Folksblogen

Folks Blogging from their Volkswagen

Our journey toward home

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Our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.

—David Foster Wallace

Hiking through the Andes in Peru with Apus Peru, 2013

A dream, however uncertain it may be, deserves to be fulfilled. And so we explore, observe and document, learn and interpret, invent. Travel is just one way we fulfill our dreams. Of course, it sparks more dreams too!

This is a maquette of a project we envision recreating life size: Nature Seeker by Brave New Wild.

We have not been travelling for the past two months. Not unless you include visits to Julie’s dad in Amherstburg, our son in Guelph or our friends near Collingwood.

We are living (while trying to make it look as though we are not) in Toronto, in the apartment that we are trying to sell which we constantly stage for a stream of strangers who make appointments to look through our apartment while we aren’t here. When not vacating the apartment it is our workplace. We are spending time with friends and family.

Christian in our apartment (for sale) on Bloor St W in Toronto.

We’re dealing with a host of mechanical problems on the van and getting it ready for our next foray into the unknown.

Add to that, a bunch of boring tasks like visits to the dentist and doctor and filing our taxes; not so boring birthday celebrations; and something we’ve become unintentionally good at… moving from one house to another – this time, son, Elia and his wife, Margot, moved and we helped.

Recently we were included in an article in Toronto Life Magazine’s May issue about Torontonians who sold up (or moved out of their parent’s homes) and moved into vans.

We’re anxious for this apartment to sell (fingers crossed it is soon!) though we don’t know what we are going to do when it does. Have you ever felt trapped or cornered? That is how we feel these days. Plus frustrated and impatient. We are ready to move on and start fresh again. Ideally in a place we love! So….we are dreaming, planning and scheming various options. Ideally we’d buy a small house somewhere in southwestern Ontario (not too far from those we love in Toronto, Guelph or Windsor) with a little yard for us and MacDuff. Not just anywhere. It must have a vibrant, creative community! We have not found our utopia yet. We have been looking at houses and lots in Prince Edward County, Collingwood and Grey County, Windsor and Essex County and one of Toronto’s latest ‘suburbs,’ Hamilton, and …. NOTHING appeals to us. This is absolutely déjà vu! We have looked at pre-fabs, Airstreams, tiny houses and are even considering moving out of the Volkswagen and into some sort of van conversion that is suitable for four seasons and includes a workspace and a bathroom. The van conversion plan would have us downsizing to practically nothing. We’re close to that now. The problem with that is that we don’t envision it as a long-term solution. That said, we didn’t envision living out of the Volkswagen for more than six months to a year! We feel like it could work for us for the next few years but it wouldn’t be an investment like real estate.

We’re struggling with these decisions because we want to be able to afford a future filled with travel, creativity and (fingers crossed) good health and not be property poor which was the situation when we last owned a home. This was our goal last year too, when we bought this apartment. We thought we had found a solution that would work for a while anyway, a longer while than a year! Looking back on the last five years we sometimes can’t fathom just how much we have seen, learned and experienced. We’d like to continue on that path but a home base, landing pad, crash pad – whatever you want to call it – also appeals. A place we can work from, receive mail, entertain, enjoy community. Of course, in an ideal world this home base would be in Corsica! However, it always comes back to proximity to family and friends. So, this is your invitation! Let’s all move to Corsica! We are ready.

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Park Is Where We Home It

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It feels good to not be living out of a couple of duffel bags. For the first time in three years. Everything we need has it’s place. We think…. We still have a whole whack of stuff sitting in a 300 sq ft storage unit out in Scarborough waiting to be dealt with. We haven’t moved or selected which of our books will make the cut yet. Soon…. We just needed a break from moving.

In the past week we’ve hosted friends and family for breakfasts, afternoon tea, dinners and a nitecap in our new place. That feels good. We’ve discovered that we can’t really host more than four people (in addition to us) at a time for a sit down meal. That’s an adjustment for people that have routinely hosted more than ten to twelve at a time. It means we have been editing our kitchen and dining possessions. It also means that we are going to be social regardless of where we live, whether it be in a big old house in a neighbourhood we loved, a Volkswagen Van on the side of a mountain in New Mexico or a tiny apartment on a main artery in Toronto. We are quite comfortable here. We like the space we’ve created with Men at Work. Thanks Paul for taking on this crazy project! The noise and light pollution and the overall building environment are challenging. And interestingly, we are finding that people keep to themselves in this apartment building. Maybe all apartment buildings?! It is definitely less social than living in a house in a neighbourhood or a campground. This, for us, is even more challenging. We feel isolated despite the constant noise of Bloor Street. We have decided we will give ourselves a year to decide if this place is right for us. For now, it will be a fine immobile home (thanks for the term Syeira!) from which to work and entertain.

