Scary Cabin

We’re now fully committed to working on the living area. There are a lot of areas that need attention. One that’s going to take some trial-and-error is the stairway up to the second floor. We had knocked out the half wall that made up the railing so we need something to replace that and make it safe. We want to use a fairly standard banister with some type of spindled railing. Started building some bits and prototyping how things will fit together. This will need to tie in with the cubby area and the fireplace framing. We drywalled around the fireplace and inside the cubby. There’s a vision forming around how this area will look, but we’re not quite sure of the final outcome yet.

Before everything is fully enclosed, added the electrical above the fireplace and inside the cubby to handle TV and associated equipment.

The hot water heater is finally installed back in the understair pantry area. Yes, we have hot water. That means we’ll be able to shower! It’s quite a milestone. Painted and installed a bi-fold door on the pantry.

Steve came up and helped with some of the heavy lifting. Well not so much lifting, but we removed the air-conditioning unit that was mounted in the wall between the kitchen/dining area. To remove it, it needs to slide out of the mount. Because we didn’t want to drop it on new kitchen tile, we stacked up bags of insulation on top of the wheelbarrow so that we could slide it out and onto the insulation. From there we were able to maneuver it outside where it proceeded to roll down the deck stairs, puncturing the freon line and venting to the atmosphere. We then patched up the hole with some left over siding from the new window install. No more head banger out on the deck!

Steve, along with Ben and Larry helped install the new insulation in the living area. We’re using rock wool instead of fiberglass. The rock wool bats are cut with a bread knife so you can carve out slots for wires and areas for electrical boxes, etc. The stuff is rigid enough that it stays in place between the studs without any staples or other fasteners. Cutting it does create a lot of dust, but at least it’s not fiberglass strands and it’s not itchy. Maybe it’s just because we’ve had bare un-insulated walls for so long, but it sure is quiet in there now.

As the month winds down, we finish up by putting up drywall on the freshly insulated walls. The room takes on a whole new look with new drywall. It looks more like new construction. A clean slate.