Tag Archives: Lane Home

Fresh starts!

Posted on January 1, 2014 by ladywholivesdownthelane

I don’t really make resolutions. I find that they just add more pressure to my life, and I like making goals and working towards them rather than just saying “I will eat more healthily”.

So instead of just saying “I will live more minimally in 2014” I have set ourselves the task of getting rid of our rented storage space. I am giving myself the wiggle room that we may move the rest of our stuff into a smaller storage space, and then continue our process and our progress into 2015. But we will definitely be ridding ourself of stuff.

So far so good with keeping to the more minimal lifestyle on the retail front. We ventured out on Boxing Day and managed to come back with just what we needed — a tray for the sitting area to make an ottoman into a coffee table, plus an HTMI cord so we could connect my laptop with the TV and watch videos (went through the whole Harry Potter canon during the holidays). I even bought some new bras, and came home and tossed my old ones. There just isn’t space to save old AnyThing, if we get acquire new, we have to shed something.

Today I got another little ~~kick in the pants~~ reminder to keep downsizing. My twice-weekly email from Houzz included some handy tips for editing belongings.

The author mentioned one of my bugbears. I am not looking forward to editing family pictures. We used to have so many walls we could just toss pictures of grandparents and ancestors, so many surfaces to hold stiffly-posed portraits and spontaneous snap shots.

She wisely suggests editing:

I took all of my family pictures out of albums and off the walls, and then organized them by year, starting in 1972 when Mike and I were married, and moving through our 40th wedding anniversary. Then I picked my absolute favorites and built a new single album, simply entitled “The First 40 Years.” I placed the rest of the pictures in clearly marked envelopes that went into a single large plastic bin. (Plastic bins are a downsizer’s best friend.)

This is a big project. I am not looking forward to taking it on, but will make a start by sorting through our pictures for family shots and putting them aside. Hopefully someone will find a quick and inexpensive way to digitize the photo library by the time I get around to it.

Unfortunately, the pictures don’t take up a great deal of room. Fortunately the stuff that does take up a lot of room is easier to get rid of. And we have a goal to work towards — no more expensive rental storage. As this other excellent guide to de-cluttering says,

Begin with the end in mind. Think about how you want your home to be. Browse through the ideabooks you’ve already created and look for themes. Only after you’re clear what you’re shooting for should you begin to purge

Leave a comment

Posted in Decorating, Housing, Laneway House, Minimalism and tagged Decor, Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House. Bookmark the permalink.

Decorating for a tiny Christmas

Posted on December 21, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

Of course Christmas is not tiny — it’s as big as you want to make it! But finding room for Christmas decorations can be tricky when you have so little space.

Tomorrow I’ll let you know what we’re doing here at the laneway house, but meanwhile here are some clever ideas on how to finesse setting up that massive tree.

You can go all Charlie Brown and get a simple twig or two to represent the tree.

Put it in a container on your table top, or attach it to the wall

Or why bother with the tree at all? Attach the ornaments directly to a nice blank space of wall.

Make it as small or as big a display as you wish:

See the nice mix of scale?

Or you can create your own tree with wooden sticks suspended or nailed into a tree shape:

Keep is sleek and modern, or make it more old-fashioned and nostalgic,

Don’t have the time or the energy to make a Christmas tree? That’s what you think. All you need is some Washi tape and string:

Even if you don’t have room for a tree, you can always include a little Christmas decor on the corner of a shelf. Here’s what I’ve done this year with a few ornaments that have been in our family for years;

Next year I’ll take off the wire hangers, this was kind of an experiment this year. But it looks great on our shelf, and is the perfect touch right there.

So squeeze a little Christmas into your small space.

Leave a comment

Posted in Decorating, Small House and tagged Decor, Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

Tests, trials, and inspections

Posted on December 18, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

Even though we had moved into our (tiny, perfect) home at the beginning of the month, the house having passed its Safety Inspection, we actually hadn’t had our FINAL final inspection. The inspector arrived a couple of weeks ago, and (spoiler alert) we passed! So now we are very happy and secure that our house is all legal and everything. **whew**

But that wasn’t the only test we had to pass. To be deemed energy efficient, we had to have an Energy Efficiency Evaluation. A qualified energy advisor has assessed the energy efficiency of our house by using Natural Resources Canada’s EnerGuide Rating System procedures. That involves some test, including a Blower Door Test.

The rating goes like this:

New House build to building code standards	65-72
New house with some energy-efficiency improvements	73-79
Energy-efficient new house	80-90
House requiring little or no purchased energy	91-100

Our house got an Energy Efficiency Evaluation of 83!