We’re including photos of the before and after in this post.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Another bit of news: we have decided that we will NOT be changing careers after all. No, we will not be mobile baristas. After actually moving in we realized all too clearly the limitations of our chosen living situation. Turns out the truck needs to be stored year round in a dry, climate controlled space with electricity and it needs to receive a constant trickle charge when not in use. We do not have parking. There is parking in the basement of our apartment building that we have rented but commercial vehicles are prohibited by the co-operative’s rules and regulations. Yes, we are still learning about what it means to live in a co-op! Also, the mobile café came outfitted with all kinds of café accoutrements like café table and stools, wooden counter, tent, umbrella, etc, etc for which we do not have storage. We would have had to find and rent storage for the truck and the accoutrements which would have been cost and energy prohibitive. Our desire to simplify was quickly becoming the polar opposite. Since making the difficult decision not to go forward with the purchase of the truck we’ve realized that what we were most excited about was the marketing, promotion, design opportunities that the truck project illicited. The schlepping and coffee making were at the bottom of the attractions. So, if you hear of any design projects send them our way!! We’re ready to get creative.

We’re eager to spend some time on the open road and in the quiet of nature this summer. We camped a couple of times last week and it sure felt good to be back in the van… it’s a happy place for us. The best was camping right here on the periphery of Toronto at Canada’s first Urban National Park (the Rouge) with our Chattanoogan friends Jess, Andy, Braden, Wrigley and O’Malley. We met them ten months ago at Van Riper State Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and then a couple of days later found ourselves coincidentally camping side by side at Porcupine Mountain State Park on Lake Superior. Fast forward four months and our paths once again converged at Manatee Springs State Park in Florida. We purposely stopped in Chattanooga on our way back to Toronto at the end of January to attend Andy’s Lookout Wild Film Festival. And boy, are we glad we did! Every film, short and long, was inspirational and joyful – a celebration of active outdoor pursuits and dreams fulfilled. We could easily make this an annual trip! Having just passed one year on the road, Andy and Jess and gang are making their way east in Canada. They happily (for us) stopped in Toronto for a few nights. We took in a Blue Jays game, toured them around a little in the van, camped overnight at the Rouge staying up way too late talking around a campfire while Braden delivered an impressive number of parcels to each of us, and shared dinner at our new apartment the following evening. Meeting and making friends on the road is one of our favourite aspects of travelling in the van and proof that even nomads can create community. We know we’ll meet up again. Sooner or later! Thanks friends for making Toronto a stop on your route! And thanks for the ball game!!

If you’d like to get together, give us a shout! In the city or on the road!

julie@folksblogen.com / christian@folksblogen.com

Coffee is Our Fuel

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May 9th is a big day for us. It was three years ago today that we sold and moved out of our home and became van dwelling nomads. And now three years later we are setting up a home base in a 500 sq ft co-op apartment in Toronto. And….drum roll…..

 

We are about to embark on our fourth business adventure in our 27 years together! At the end of May we will be mobile baristas! We are taking over the levers, so to speak, of a beautiful Astoria Espresso machine housed in the back of a 1982 Vespa Ape from Ana Diez and Jeff Douglas.

Here’s our story: As we were preparing to leave Toronto near the end of May 2014 we were walking around Annette and Runnymede when we spotted this sweet vehicle. Ana offered us a quick tour and we were smitten. We’ve followed them on Instagram since that encounter. Imagine our surprise when in March, while in the middle of a full scale apartment renovation and debating over how to earn a living moving forward (Yes! We do still need to earn money…) we saw that Macchina Mobile Café was for sale! All we had to do was talk to these two like-minded people, now friends, over coffee of course, the following day and it was a done deal. Neither of us could think of a reason NOT to do it! For as long as I have known Christian he has expressed a desire to make and sell coffee from the back of a Vespa truck. So, it seemed like fate. Our shared attitude is that if you’re going to change your life in such a dramatic way as we did 3 years ago why not really change it up. We will still design and create and make… it is in our DNA. And we will still travel… each of us apparently has the nomad gene. We see this as a seasonal business – early spring to late fall for sure, maybe longer, who knows?! Least of all us!! – It will allow us the winter to travel in our beloved van. We see a delicious cup of coffee in the future for all of you!

