Buying an off-grid home: Not a turn-key experience; local love, and more

New cabinet front. In the background, you can see the previous open style. Now the dishes are closed off, preventing dust, animal dander and so forth from getting in and making a mess. It also gives things a much more clean, clutter-free look.

My fellow off-gridder and newsletter friend over at Love Off Grid wrote something the other week that struck me as a fundamental truth about going off-grid.

“Buying an existing off grid home isn’t a turn-key experience.”

That’s a great insight. It sounds simple, but it’s the truth.

Like their owners, off-grid homes tend to be idiosyncratic. They are an expression of each one’s aspirations. You aren’t buying into a suburb full of cookie-cutter developer houses.

At Love Off Grid, Greta says as much, noting everyone’s reason for going off-grid is different, ranging from saving the planet, to just being anti-social (lol). I think she’s closest to the mark though when she talks about needing a certain level of knowledge - or willingness to learn - to become self-sufficient.

As she points out in their case, they ended up “installing everything else (including rewiring and replumbing a large part of what existed). The system requires regular monitoring and maintenance, like running your own utility company.”

The fact is, all of the houses reflect the owners’ interest, ability, and creativity, which can end up looking like a lot of different things. One thing’s certain: It won’t be like any other previous home you bought, and you’ll probably end up changing everything.

Take our place, for instance.

Buddy who build the place essentially made a hunting/fishing camp. It wasn’t and didn’t feel like a home. And here we are three years later, still making major changes to suit ourselves.

So many changes….

For instance, in our home, space for a shower had been marked out, but one never installed. For a month we traipsed around a large shower box laid out in the living room while Steph built in the new shower.

The kitchen cupboards were essentially framed in, but didn’t have cabinet doors or any such niceties. Three years later, this past week, Steph put in sliding doors for half the cabinets.

New cabinet front.

And, speaking of turnkey, most of the time you’re going to end up using reclaimed or recycled materials rather than buying off-the-shelf. Something about the off-grid aesthetic tends to lend itself to funky solutions. I think it goes back to the sustainable mindset of many who choose the lifestyle.

Again, when we bought the house, it was essentially one large open room with a bedroom, closet and bathroom off of it. Now there are two large built-in, floor to ceiling bookshelves. One runs half the length of the house, while the other - kiddy-corner - runs half the width of the house, is three-sided, and actually frames off what will become a small guest space now.

Turn-key? Not this place. Probably not any off-grid homes you’re likely to see.

Send me your homes

While we’re on the subject of non-turnkey, off-grid homes, please send me your homes. Well, not literally. For one thing, think of the postage….

Seriously, though, I am looking for off-gridders who are willing to have their homes profiled and talk about what led them to the off-grid lifestyle, what they like or don’t like about it, what they would do differently and more. If you’re interested, please let me know.

The interviews will likely be done through email, although I am agreeable to visiting places as well. And to some extent they can be anonymous, such as first name only, location identified by county only and so forth.

Local love: From Bratwurst to…burgers?

I just may be salivating. This year’s edition of The Burg Classic has kicked off. First of all, let’s get the name out of the way: Burg Classic/Lunenburg. Get it? Get it? Yeah, you’ve got it.

Okay, now that that’s dispensed with, here are the details. Unlike the rampant insanity of Halifax Burger Week, which now encompasses some 150 restaurants over the period of roughly one week, The Burg Classic consists of a modest six places featuring a special burger for charity over the period of a month.

Some of the offerings sound pretty tempting. Alex’s Chill & Grill in Lunenburg, for instance, have an Aloha Burger with “grilled fresh local beef, grilled pineapple, crispy bacon, lettuce, tomato, zesty mayonnaise and bold BBQ sauce on a bun.”

And I promise not to show up like some twitching maniac, inadvertently scaring the hell out of the chef and servers.

The Burg Classic is fairly low-key, unlike Burger Week, which has become as excessive as many of the burgers - not to mention their prices - with some last year surpassing $25. That’s because many don’t use mayo, but rather slather on the aioli (er, flavoured mayo); and pile on ingredient lists so large that you pretty much have to be able to unhinge your jaw to take a bite out of one of the suckers.

Last year’s offerings included one with two coconut shrimp and pork patties, Asian slaw - wait for it - cilantro aioli, house-brined pickles, and deep-fried calamari on a toasted bun.

Not to your liking? Well then, how about a purple ube steamed bao bun with black sesame, grilled beef patty, Asian BBQ sauce, bo sam pulled pork, kimch aioli - bam! There it is again! - crispy onions, and house slaw.

They sound tempting, for sure, but you can empty out your wallet pretty quickly with those prices.

For the most part, The Burg Classic is keeping things relatively simple. I am surprised, though, given our proximity to the water and with all the fresh seafood available here that no one is floating a fish burger of some kind. Maybe next year.

What I’m reading

Station Eleven is another Canada Reads contender this year. But before I get into that, off the top, as far as I know I’m not related to St. John Mandel…although I’d love to be; then I could boast about my incredibly talented relation who is one of the absolute best writers I know. Already, another book high up in my list for the best of 2023, and the year is hardly underway. Honest, I’m not a critical push-over when it comes to reading; this is one hell of a read. Originally written in 2011, St. John Mandel’s end-of-the-world work of speculative fiction is set between Toronto and Hollywood, and follows a set of friends and lovers before and after a world-changing pandemic. Ethereal and unforgettable, Station Eleven combines a Hollywood glamour with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

What I’m Listening to

Alan Doyle’s Back to the Harbour is the Newfoundland singer songwriter’s post-COVID recording, melancholy and subdued. “She’ll never leave me lonely,” Doyle laments in Let It Be Me. You won’t find the characteristic madcap antics of the former Great Big Sea frontman or frantic jigs of The Night Paddy Murphy Died here. Rather, the title track is rooted in quiet nostalgia: “I’m a dog from Petty Harbour like my father was before.” Doyle and his trio of accompanying musicians don’t need to resort to rowdy cheer to elicit an impact. The six songs of Back to the Harbour are haunting, mature and lovely. I find myself returning to Back to the Harbour over and over.

Yahoo! Not really

Well, I’m not certain what to do about this one. I’m a writer. I often write about tech. But I’m not a tech guy, if that makes sense. Yahoo is blocking emails from my server because I look like I’m sending spam. I believe that the internet service provider is mistaking my newsletter as spam and is blocking Yahoo subscribers from receiving my emails. So, I’m likely writing for you into the void here, but if anyone on that service, or anyone else for that matter, happens to see this and knows a work-around, please let me know, so I can try and reinstate those subscribers.

In the meantime…

If you need to find us, we’re probably reading. Let us know when the weather is fit again and we’ll come out of hibernation. As always, thanks for taking the time to read my musings.