The evaluation also included a report on how much we can expect to pay to heat the house — combined electrical and natural gas costs of $942.19 — a year! Along with telling us how much we can expect to pay each month that also gives us a base amount of what we should be spending, so we can see how much our electrical devises/gas stove and barbecue/do-dads and gee-gaws are costing us to run.

And that great score means we can apply for some PowerSmart Rebates. DD is working on that. She and DSIL have to apply, as the home owners.

To help us keep track of power usage we might get a Neurio device next year. A local invention,

Neurio is a home intelligence™ technology that makes your ordinary appliances smart and your home more efficient. Using a WiFi power sensor and a cloud service with some smart pattern detection algorithms, Neurio monitors your home’s electricity to figure out what your appliances are up to – without the need to install sensors on every device.

It’s pretty space age-y, and a great idea to help conserve. If everyone cuts back on the power they use we can all save in the long run. Here in BC we expect cheap electricity, just like we expect cheap, clean water. But with more homes being built, more people moving here, we will need more power. And that means more dams because we just haven’t caught on to the idea of wind farms (even though there’s a big honking windmill visible from Downtown Vancouver).

Dams are way out in the mountains, far, far away. But they are super expensive to build. And the people who own the land way out in the mountains may not be crazy about the idea of, you know, flooding it. And they were here first.

Leave a comment

Posted in Cities, Housing, Laneway House and tagged Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Vancouver. Bookmark the permalink.

How much can we stuff into our laneway house?

Posted on December 14, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

Stuff is a noun. And stuff is a verb. It’s either the things you own, or it’s how you fit them into a small space.

So how much do we need to make us happy? Comfortable? Content?

It’s a long trail of discovery. With many things discarded along the way.

Last night I watched a movie called “Happy“. It was a fascinating study of people around the world and what makes them happy. And guess what doesn’t make them happy? Stuff. Scientist types explained that wanting stuff makes us happy. And the anticipation of owning something makes us happy. We’re even happy when we’re acquiring the stuff. But owning it does not make us happy. Because once it’s ours, after a very short time it just becomes part of “the stuff we own”. And apart from it losing that new-car smell and getting a little worn, it also needs to be taken care of. Polished. Ironed. Painted. Dusted. More work for you.

Oh, sure, I know you love that guitar/vintage Chanel purse/motorcycle. But how much of our stuff do we really love, and how much of our stuff is just…..stuff?

We’re lucky in that our two moves this year have brought us face to face with everything we own. And we own too much. During the first move I was astonished by the stuff I found in the back of cupboards or the top of closets. Things I had not even looked at in the 13 years we had lived in that condo. I said good-bye to it quite happily. Now, as we sift through our Christmas decorations for the ones we can use, the ones that will go to family or to decorate my workplace office, and the ones that will be used to decorate our laneway home, we will be freeing ourselves a little bit more from the tyranny of owning too much stuff.

Huang Qingjun is a Chinese photographer who photographed families with all their belongings posing in front of their homes. These people own very little. What they have is precious to them. You can read more about the story here, here, and here, and read an interview with the photographer here.

My favourite shots are these:

Even in a yurt or a mud house built into the side of the hill, these people have their TVs and their satellite dishes. They are connected with the world outside their small homes.

And I suspect they are happy.

4 Comments

Posted in Housing, Laneway House, Minimalism, Uncategorized and tagged Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Minimalism, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

Settling in

Posted on December 7, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

The upstairs of our little home is just about finished, which allows me to sit at my kitchen counter/table/desk in our kitchen/sitting room/office and enjoy an extraordinary amount of sunlight pouring in. The coffee is poured, the soft-jazz Christmas music is drifting down from the built-in speakers in the ceiling , and the cat is trying to get my attention by being cute and naughty in turns and sometimes both at once.

Life is good.

We are rapidly getting to the point where the things that have not been done in our laneway get fewer and smaller. It’s hard to believe it’s so far along when we consider the chaos we moved into…….

**cue time-travelling music**

We had packed up all our belongings, we actually had enough boxes and bags for everything. The movers had come on time, and had shuttled back and forth to the truck and soon we were all packed up except for the cats and the fish tank and the furniture we were holding for the charitable pick-up later that day.

“Hmmmmm”, said DH, “I think it would be a good idea if we left the cats and fish until we’ve unpacked some stuff.” Wise words. It was then about noon and that was the last minute we were in control of the situation.

We drove the five minutes to the laneway to find….at least 15 people working on it. There was a team of cleaners valiantly trying to rid the place of the sanded plaster dust that the painters were creating. A nice young couple were putting up the frame of our closet system. There were people wiring and people moving us in, and well, frankly, I lost track of the jobs everyone was doing when the truck pulled up to blow top soil into the yard between the houses so the landscaper could put in the sod.

