Scary Cabin

The weekend started with hooking up the trailer in preparation for a run to the dump. The pile of construction debris was getting a bit out of hand (well the mice seemed happy with it…). We’d been saving the old kitchen cabinets with the idea that they may prove useful or a the very least, may be donated to Habitat for Humanity. But they were taking up a lot of space in the shed and they’re not modular. So we made the decision to use what we could and dispose of the rest. We saved one upper and half of a lower. These were mounted in the shed to provide some much needed organized storage. The rest were loaded in to the trailer along with the debris pile and hauled off to the dump.

While we had the trailer hooked up it made sense to haul off some of the yard waste too. A month or so back, there was some pretty good wind that knocked a lot of branches out the trees. That along with leaves, pine cones, and pine needles makes for a lot of yard waste. Merry Mountain has an area set aside for dumping yard waste which is very convenient. So we did some additional raking and ended up with a trailer full of yard waste. Even with the help of Genny’s folks and our friend Ben, this yard cleanup activity took most of the day. Once it was done we were all ready for Barbara’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The after dinner activity was trimming out a couple of windows.

Sunday was spent cleaning and organizing the utility room. A lot of stuff in there was moved out to the shed where Larry worked some magic and organized it. This frees up space for the tools since we want to finish off the bedroom where we currently store a lot the larger tools.

Bob almost finished up the stairway trim. We’re building, from scratch, all the trim and support for a new railing where previously there was just a partial wall. One of the caps turned out a bit crooked and will need to be re-done, but it’s ready for a railing now. Now we need to learn how to make a stair rail with spindles. Genny did a lot of trim painting and we finished trimming out the windows in the living area.

We did make an attempt to remove the paint lines on the pine ceiling in the living area. The previous owner had installed round-over molding between the beams and the ceiling and when painting them, didn’t try too hard to not get paint on the ceiling. We’ve removed the molding and it does look better without it, but we now have these paint lines on the ceiling. We tried acetone and mineral spirits, neither did much so it’s on to more aggressive chemicals.

This weekend was about details. Nothing really big was accomplished but a lot of little items were either finished or started. For example, we finally got around to installing the toe kick trim in the kitchen and bathroom. The bedroom door now has a door handle. The final piece of baseboard was installed in the bathroom. We managed to get three windows fully trimmed before running out of trim boards.

Genny spent a lot of time painting trim board and filling holes in the ceiling beams. The beams are now one step closer to getting painted.

Bob spent a lot of time on the stair rail base. For some reason the angles needed for most of the railing base are ~41 ° It still needs the top piece and a bit more work before it’s finished but it is starting to looked finished.

On a side note, we may have finally figured out the remote for the fireplace. It actually ran for 12 hours holding a constant temperature. The key may be that you have to set the mode only when the fireplace is in standby. If you switch modes while it has flames, it seems to behave somewhat randomly. When it’s cold, the first thing we do is turn it on maximum. So if after turning it on, we then put it in standby and then set the mode, maybe it will work. We still need some time to experiment with it.

The downstairs bedroom is painted! Genny primed the entire room and then painted the ceiling with Martha Stewart Teacup. Bob finished up by painting the walls Martha Stewart Iced Latte. Those two colors are being used throughout the cabin to keep the color palette clean and simple. Genny also painted some doors, three of them. With the bedroom painted, other work can commence. We replaced the chandelier with a nice ceiling light so maybe now it won’t be mistaken for a dinning room. Also replaced a couple of the old electrical outlets.

Bob finished up the fireplace tile surround. All that was left after last weekend was the small bits on the sides. Of course every piece needed to be cut (and cut multiple times) to get the right fit. But the results made it worthwhile. It really is the centerpiece of the room now.

It was a rare 3 day weekend with President’s day falling on the Monday after Valentines day. So to celebrate, we spent the weekend at the cabin. We made dinner reservations at One Eye’d Jacks, the only local restaurant and had a nice prime rib dinner. This is what cabin life should be like!

However, it wasn’t all fancy dinners and roses. We did manage to get quite a bit accomplished. Genny’s folks came up too so between the 4 of us we were able to knock out a few projects.

Genny’s dad took on the back-breaking task of digging a hole for the new doggie septic system. We installed on last year, but it hasn’t worked very well and is now full (yeah, don’t try to picture that in your mind). The new one is larger and of a different design and, so far, it seems to be working better.

We continued to work on the downstairs bedroom. Genny finished painting the pocket door and we hung that up. We also installed the main bedroom door, but that’s as far as we got with it. It still needs to be painted and have the door hardware installed. If you look at the original state of the room, you’ll notice that it had wainscoting. Above the wainscoting the wall (and ceiling) were “textured”. I’m not sure what you’d call it, but looked like someone has splashed texture on as opposed to what you normally see today. However, it was the only room that wasn’t paneled. At first we tried a bit of sanding to see if we could smooth out the texture, but that wasn’t working. Whatever pain was over the texture made it nearly impossible to sand. We ended up doing a couple of skim coats of joint compound over it. Skim, sand, repeat. That made the walls and ceiling acceptable for some real texture. After sealing up the room, we sprayed it with the knock down texture. It’s now ready for paint.

The fireplace got some love while waiting for the joint compound to dry. We laid out all of the slate tiles in what we thought would be a good pattern. We then started attaching them to the front, working from the bottom up. One thing we didn’t account for was the large gap at the top of the metal surround. After aligning the tiles and getting ones that fit behind the surround we stuck them up there only to realize that the weight caused them to slide down into that gap. With some cardboard wedges and tightening up of the surround, we were able to get it to hold until the mastic set up. The tile work isn’t done, but even with just the front and part of one side, it really changes the look of the fireplace for the better. Genny made a great choice with that slate tile.

In addition, Larry and Barbara pulled down all the half round moldings between around the beams on the ceiling of the living area. It actually looks better with no molding at all so hopefully we can get that all cleaned up and not have to put any molding back up there.

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….