🧱 THE CRAWL SPACE THAT’S GOING TO BREAK ME
Read time: 3 minutes
This is a story to be — a dream that hasn’t become reality yet. The day will come when I begin this project. With time, and with winning a few battles of my own with cancer, I’ll build this. It’s an old dream that’s lived in my head for years, and it’s still alive and well. The drawings are done. The stove model is spec’d. The table design is ready. Even the hanging lamps will be shop‑made on the lathe. But the crawl space is where it all starts.
There’s no romance down there. No cinematic lighting. No triumphant music. But if you’re into dead wasps and mouse turds, then come on over — I’ve got something you’re gonna want to see. Who knows what else I’ll find down there, but I know what I won’t find: a straight board. I’m going down there with a headlamp and a bad dream.
This floor has been cold since the seventies, back when disco blasted out of AM radios and every old‑timer on the block yelled “turn that crap down.” This whole abomination of an addition was slapped together over a month of Sundays and enough beer to fuel a full season of bad decisions and weekend‑warrior bravado. That’s how this lean‑to came into the world.
Honestly, this thing should be put out of its misery and rebuilt from scratch. But that’s rich‑person talk. I’ll fix it — and I’ll suffer through its misery first‑hand so nobody else has to.
And here’s the part that matters: this crawl space is the foundation of the hearth room. The room I’ve been dreaming about for years. The room that’s supposed to be warm, steady, and built to last. The room that will hold the GEM PAC stove, the water reservoir, the cabinets, the winter mornings, the stories, the whole heart of this house. The room I want to finish while I’m still strong enough to enjoy it.
But before any of that can happen, I have to crawl into this cold, crooked, mouse‑haunted underworld and make it right.
Once the crawl space stops trying to kill me, the real work begins:
shimming floors that haven’t been level since Trudeau Sr.
insulating a crawl space that’s basically a wind tunnel
sealing a foundation that’s been politely asking for help for fifty years
building cabinetry that fits the house the way it should have from the start
This isn’t just a renovation. It’s the first step in resurrecting the hearth room — the warm centre of this old house, the place where everything finally comes together. The place I want to sit in when the dust settles, when the treatments are done, when the fight quiets down for a while.
This is the ugly part of the story.
But it’s the part that makes the rest possible.
Step inside Behind the Grain, if you’d like to sit awhile.
