high points and low points along the way. I'm thinking about writing on this process, perhaps on a separate blog, so I can continue to keep this one focused on the details of Swedish island life.

That's it. If you've managed to read this far, don't worry. The next blog post is on fungus!

Address Change

We saw a number of official notices on the docks and on the Waxholms boat regarding changes to mail in the archipelago. Our current address is pretty simple: the name of island's dock (Aspö Brygga), the name of the boat line (Nämdölinjen), and a Stockholm postcode. But this colloquial address is being phased out in favor of the more official one.

The new address form uses the local kommun post code, bypassing 'Stockholm' altogether. So our new address will become:

                Runmarö-Aspön 233
                130 36 Nämdö
                Sweden

The changeover finishes next spring, but I thought it timely to get our new address out in advance of the Christmas card season!

Speaking of Christmas...

We are indeed returning to the Wilhelmi's for a week over this Christmas. Grant will be joining us, all the way from North Carolina, although Ollie will stay in London with Ethie.

We'll go out to our stuga, but we're not sure if it'll just be a day trip, or if we might try to spend a day or two there. I think we'll play it by ear and see how cold it is that week. (If there's snow, I know Grant will want to go. He still hasn't seen Aspö after a snowfall!)

In any case, I'm sure we'll have a super holiday!

Underhouse supports

In what seems like an eternity ago (but was not quite two years), I had a discussion with Willie about adding foundation supports to our house. He did, and so far, everything seems fine; the house held up well under the huge loads of snow on the roof and there's no obvious signs of settling.

While on one of my forays underneath the house this summer, I found one concrete plinth that Wille hadn't added a support to. I decided to handle this one myself, and looked on the web for some sort of product I could use.

Soon enough, I found the Ellis company in Oklahoma, "shoring and bracing specialists since 1951". I bought a timber jack, designed for a 4x4 piece of lumber which I could tighten under the house and provide one extra support.

I ordered and carried it from Dallas to Stockholm last month when Rutger and I were out. However, there was one snag- the metric lumber I had here didn't fit! I needed a good old American 4x4.

So when we visited Grant's school for parent's day, We visited the local Home Depot and some exceedingly nice folks cut me a piece of wood to measure. (I had measured it in centimeters and of course there wasn't one metric ruler in the whole store. But one of the younger clerks had an app on his iPhone to convert for me.) 

So into my luggage went my North Carolina souvenir, and we carried it out on this visit. I am happy to report it fit perfectly, and in only a couple of minutes, I was able to tighten the jack and provide the house one more contact with our island below.

Bill, you got nuthin' on my Don

Just wanted to try my hand at a rare blog post, just to show Don that I -can-.
So, thought I would share this tidbit about Bill Gates, just in from my pal Susan, seeings as the subject matter has been a major issue on this blog in the past:

"According to MG Siegler at TechCrunch, Gates went on and on about the future of latrines. One quote from Gates:

Latrines are fascinating. No one wants to read about it — it’s one of the greatest under-investments.

In Gates’ opinion, according to TechCrunch, he sees the current flushable toilet as ‘the gold standard’, but it isn’t efficient in terms of water consumption. He thinks that the tech sector needs to focus more energy and money on toilets."

Well, well, well. Don was right on top of this one (no pun intended) a couple years ago.

Good morning from London

Sorry I didn't get a chance to write yesterday, it was a slow start to the morning and then a busy afternoon before we flew home. We visited a huge new shopping complex at Bromma airport; the old SAS maintenance hangars were turned into halls filled with stores of every description. My favourite was Clas Ohlson, a stuga owner's dream! I could have bought 50 things there, easily.

Lots more to write about but I'm off to the USA this morning, so more later.

We're at the Wilhelmis

We made the bus, no problem, and we stopped at the ICA in Gustavsberg to do a bit of shopping on our way to Rutger & Marcia's. Rutger is cooking up a huge sirloin steak for dinner. More tomorrow.

