Stuff

Time Warp

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Laura

Over the winter one of the new cupboard doors warped just enough that the magnet can’t catch it.  I borrowed a clamp from my cousin Vernie and attached the clamp (below) before I left for Hamilton.  I am hoping that the door straightens out.  I have not put a finish on the cupboards yet, because they are not all built yet.  This is probably why it warped.  I am sure once they have some teak oil on them that they should remain warp free.  At least I hope so.  Clamped cupboard

I came back to Hamilton for two reasons.  The first being that we have tickets to see Leonard Cohen at the Copp’s Coliseum on the 9th.  Plus, I had to buy a car and Hamilton is a large city with a better selection of second hand vehicles.

I am 47 years old and this is my first car.  The reason I need a car is because I will be bringing my artwork to the Kingston Springer Market all summer and it won’t fit in Baby, my 2006 Honda Vino motorbike’s, trunk.  Certainly I can’t carry a table, chair and banner on her either.  The car is old.  Granted, not quite as old as me.  It is a 14 year old VW Golf; which in car years makes her practically a classic.  It has pretty low milage and it is in reasonable shape for its age.  Hopefully the car (whose name I do not know yet) is ready on the 9th as promised.  She is getting new brakes as well as a safety and air test done, then on the 10th I move to THO for the year.  The house is already opened for the year so all I have to do is unpack and check to see if the clamp worked.

Then the season of 2013 can begin for me in earnest.

LauraVW Golf

I decided on a Golf because they have a lot of storage in the hatchback and so the trunk will become my tiny house office and studio on wheels.

I hope she will be a good car.

Categories: Materialism, Ontario, Re-Use, Stuff, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: | 7 Comments

The Poster is Ready!

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Laura

Poster Option 2

I am doing some prep work for my place at Springer Market Square in Kingston Ontario.  Here is my banner… (Don’t worry I know there are two typos.  This is what they sent to me via email to approve before printing and now the corrections are made).  The banner is about 5 feet high and 2 feet wide.  Almost the same size as me… but wafer thin and a little blockier…

Do you like the layout?

Categories: Kingston, Original Art work of Laura Moreland, Stuff | Tags: , | 5 Comments

Life Moves

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Laura

Before I left Tiny House Ontario, I took a couple of photos inside the house.  It always surprises me how much changes there during the day.  Not just out in the forest as one would expect but inside of the house too there is always the flux of change.

My art gallery stays pretty much the same because I very rarely sell a piece of my own work.  Still I hang them on tiny nails so I don’t damage the wooden walls very much, so they wobble with the wind and are very rarely level.  Too, inside, with the switch and the light that I added this year, the wall looks different than it did earlier this summer when I put them up.  Outside the window, the gravel is waiting patiently and settling in.  The big change will come next year when the collected rocks are added and this becomes a flag stone patio.

The shelved wall is always fluid.  From the season that needs heat to the other seasons there is a huge change because all things that freeze are moved to Hamilton with me.  Also there are books that come too, because I can’t live the whole winter without them, namely: Erazim Kohák: The Embers and the Stars, Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way and all of my own writing.  The other change is warmth and peace of mind in the form of the heater and the carbon monoxide/smoke detector.

There are always little changes too because I refer to the books, use the games, light the candles, burn the sage and so on.  Every tiny thing moves, because life moves and changes.  We too move and change, sometimes these are obvious glaring differences like a move to Australia, finishing a degree, finally finding job security, illness and death.

Most of the time, change is barely perceptible; like the changes I refer to here in the photos.  Only those who monitor change can see them clearly.  I am the sort of person who notices subtle changes and this is why I know that in my life there is a shift happening. I see this as clearly as I see that I did not put the bag of seeds and the candle away in the right spots on the shelves below.  I don’t know the impact of these changes, but I know that they are coming.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~ Stephen King

Categories: Erazim Kohák, Off Grid, Open your eyes, Original Art work of Laura Moreland, Stuff, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | 4 Comments

Jane’s Bridge

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Laura

In the summer I purchased a painting from a person who I admire; Kingston artist Geoff Smith.  I Follow Geoff’s work and when he posted this I hoped I would be able to purchase it.  I knew exactly where I would hang it from the moment that I laid my eyes on it.  It would hang right over the window, facing South, in my bedroom, at Tiny House Ontario.  What I could not decide was how to frame it, so I waited.  Finally last week I settled on framing it in a locally made gallery style frame just like I put my own paintings in.  Plain, I know, but I like the simple dark outline, as a finish and don’t really think of a frame as a part of the art.

The painting is called Jane’s Bridge and I love the way that it appears that everything changes if you, the viewer, dare go under the bridge.  It is for this reason that I wanted to put it right to the place where I look when I wake up in the morning.  I see it as a sort of dare to face the challenge of seeing all sides of all things and to take the day Jim Morrison style straight on through to the other side.  It makes me happy just to look at it.  😀

Categories: Art, Kingston, Ontario, Open your eyes, Stuff, Tiny House Ontario, View | Tags: , | 1 Comment

Fall Tidy

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Laura

When we arrived at Tiny House Ontario yesterday it was grey and cold.  Too with all the leaves now on the ground the trees reach up to the sky silently.  It felt very barren certainly when compared to the fall with all its deep colours and noisy fluttering.  It is the first time back after the very rushed cloth porch roof job so I had worried when Hurricane Sandy came.  I thought that we would find a lot of fallen trees and debris blown away because my building supply pile was not put away very well.

There were no trees uprooted; not even the huge Tim Burton tree, Clyde, was harmed at my place by Sandy.  But, there was a huge mess around the East side of THO.  Today the weather was absolutely gorgeous so Hj and I worked out there getting tidied up.  He brought in a number of wheel barrel loads of gravel and I levelled it out.  Then I moved the barrels, and storage boxes into the corner, together we relocated left over building supplies.  It looks much tidier, but still it looks like like a lot of stuff against THO!

I really dislike the look of the tarp too, on the cloth porch – It is ugly and tacky.  Still, it is entirely practical!  It is open enough to cook with the BBQ there  but dry as a bone!

I would like to be able to tuck things away a lot more unseen at THO but sadly, I don’t think a shed is in the cards for next year either.  Perhaps I will find a use for all of my left over materials next spring so I won’t need a pile?

Categories: Cloth Porch, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Stuff, Tiny House Ontario | 2 Comments