Scary Cabin

Yes, another long weekend filled with labor.

We made progress with yard maintenance by raking up about 1/2 the yard and hauling off four loads of yard debris to the burn pile. Unloading the piles from the trailer is almost more work than loading it but after a couple trips we came up with a solution. By laying a tarp on the bed of the trailer and loading everything on top of that, we could just pull the tarp out and everything comes out in one big pile. One of the secrets to making this work is to not fill up the trailer too much otherwise it’s too heavy and we’d need more muscle to pull it out. One more day of raking and hauling and we may be ready for winter.

Larry, Barbara, and Genny make the back yard/dog area look good again too. The sewer line was wrapped up to prevent roots from getting in and the trench and septic take covered up. No more trench in the back yard, Yay!

Upstairs, the custom cabinet work continues. One bank of drawers is almost ready for the actual drawers to be installed. Doing something like this for the first time is definitely a learning experience. We started with the premise that the drawers should be as wide as possible so I started building the carcasses so they’d just fit between the beams. But when we looked at adding the face frame trim, it became apparent that we needed the trim wide enough that the top tip out drawers were all proportional. It would look strange if the outside tip out drawers side frames were 4” wide but the middle one was 1”. This change meant that the carcass width needed to be about 6 to 7 inches more narrow. Turns out that building the face frame first and then building the carcasses to match would have probably saved 4+ days of effort. But nothing to do now but continue on with the oversized carcasses.

I think I’m down to about 2 hours per drawer carcass now that I don’t have to think too hard about what needs to be done. It’s just cutting fitting each custom piece of wood. It feels like I’ve been working on these for months and none of the actual drawers have even been built yet. Given that I have about 2 days of work into the first bank, I think I know what I’ll be doing next weekend….

Back bedroom

1. Dog cubby baseboard
2. Dog cubby outside trim
3. Figure out knee wall design — getting close
4. Knee wall door trim
5. Build/install bookcase
6. Install hangers for clothes
7. Install drawer carcasses — a couple are set in place
8. Install drawer boxes
9. Install drawer trim
10. Install baseboard
11. Trim wall to ceiling corners
12. Install conduit for ceiling fan — almost finished
13. Build new ceiling fan mount
14. Install new ceiling fan

Front bedroom

1. Paint balcony door
2. Frame knee walls
3. Trim knee walls
4. Door for closet
5. Drawers and doors for knee walls
6. Install baseboard
7. Install wall to ceiling corner trim
8. Install conduit for ceiling fan
9. Build new ceiling fan mount
10. Install new ceiling fan
11. Install grill cover for vent fan
12. Install window blind