Potential new mottos may be any of the following:

All Roads Lead to Coffee

Café is Where We Park It

The Road to Coffee

Living the Coffee Dream

Veni Vidi Caffè

Coffee Before Stuff

Coffeelander

And as for the renovation of our new Toronto pad… the renovation continues. We are getting close to completion and to moving in. One way or another we will be living there as of tomorrow! We won’t have our bed or a working kitchen or most of our belongings but we will have all we really need. Next post: the renovated apartment!!! and soon some coffee making under our belted aprons.

One Step Forward, Two Steps _ _ _ _

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Here we are, 24 days into owning an apartment at 2000 Bloor Street West.

Demolition began Tuesday. Finally.

Things move a little slower in a co-op. That’s our impression anyway. It was about a week or a week and a half before our guest access was set up. Even though we had renovation plans in hand prior to taking possession of the apartment on February 1st we had to wait for the co-op board to meet on the 16th of February to have them approved. They apparently only meet once a month. The first set of renovation plans was rejected by the co-op board. Plans were simplified and tentatively approved. It all depends on what is revealed once the demolition is complete.

We were hoping to remove a small radiator in the kitchen which serves no real purpose. The co-op board said that we would have to assume responsibility for any problems which occur in radiators anywhere in the building if we were to do so. We chose not to take the risk. The co-op board also doesn’t want us to change the location of any of the bathroom fixures (sink, toilet, shower). We had hoped to move things around so as to increase the size of the bathroom (fractionally) plus move the entry from kitchen to hallway. We just aren’t crazy about a bathroom opening up onto the kitchen….

On Monday we moved a disgusting old refrigerator and stove out to the curb for pick up. Neither had ever been cleaned. Inside, outside, under or behind. We are always amazed by humans. In this case, amazed in a not so good way.

The demolition crew reached a roadblock when they discovered the water shut-offs were painted shut. Question to the universe: why paint water shut-offs which are hidden in a closet? And so, we had to wait until the plumber could come yesterday to install new shut-offs. Again, amazed by humans.

Aside from renovation woes we have a pronouncement to make. We really don’t like to use the word, ‘never.’ But! In this case we feel so strongly that we are willing to break that commandment. We will never choose to live in a basement ever again! To go from living in a light and air filled van to living in a space below ground with barely a sense of the outdoors was a very big mistake. We are relocating above ground on March 1st! Believe us that that date cannot come soon enough.

Our moods reached an all time low last weekend. We began doubting everything. Especially buying this apartment. We wanted more than anything to flee Toronto. To be back in our van exploring some never before seen place very far from here.

And here we are one week later. Demolition complete. Some discoveries we are not willing to talk about just yet. They aren’t good. Options are extremely limited. Hopeful? Unh unh. Moods improved. Not at all.

However, if we are anything, we are follow-throughers (made up term). We will see this renovation through to completion. Even if we are to sell it and move on. Our friends and family keep encouraging us with sentiments like, ‘renovating is fun,’ and ‘design is your strength’. It helps. And who knows what will happen in three months time. Least of all us! We could end up liking the place… just that it doesn’t feel like it currently. Oil changes are looking pretty sweet right now.

A Pied à Terre is in our future

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It’s been more than a month since we left Spark Box Studio in Picton and our friends Chrissy and Kyle. We promised to elaborate on our month-long residency when we last posted here… We have been pretty busy since then. We immediately moved over to Cherry Valley for a few days to chicken sit for our friends John and Lily which gave us time to return borrowed items to generous folks around the county. Special thanks goes out to Baxter Arts for lending us their super-duper video projector; to Kate Golding and Johnny Lam for lending us a video projector, 60s-era table lamps, strings of Christmas lights and macramé lawn chairs for the installation; to Alex Fida for allowing us to use the coveted Eriba Titan camper which he co-owns with Chrissy and Kyle as a projection screen and for more patio lights. And the biggest thank you of all goes out to Chrissy and Kyle who gifted us time and space which allowed us to focus, work, be inspired and imagine the future. They are two of the most creative, tireless and inspiring people we know. We are so incredibly grateful that they chose us to be the recipients of their National Residency Award and first Annual Dawson Bursary! Our biggest surprise was just how much we would enjoy cohabiting with the other residents. It was incredible to witness their various work practices and mediums. We got to know each resident, some more than others simply because we overlapped for a longer period. We will always remember the Picton Fair, ‘baby parts’ and Tony from ‘The Shining’ with Bernat and Deborah! Scheduling Willona Sloan’s residency to coincide with ours was brilliant! Our common themes of home, memory and the open road made for great conversation around the dining table and her writing workshop was the icing on the cake. Sharing Mario’s apple pie and music with Kelly, Chrissy, Rebecca and Joanna around the campfire on the second night of the installation made for a very memorable evening. It exemplified the spirit of our journey.