We unpacked a few things, made the bed, and went back to the rental to feed the cats and the fish, eat a pizza, and await the gentleman from the charity who was picking up the last of our furniture.

We went home to laneway to shower and sleep, but we really felt we were camping out.

The next day a crowd again descended, while I slipped back to the rental to feed the cats and the fish, and to do some shopping. All told I went back and forth to the rental four times that day — mostly by foot. That was the day when it seemed we were just not making any headway at all, when we had to move boxes to get to boxes, move boxes to get to the fridge, the washer and dryer, the bathroom sink. We were unpacking but we just could not make any headway.

But we brought the cats “home” and set the fish up on their new shelf, bought specially for that purpose. The cats promptly disappeared into the bowels of the pipes and tubes that are tucked away at one end of the storage space. It took days until the cats were comfortable to make the whole house their own. But now….

What are sunny kitchen ledges for, anyway?

2 Comments

Posted in Housing, Laneway House, Small House and tagged Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

We’re home!

Posted on December 1, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

This is just a quick note to say that we have successfully moved into our new home. It’s still a bit of a work in progress, with a few touches to be completed, but it is coming together nicely and is so adorable!
Things that surprised us about our new home:

how quickly we adapted to the smaller space, and how completely comfortable we are in it. The rooms seem exactly the right dimensions
how much storage we are finding in every nook and cranny. We are still downsizing, and there will not be room for everything we currently own, but we are still putting things together and there is room for what we need

Things that pleased us about our new home:

the appliances! The Blomberg washer has been going nearly non-stop. Got some bright red tea towels you need to wash for the first time? Do them by themselves! The washer weighs the load and automatically adjusts the amount of water it uses!
the under-fridge freezer has drawers for better storage options.
and the natural-gas stove! What’s not to love!

What completely blew us away about the new house? That is a toughie, as we have been thrilled with just about everything about the place. But for face-dropping dramatic day vs night transformation, we have to go with the enormous difference the landscapers, Vantage Landscaping performed. Amro and his team took a back yard that had been ripped apart and chewed up until it looked like the set for a WWI trench warfare movie of the week, and turned it into a lush oasis complete with plum tree, artfully arranged boulders, and even our “dry river bed” up the west side of the home. Plus plantings outside the laneway entrance that look so lovely! In two days! From Verdun to Versailles!

2 Comments

Posted in Housing, Laneway House, Life, Small House and tagged Decor, Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

Boxed in and loving it!

Posted on November 27, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

Currently I am surrounded by boxes, with more coming and every time I tape one shut I give a little happy dance. Although it looks chaotic, we are actually being quite systematic, and looking forward to unpacking in the new place — tomorrow!

So there’s not much to report here. We have met with our builders for our final walk-through and expect most things to be done by the time we are unpacking. I’ll update once we are in the new place and have internet connections once more.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at some other small houses worth noting:

At Tiny House Talk we learned about the Kanga Room Systems — prefabricated structures that can be used for outbuildings, or for homes.

Take a tour of this 280 square foot city house from Kanga:

Looking for something a little more compact? This 200 square foot home is available in Portland, Oregon, and is built on a flatbed so you can move it to your lot:

And for a truly heart-warming story, learn about a Colorado couple who built their tiny home by hand — learning how to do it every step of the way. They even made a movie of the whole process. Their take on the situation is this:

What is home? And how do we find it?
One couple’s attempt to build a Tiny House with no building experience raises questions about sustainability, good design, and the changing American Dream.

TINY: A Story About Living Small (Teaser Trailer) from TINY on Vimeo.

I’ll catch up with you when we are moved into the laneway. I am excited beyond description about this step of our journey.

Leave a comment

Posted in Laneway House, Minimalism, Small House and tagged Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

Making the bed — the hard way

Posted on November 24, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

One thing must be said right from the beginning: DH and I are not handy. We do not make things. We do not know anything about carpentry, or wiring, or plumbing, or tiling, or any of those DIY things that the TV shows tell us we all can do (but we know we can’t).

LiftBed

But I felt sure we could put together a Lift And Stor bed by ourselves. There’s a video at the website that shows how it’s done. You don’t need special equipment — just a mallet, a screw driver, some allen wrenches, a nut driver. What could be easier?

We weren’t attempting to actually BUILD the bed, although you can order the hardware by itself and get your own boards and save lots of money. We’re optimistic, not delusional. We had purchased the kit, where all we had to do was get the pre-cut pre-finished pieces connected with the supplied hardware.

Seriously, what could be easier?

