Scary Cabin

Finally some progress with a full weekend at the cabin. It started with the built-in bookcase. The bookcase is made from melamine covered particle board shelving. I had previously cut all the pieces to size and dado’d the sides for the fixed shelves at home, transported the pieces up and glued/screwed them together. So I started with the frame, added a back and managed to lever it up into the opening in the wall. This is approximately 4 ft. wide, 7 ft high and 1 ft deep. But now that it’s installed, it looks pretty good. Also added some primer to the back. Eventually it will be trimmed and painted out the to match the rest of the trim.

Previously, we had started on the inside window trim for the main living area. All the pieces were cut and most had been primed. Finished up with the primer, painted and installed them. With half the trim in place, the windows are starting to look better. Of course they still need all the nail holes filled and all the gaps caulked.

The big project was the back bedroom to utility/mud room door. Since the utility/mud room was a later addition, it was added by simply adding some strapping to the exterior sheathing with sheetrock attached to the strapping. The original exterior door opening was re-used. We felt that a pocket door would make a lot sense here but that meant re-framing that area on what was an exterior load bearing wall. So all the old sheetrock, strapping, most of the sheathing, and framing had to be removed. A new 6 ft. long header has been added along with appropriate studs to make it sound. Always good when the side of the cabin doesn’t collapse. Next steps will be to get the pocket door frame installed and new sheetrock up. But it’s never that simple. First we want to add to the subfloor so that will need to be done to get the pocket door height right. We also want to add a couple of light switches by the door open so that electrical needs to be finished. Then there’s the matter of the vent stack for the washing machine. It currently terminates in the wall! [edit: Just spent some time reading about air admittance values. Possibly, that’s what is in the wall now. If it is, I’m not sure it’s working so it needs to be replaced.] That needs to be fixed so that it ties into the existing vent stack and actually vents to the outside. Once all that is done, the sheetrock can installed and the walls and ceiling textured and painted. Sounds like a few more weekends of work….