DeJoux House

The Deyo family crest has a moto "Lascivite de Joux" which is translated as "The gaiety of the house of joy".  How accurate this was to express the emotions of visiting DeJoux house just before Christmas.   The joy of seeing real work taking place for the first time in many,  many months.   It truly is a joy to see progress and to see lots of work happening on lots of different fronts.    The joy is back and thanks to Neil and his guys for bringing this in time for Christmas.    So, as a quick update, we are pushing forward to get the insulation in and the walls closed up so the plasterers can start work in January.  Electrician and plumber are finishing off small changes to the roughing.  Framing is complete and just some door frames and some duct work to frame in.   That is all meant to finish this week.  Next week we plan to insulate and then we can start sheet rocking and plastering. Neil has f...

Daniel pointed out that we are entering our third Christmas at DeJoux house.  One good thing with the blog is that it gives you a perspective on how far things have actually come. The house we bought in November 2009 Two years ago the house was totally overgrown and the vines grew over the house The vines and still to be discovered Mow Door The property was impenetrable and even walking around the house was difficult.   The view from the porch and to the north of the house gave the best sense of "June's Jungle" as the tenants used to call it. The view from the porch towards the lake - we still didn't know how big the lake was. North of the house - where my kitchen garden is now. So this was how we entered our first Christmas...beating back the jungle.  I started on the north of the house. The second week of December was our first week at the house .  We discovered a beaver had made his home in the pond and was eating his way through our Wil...

It's a very, very good question.  It's one I puzzled with.  It's one I have no real answer for.  Except I believe you treat everyone with respect, maintain dignity at all times and be as fair as you possibly can in all dealings.   What am I talking about?   Historic Housewrights, our ex-contractor, has disappeared and won't return our calls.   As you know we've had a lot of issues about no-one being on the site, lack of progress, poor communication and ultimately some really sloppy work that just wasn't getting rectified.  Two weeks ago he promised 5 people on site and significant improvement but we saw none of it. Yeah!...these are going to look really good next to the perfect boards! To add fuel to the fire he also "delivered" the wood we have been waiting for to complete the floor in the master bedroom and it was a disaster - terrible quality, not the width or the finish of the other boards and frankly unusable.  Daniel call...