Projects Blue Kingship and Yellow Submarine took a small detour through 2022 into 2023.
As the real estate bubble was starting to contract, John and Wendy took advantage of the sellers market to sell their property in the city ahead of schedule, and move to a property in May 2022 that is close to our build site.
This has opened up many more opportunities, one of them is for Emily and Kevin to also move up ahead of schedule! With the gap closed between the Papineau Homes projects and the Toronto, it will be easier to make time to build, and be together.
The move for Kevin and Emily to join John and Wendy took months to plan. But of course, the weather didn’t care. On the evening Kevin moved north, a snow squall and cold temperature warning had been issued. On the day Kevin arrived with the truck, it was a crisp -28 C outside, without the windchill! By the next day, the cold had taken its toll on the truck battery, and it would no longer start until later receiving a boost. The truck did have some cool dinosaur info though that I think Toby would have liked, and that was an appreciated synchronicity.
Now that we’re all near the property we’re building on, we’re hopeful that it will be easier to create content for you, including live-streams!
Kevin has maintained a private database for about a year, tracking 4-5 years of electricity, natural gas, and water usage at the property they currently reside at. The intent behind this is to better understand how energy use changes throughout the year, right down to the day or even the hour. This will be important when considering the specifications for off-grid electrical and rain harvesting systems. This data will help determine how large a battery bank to build, how large an inverter to install, and how much water storage capacity will be needed.
Equally important is to understand the energy and water harvesting potential of the property, which Kevin has also been researching. This information will help determine the size of the solar panel array that will be needed to recharge the battery bank within a limited seasonal window.
Project Yellow Submarine has made this information public! Check it out here:
Kevin and Emily are in the process of preparing a comprehensive project binder to consolidate all of their thoughts and notes together, in preparation of engaging an architect to help them produce a design for their dwelling that will take all of their goals into consideration.
To that end, they’re going to start sharing some excerpts from their project binder, which will include things like how to consider a potentially suitable location, auditing space for a home, and determining your utility requirements.
Have any questions about the project? Let us know!
Planning has started for each of the teams future dwellings at Papineau Homes.
Bernice and Alain from Project: Red Carr have a rough design that they’re ready to take to a draftsperson for detailed drawings to get approved by the local municipality.
Kevin and Emily from Project: Yellow Submarine, having the benefit of more time, are taking a slightly different approach. They want their home to be entirely off-grid, and possibly incorporate rainwater harvesting. They have been carefully documenting their electricity and water usage to assess the system sizes they’ll need.
Each team will share more details over time, and we’ll continue to produce videos at each significant milestone.
What questions do you have about building a rural home? What about off-grid and rainwater harvesting? Let us know!
A lot of thought went into the Introduction video that we recently published.
It was an opportunity to not only share background information: Who we are, our reasons for persuing this project, etc, but it was also an opportunity to define segments in our story. Breaking up the work ahead into distinct projects will allow for a sort of “choose your own adventure” of whose project you want to follow, each one clearly identified by colour scheme and music theme.
The music themes were an opportunity for all of us to further share things about ourselves. In this case, the kind of music we enjoy. The Papineau Homes music themes were created by Kevin Montgomery using BandLab. All project themes are based on the main Papineau Homes opening theme and follow a similar note pattern:
Papineau Homes Theme
Bernice and Alain of Project Red Carr wanted to explore a sound with “more bass”. Alain in particular is partial to the sound of early Beastie Boys. The Red Carr theme song is heavily influenced by the distinctly bass and rhythm parts of their sounds from that era.
Project Red Carr Theme
Wendy and John from Project Blue Kingship wanted a more 80’s feel, with the sounds of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Bronski Beat. The final result is a mix of those two influences.
Project Blue Kingship Theme
Finally, for Project Yellow Submarine — well, Kevin and Emily hope that the influence behind this theme song is self-explanatory. 🙂