Snowy Saturday morning

It was a pretty unusual day for us yesterday. The snow came down pretty heavy until after lunchtime, I think about 3 or 4 inches. Then around 3 o'clock, the storm front passed in a very clear line. We walked to the dock to take a photo (it's on the webgallery), and the views were beautiful, with the sunshine on the fresh snow.

Janne joined us again for dinner. Sooz made a tasty pasta dish out of our leftovers. Janne and I talked about keeping the heat on in the bathroom. Last winter, my electrical bill was about 750kr a month. Janne, living in his house, was about 1500kr, so I think I overheated our bathroom!

I'm still going to leave a radiator on this year, but a smaller one, and I'm going to close the Cinderella's air vent, which I completely forgot about last year. We've also insulated the bathroom window, so I think I'll be a lot more efficient with my heating. We'll see.

Today, it's a noon boat, so we have about 3 hours to close up the house. Sigh.

Snö!

After a beautiful clear evening (a few night photos are on the webgallery) and another fine dinner with Janne, we awoke to a surprise snowfall! I took a panoramic photo from the deck. It's very pretty, big thick fluffy flakes and it's been coming down for at least 5 hours.

My building plans are on hold, so for the time being, Sooz and I will snuggle away our afternoon in our winter wonderland.

Don gets into the act

It's turned into a really nice day, clear as a bell, a crisp autumn afternoon for the the textbooks.

Sooz continued with her citronsyra treatments and she's very pleased with the way it's cleaning up the walls. At Janne's suggestion, I've been building a couple of new bridges over the low spots in the path towards our house. Grant and I had nailed a few boards together 2 years ago but we need something more substantial. So far, so good, and I'll put up photos soon.

Tonight, we're going to Janne's for dinner. Sooz roasted a chicken and we'll bring that over. The moon is full and clear, it should be a lovely evening.

Thursday Morning

...dawned pretty clear but cold, close to 0°c. The rain and snow that had been forecast appears to be passing us by, although the north wind is quite bracing to say the least!

Yesterday was great fun. I managed to get the lamp mounted, and it looks great, works well, and I wasn't electrocuted. Sooz used the citronsyra solution (thanks to Janne's great advice) on the wood stains inside the house, to great success.

We visited Janne and Tony, working on a new stuga on the north of the island, near Janne's house. They joined us for dinner, and we had a great evening.

This morning, I added a second catch to all of our windows. I had used only one, and that north wind made it obvious to me that our windows needed to be squeezed shut on both sides! That has made a big difference already.

Not sure what else we'll do today but I'm sure I'll think of something. Photos are in the webgallery, and more will be up soon.

A video post from Sooz

It was a great evening last night at Margaret's, including dinner with Marcia and Rutger. It was an early start today, but we made it from St. Eriksplan with all our stuff intact.

The house looks great, and we've started on a few projects, but I'll let Sooz tell you herself...

The weather's not looking that great!

The latest from the SMHI calls for rain most of the time we're there, and not too warm, either, 8°C/46°F for the high.

Fortunately, Janne is going to stop by and turn on the heat for us. I'd prefer to keep it a little bit cool, however, so Sooz has an excuse to snuggle up for warmth!


UPDATE Tuesday evening, Just received this email from Margaret :"Snow arriving from the North, most likely on Weds evening...not much expected for Stockholm, more like 'wet slush'.

It's supposed to be very cold though, from Wednesday through the weekend...make sure you've got hats, gloves, scarves and an extra sweater on hand out there!"

Does Money Buy Happiness?

I sent this New York Times article to my friends and colleagues a few weeks ago. It must have struck a nerve; virtually everyone I sent it to replied with a thoughtful response.

Most of my friends are around the same stage in life: 20 or so years of accumulated stuff, kids off to school, retirement no longer an abstract concept. The idea of chucking it all, living simply and with little burden of possessions, is alluring to me and, and apparently, to my friends.