From Prince Edward County we made our way to Toronto to Amherstburg to Toronto and back to PEC again where we worked on a grant application from a gorgeous little guest house belonging to friends Sarah Crawford and David Kirkwood. We worked away and each evening they invited us to join them for a delicious meal and spirited conversation. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect place from which to continue building on the work we started at Spark Box. The sidebar to why we returned to PEC to work on our grant application: to look at properties! Having spent a little more than a month in ‘The County’ we realized that we like the community. A lot. We have been considering the idea of a home base for a while: a base from which to work; settle the stuff that has been residing in a storage unit in Scarborough for nearly two and a half years; and to live when we aren’t galavanting around in the van. The month at Spark Box clarified two things for us: we miss a dedicated work space (that can accommodate things like a large video monitor for editing, a sewing machine, a printer or two, etc) and community. While we aren’t ready to live a sedentary lifestyle we do appreciate the benefits of having a home base.

We left the County without having purchased a property, made a pit-stop to look at some prefab homes at Green Terra in Trenton, stopped briefly in Toronto before picking up Julie’s dad and his dog, MacDuff, in Amherstburg and returning with them in tow to celebrate Thanksgiving in Toronto. It was the first holiday in three years that our family was all together. Back to Amherstburg where we loaded up the last of all the belongings we had been storing there since we moved into the van and carted them to one of our (cringe) two storage units in Scarborough. Over the course of two days we consolidated the two units into one 300 sq ft unit. Our 17-year-old nephew, Jakob, helped us on the second day and perhaps saved our lives. Moving stuff doesn’t get any easier as you get older!

We made an appointment for the van to have some pre-emptive maintenance done while we were in Toronto in preparation for heading south on the open road where we intend to escape winter. While in the care of our mechanic it was the victim of a hit and run. Our four-month-old paint job and restoration! More than $1,600 damage NOT including the immense hassle and numerous other expenses that have arisen from the resulting delay. We had to drive the van back down to Amherstburg (a boring four-hour drive on the 401) to our amazing auto body shop for the repair and then return to Toronto. Again. This drive is getting to us. Try as we might to appreciate the changing sky, the autumnal colours and the landscape the drive is at best repetitive and at worst soul destroying. The bad news is that we will be making this drive regularly for some time to come so we better perhaps work on an attitude adjustment.

Also while in Toronto we learned that a 500 sq ft co-op apartment overlooking High Park was going to be listed for sale. We looked at it pre-MLS, without any expectations whatsoever and ….. we bought it. It will literally be a pied-à-terre and checks off a bunch of boxes for us: 1. a mailing address 2. storage (carries for less than our current storage unit) 3. home base 4. work space 5. good location                     6. underground parking that can accommodate the van 7. close to family, friends, doctor, dentist, etc. 8. low or zero maintenance 9. cheap! What it is not is our dream space. We have come to think that a dream home is overrated. For us life experiences and travel are the priority. That said we will make the space our own. It will require that we get rid of most of what we own and have been paying to store for too long. Most people do this in their 70s, 80s or leave it to their children to deal with once they are gone. Here we are, further paring down our lifetime of accumulation in our 50s! We have at least 10 file boxes containing samples of our work; more art than we will have walls; books, boy do we have books; and ephemera/ family history/ our history. This is where we will find it difficult!

a-46

When we initially sold our home and studio we had this idea that we would be downsizing and simplifying. In Toronto. And that our next home would be our last. The place where we would likely spend the rest of our days. And then instead we decided to travel in a van. For six months or a year. We thought we had really pared down our belongings and 26 years of design and printing work as far as we could and we did. We didn’t know how moving around North America in a 60 sq ft van would change us and our priorities. We don’t feel like we have any more answers than we had two and a half years ago. We may in fact have more questions. We aren’t exactly happy with the purchase of this apartment but we aren’t unhappy either. It is probably the right thing. For now. Sometime in the new year, probably March, after renovating, we will move into our new old apartment and make it a home where we can once again welcome our friends and family and work on projects that excite us. We look forward to that!