We have a system that we employ when we assembled pre-made furniture (cough**IKEA**). We get all the tools together. We unpack the components. We read over the instructions together. We set aside all the nuts, screws, bolts and nuts in an easy-to-reach place. Then we spend the next few minutes-to-hours grousing, smashing fingers, grunting, swearing and throwing invective at each other. At least one thing will be attached incorrectly and will be nearly impossible to fix. There will be a running argument. Tempers will stretch, fray, and break.

In the video on the website it shows the experts putting together the bed in less than an hour. It took us closer to 3 hours to do it. We pulled up the video on our phones to help us, as we were completely unable to decipher the instructions. The boxes had been stored in the garage space and were covered with fine dust, which we got all over ourselves. Our knuckles were skinned.

But it was done! Finished! Assembled! It looks very nice and operates beautifully, easily lifting up to reveal storage below.

We high-fived each other and went off to collect a Zip Car for a trip to IKEA.

Leave a comment

Posted in Laneway House, Minimalism and tagged Decor, Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

More than enough?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

We are currently packing up the few belongings we have here at the rental preparing to move in less than a week. A co-worker is coming to take our shelves, table and chairs (she is grateful for the free stuff, we are grateful it will be GONE!). My son and DIL came by yesterday for my grandmother’s nesting tables — promised to me by my mother but in my possession for only a few months. Ah well, at least they will stay in the family. My niece is taking the microwave, but I’m not so sentimental about that.

I am very pleased to see how much storage there is in the new place — in the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom cabinets, under the stairs, even in some of the furniture.

But as I pack I am confronted by items for which there will be no space. Baskets on the shelves, with no correspondent shelf to place them on in the laneway. A set of plastic drawers that were perfect in our old condo for storing small things under the bathroom sink. Our new bathroom sink already has drawers,

And the two bathroom cabinets, stacked along a wall, are not deep enough to hold the unit

There’s plenty of room to hold the things that are in that cheap, dollar-store set of plastic shelves, but no room for the shelves themselves.

Shall I find a new use for those shelves? Or just toss them?

Now imagine making decisions about dozens of items — not precious or expensive in any way — just THERE.

NOW imagine the process of going through all the boxes in our storage space, repeating this over and over again.

That’s what downsizing means — and that’s why it is going to take us so long.

We will be doing this for months…maybe longer. It’s tiring, it can be exhausting.

But it’s liberating, too.

Leave a comment

Posted in Decorating, Laneway House, Minimalism, Small House and tagged Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

A moving story

Posted on November 20, 2013 by ladywholivesdownthelane

We are SO CLOSE to our very last moving date. But it’s like that old science class problem, where you have to move a distance, but first you have to move half the distance, then a quarter of the distance, then an eighth of the distance, and so on, until it looks like you will never get to your destination because you will still be 1/128th away from it. The details still have to be attended to, and there never seems to be an end of them.
But that is for our builders to fret about. We are preparing for the move here at the rental. Putting stuff in boxes so a coworker can take away the shelves to furnish her first apartment. So a charity can come and take the last stick of furniture. So we can bundle ourselves onto a moving truck and get to set up a home in our laneway.
Life was a lot easier when all we had to do was throw our books and records (pre-CD days) into a few milk crates, which would then serve as the foundation for shelves at the new abode.

Wouldn’t life be simpler if we could still use something like that for our shelving? You can see where I’m going — someone has come up with a modern version of the milk crate — the Yube! It’s a modular cube that you can use to make larger pieces of furniture.

Like a coffee table

Or office shelves

A media centre

Or a modern wall of bookcases

A sleek look you can take with you anywhere — and configure how you wish in your new home. The Yube locks together for a safe and secure structure–with optional doors and shelves. And as this article in Life Edited says

The YubeCubes also feature a very solid eco-cred, with panels made entirely made of sugarcane fiber, bamboo and recycled plastic.

Storage is at a premium in a small home, but you can’t afford to sacrifice style.

The Yube Cube looks like the smart, ecologically friendly alternative to our old friend, the milk crate. Plus it’s great for a rental.

Leave a comment

Posted in Housing, Laneway House, Minimalism, Small House and tagged Decor, Lane Home, Lane house, Laneway House, Small House, Small Style. Bookmark the permalink.

The Lady Who Lives Down the Lane

Tag Archives: Lane Home

Fresh starts!

Decorating for a tiny Christmas

Tests, trials, and inspections

How much can we stuff into our laneway house?

Settling in

We’re home!

Boxed in and loving it!

Making the bed — the hard way

More than enough?

A moving story

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Sites I Like

Meta

Follow The Lady via Email

Tag Archives: Lane Home

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Sites I Like

Meta

Follow The Lady via Email