I have extra reasons for this article to hit home. First is the matter of an enormous box sitting in a storage facility in Texas. When we moved to London in early 1999, we didn't expect to be gone for very long, so we put most everything in storage when we moved over. Nearly 12 years later, this box has become a time capsule waiting for us (although to Sooz, I think it's more of a time bomb instead). At this point, I can only remember a few of the things left behind. Eventually, we'll have to open it, and I'm sure most of our life from the previous millenium will go either into the trash or on eBay. That really proves the point of the article; do without most of your posessions, and it's surprising how little of it you miss!

Another reason of course, is our stuga. Because our house is small, there's not a lot of room to fill with things in the first place. Even more important is the logistical cost of getting something out to the island. Carrying a big load of groceries on the bus from Gustavsberg, or a piece of furniture uphill from the Waxholms dock, gets old pretty quickly. I find myself thinking very closely about anything I might want to bring out to the house, because to get it there, I'll have to take it on a plane, a train, a bus, a boat, and a wheelbarrow. That's great motivation to cut back!

Which brings us back to the point of having a summer stuga—to live more basically, to have less stuff around you, to be closer to the rhythms and pleasures of daily life. If I don't yet have the nerve to leave it all behind and do it permanently, the simple life sure is nice for a few weeks out of the year.

The October weather

We leave a week tomorrow and I took a look at the Stavsnäs long-range forecast. It's calling for the weather to be dry but pretty cool, 8ºC (or 46ºF).

The Local reports on the first big snowfall in northern Sweden over the weekend. I think we'll be safe down south on Aspö, though.

Foreign Sheds

Not much progress on the shed front, unfortunately. I've called the people at Caboden twice and sent them English and Swedish emails, with no reply at all. I really like the look of their product, though, so I guess my next step is to ask Rutger or Janne to talk them Swede-to-Swede. But frankly, it's a Spring 2011 project now, so there's no hurry.

When Rutger and I went up to Aspö a few weeks ago, we stopped by Bygg-Ole in Gustavsberg to look at their shed collection. Rutger thinks I should get something bigger if I'm going to go through the trouble. We saw a model called "Skagen" on sale for 42,000kr which was nice, but I fear too large and definitely too pricey. I think the same company's "Lasse" is more my size (4.2 square meters) and price (15,000 kronor).

Last weekend, I visited a Home Depot while in North Carolina to visit Grant. I have to say I was amazed at the range, and especially the price, of sheds available there. Here's Sooz pictured in front of just the smaller of the models available.

This shed is closest to the size I want. It's actually a little larger, 8 x 8 feet, or about 6 sq. m. But notice the price; $1329, or just under 10,000 kronor with sales tax. That includes delivery, painting, and installation on site!  Holy moly.

I checked the paperwork, and that deal is unfortunately only for installation within 50 miles of the store. Seeing how Aspö is 4420 miles away, that probably wouldn't work. Darn.

Toilets, once again

I read recently of a photographic exhibition of toilets around the world. It was created by the French artist and environmental campaigner, François Cuel.

His key quote: "The exhibition is meant to make people smile but also to invite them to think. Access to proper toilets, and more generally to water, is a privilege denied to many people."

I've touched on this theme before. Dealing with the issues of waste and sanitation at our stuga has shown me how much we take our flush toilets for granted.

The Independent has an article on the exhibition, along with a few photographs, here. It's worth a look.

I'm still here!

Been travelling a lot these days. (In fact, I'm in Heathrow this morning, just about to leave for Amsterdam). I do have a few interesting topics to write about in the upcoming days, and we leave for Aspö in exactly two weeks. So stay tuned!

More on lighting

I had posted about a month ago about a couple of light fixtures that I had found for above our front door.

After my last visit, I started to re-think my choice. I worry that a big square lamp would be a bit same-y on a big square house. I'm thinking now that something a bit more bright and chipper would be a better choice.

A bit of searching with my new criteria brought me to this lamp. It's called the "Lund" from a Scandinavian range of outdoor lighting, so that's a good sign. The Lund is also galvanized so it should be nice and bright, and it has a robust IP rating of 54.

Unlike the other lights I was considering, this one is available locally, so I'm going to take a look before I buy. If it passes muster, I'll bring it out and install in October.