Pied à terre implies a temporary second residence and is usually a small living unit in a large city some distance away from the owners primary residence. 

And now, we can’t wait to get our primary residence back on the road!

 

PS – There are many wonderful people who have hosted us in their homes this past two and half years. To all of you THANK YOU! We have loved spending time with each and every one of you and appreciate your generosity and friendship. The biggest thank you goes out to Julie’s sister, Tina, and her husband, Mark – they have hosted us more times than we can shake a stick at, often without a whole lot of notice. We are eternally grateful.

Little Camper

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After picking up and moving Harriet’s new big girl bed on Sunday (with Annie and Harriet) Harriet spent some time exploring Van Morrison and Gibb. She quickly made herself comfortable (once the van was parked and not moving!) by sitting on a pillow and covering herself with an alpaca blanket. Afterwards she looked through all the cabinets and fridge quite thoroughly, reorganizing as she saw fit. She was especially fond of the fridge – putting things in, taking things out; not all of these things normally reside in a fridge ie. socks. She did some sweeping, pretended to drink tea from a tin mug, bossed her Grampy around, entertained us to no end.

 

annie-and-harriet comfy-harriet harriet-drinking harriet-investigating

The Folks Who Blog

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We are a married couple (Christian Morrison and Julie Gibb) who have been self-employed as graphic designers since 1990, as letterpress printers since 1994, partners in the Canadian Chefs’ Congress since 2008. Following a sabbatical in 2013 we decided to sell our home, our letterpress equipment, put the bulk of our belongings in storage and buy a 1990 Volkswagen Westfalia Vanagon with the idea of driving around North America and possibly Central America for a year. So, on May the 9th we literally rolled out of our studio on Pearson Avenue in our trusty (we hope) home on wheels. We have been and will be living amongst family while preparing to hit the road on June the 7th. Our first destination will be Newfoundland with a stopover (we hope) in the part of France closest to Canada.

one-van-in-one-van-outhim-and-her

Our neighbour Hanna

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We have already posted this on our Folksblogen Facebook page … this is a gift created by and given to us by our now former neighbour, Hanna Lang. She is a super special young person, creative, funnier than the average person to be sure and super clever. On top of it all she is a beauty. This is our dashboard mascot – we will treasure this gift and think of dear little Hanna every time we lay eyes on it. Thank you Hanna!! xo

hanna-mobile

Preparing to hit the road

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Preparing to leave Toronto is more time consuming than we perhaps realized. Our to do lists grow and shrink simultaneously. While still in Toronto we were able to lay a linoleum floor and install a roof rack to hold the Thule box. Last week we drove to Amherstburg to work on the van (VanMorrison and Gibb). Christian cleaned it thoroughly on the inside – vacuuming the flocked ceiling and washing every surface. He installed a mud flap on the passenger side, fixed things that needed to be fixed. All the while I sewed new curtains and some upholstery for the cushions, a table cloth and napkins (always the designers), soft storage, etc. We washed and (ugghhh) shrunk the mattress/cushion covers (at least they are clean). We are obviously trying to make our new home on wheels as comfortable and homey as possible. Especially since we could be living out of it for about a year.

This week we are working on, among other things, this blog! Finally.

in-goes-the-linoleumjulie-sweeps-up   installing-the-mud-flapup-goes-the-thule christian-vacuuming christian-vacuums-tall hemming-the-curtains julie-sews macduff's-place the-van-after van-before-shot  our-Westy-living-roomvan-signage

On Leaving (Home)

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Now that we are essentially without a fixed address (well, we do have bedrooms at Tina and Mark’s house in Toronto and at Dad’s house in Amherstburg, ON!) we are questioning / interrogating the idea of home. We will be documenting / blogging about the trials and tribulations and successes of living in a home on wheels without the comforts and conventions of ‘a home’ such as we have come to depend on such as a bathroom with a toilet and shower, a kitchen with appliances that we use everyday, laundry, neighbours that are a constant, a garden, a driveway, cable television and space (under a roof).

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