Settling.

Once you're ready to settle down,
finding that perfect place may be one of the greatest decisions of your life.
It's not too easy to change your mind once the deal is done, though your home is only a prison if you allow it to be.

Most people think they know what they want from their home.
It may be a big kitchen, or an ensuite bathroom, or a urinal in the workshop.
The challenge is looking forward to anticipate the needs of the future.
This is especially treacherous during a period of change.

When we were looking for our first home, the choices were few a far between.
With a modest pre-approval of $125,000 and the need to keep the commute to work within forty-five minutes, the options were depressing.
We did have a priority list that helped us thin out the already thin choices.
The most important was to be far enough away from the main roads as we could.
Many properties in these parts are right on a busy county road that was once a quiet goat path.
I was looking for an outbuilding for a workshop, and we also hoped that we could find a place with some water on the lot.
The short story is that we found almost everything that we wanted with our home.
The trade-off was that the home itself, though well-appointed, lacked most of the modern amenities that are considered basic in any dwelling.

I am going to talk more about our home and which property features that we consider most beneficial.
The aim is to help any of you who may be planning a move and may benefit from our insight.
So there is a new label choice available on the blog side bar.
Use these categories to help find the blog content that suits you best.

We were blessed to find the perfect property in our first home.
With some careful planning and careful consideration, you can too.

 

An Easy Choice

Corporate business culture has always given me cause for disdain.
The drive for wealth precludes acts of generosity, empathy, community building, and integrity.
There is only one goal; to acquire as much money as possible.
I understand that many businesses participate in charities and community sponsorships, but the underlying reason is not altruistic;
it is only to help develop a positive corporate image.


I now find myself among the wolves; starting our own enterprise.
Not surprisingly, the reality of the business world truly does function with blinders on.
It is a tunnel vision approach to commerce which disregards collateral consequence.


As more responsible social practices and opinions gain popularity, the business world races anxiously to meet the consumer with products that meet the new demand.
Unfortunately, 'green washing' marketing tactics mislead the trusting public so that the company makes it's profit without yielding any positive results for the environment and human health.
There is nothing more vile than convincing the consumer to support a product based on the assumption that the product constitutes a wise choice, when in reality, the claims are misleading or outright lies.
Such is the root of all evil; greed.


Now more than ever, the problems facing the world could be solved were it not for greed.
Now more than ever, corporate culture has permeated government and perfected insidious marketing manipulation.
As the last of the integrity ebbs from corporate decision making, the influence that business has over public policy and societal mores is rapidly destroying our children's future.


Our own business is intended to generate revenue; that is the truth.
We need money for our family.
Our family, however, only needs a certain amount of financial income.
The plan is to garner what we need and any profit in excess will be re-invested so that we may expand our capacity, and then one day be able to offer our services for free.
Try explaining that to the bank or potential investors.
The money people want to see a solid bottom line that goes well beyond the break even point.


The question is, how will we fit in?
How will we survive in that kind of environment?
How do we conduct a profitable business while maintaining our integrity?
Even at the outset it looks as though there will be some unpleasant choices to be made.


Yet I believe that the current global economic woes are a direct result of unfettered greed.
The current business model will not sustain itself; the evidence for that is growing daily.
So we will conduct ourselves according to our best ethics.
Even though our goals are altruistic, it doesn't mean that the end justifies the means.


It is all about the future.
The focus should be our children's security,
and not financial security.
Having financial wealth does not imply also having the capacity for survival.
Certainly taking more than our fair share does nothing but decay the delicate social fabric.


So we will conduct our business our way.
I am not afraid of financial failure.
And I will not abandon my integrity to secure something as fundamentally worthless as money.

Trade Tools

This blog is fairly informal so I won't be offering carefully planned lessons and training.
I will however, do what I can to introduce and explain some of the basic equipment and skills.


Today I relied heavily on my portable table-saw.
A table-saw is a circular saw blade fixed in the middle of a flat table that requires the user to move the wood against the saw rather than guiding the saw along the wood.
Many table-saws are large and heavy giving them accuracy, stability and safety.
Others are portable and can be easily moved from place to place.
The portable units are usually much cheaper to buy and very basic in design.


The main purpose of the table-saw is to 'rip' wood.
That means cutting long pieces lengthwise along the wood's natural grain.
You can take a board and cut in into whatever width you need.
If you need a 2inch wide board but only have a 6inch wide piece, the table saw will turn what you have into what you want.
This is of great benefit if you are scrounging materials.
It's easy enough to buy exactly what you need from the store, but when you are on the hunt for salvaged wood, or want to make good use of leftovers, then the table saw will help you make the wrong size fit.


Aside from ripping, the table-saw will cross-cut wood as well.
The cross-cut is cutting the board to the length that you need it.
The lower end table-saws don't usually do a good job of this and it's best avoided whenever possible.
Though I happen to know someone who started out his career as a carpenter using only a table-saw for cross-cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The table-saw also rips a range of angles on a board to bevel a board lengthwise for more complex cuts.
I don't have a good picture of this so I'll have to show you an example when I use a cut like that.
For now, it's important to know that the table-saw is responsible for the cuts that run the long length of a piece of wood.


With today's project, I only had certain sizes of boards to work with in order to suit many purposes.
The table-saw did most of the cutting while the hand-held circular saw cut long boards into manageable pieces.
A professional can use a hand-held circular saw for most of the cuts that a table-saw will make.
But for the beginner, the table-saw gives great results safely and easily.


Old table-saws are usually easy to find used for cheap or free.
These are normally good quality tools, but are cast iron and heavy.
If you think you'll need to move one around a bit, look for a portable.

For myself, wood working began in earnest when I bought my first table-saw.
It's versatile enough to allow you to experiment with different cuts and advanced wood shapes without any instruction or frustration with jagged or crooked edges.
The confidence that tools build is more important than the projects they create.
And the table-saw should be one of your first.