Scary Cabin

After a couple of weeks hiatus, we spent black Friday and Saturday getting quite a bit done. We were joined by Barbara and Larry. This is the first time they’ve seen the place since we finished the walls in the living area.

Over the past couple of weeks, Bob has been building a fireplace mantel. Originally we were thinking of using a slab of something as the mantel but the cost and availability of nice slabs of wood and the need to have something in place before installing the stone around the fireplace dictated something a bit quicker. We brought up the in-progress walnut mantel for a test fit. After some trimming it fit quite well and really snug. We were able to leave it just press fit on the wall for a couple of hours. It’s now back home for final assembly and finish.

In addition to the mantel, we brought up wood for the inside window trim and shelving for the pantry. The pantry shelving is Rubbermaid FastTrack. This system uses a rail with uprights that hang from the rail, shelf brackets and wire mesh shelves. Lowes was able to cut the shelves to the size we needed. The rails are supposed to be attached to a minimum of 3 studs. First problem, the one wall only has one stud in the middle (it’s only 31” wide) and it doesn’t line up with any of the holes in the rail. The hardware kit came with sheet rock anchors, let’s try those! Well, one of the 4 seemed to work. One broke off in the wall, two pulled through the sheet rock. This is not a good start. Plan B, dill new holes in the rail and try and hit the studs in the corner and get use 3 screws in 3 studs. Yeah for plan B.

For the second rail on the other wall we just drilled new holes in the rail to line up with the studs and boom, second rail installed. next step, hang the uprights on the rails and it looks like they need to be attached to the wall too. For the second rail, we can line up the uprights with the studs and made quick work of those. For the other wall, the one with only a single stud in the middle, we’re back to using the sheet rock anchors. Here we have better luck and they seem to hold. Installing the shelves should be easy, right? Nope, you need to get everything lined up just right and apply the right amount pressure down and back to get the shelves to snap into the brackets. After getting 2 shelves installed, we called it for the night. The following day Larry spent a couple of hours getting the remaining 8 shelves installed. I think the “fast” in FastTrack refers to how quickly you become frustrated, it certainly isn’t for how fast you can get them installed!

The inside window trim went pretty well. I had ripped all the pieces on the table saw at home so we only needed to cut them to length and cut out the notches in the stoops. Only issue was that we ran out of wood and couldn’t finish one window. Most of the wood was bare douglas fir so Genny then spent some time putting a coat of primer on all the pieces. Next time we’ll paint and install them.

The last project was to finish framing out the built-in bookcase. That was done and a plywood back was installed.

So a fair amount accomplished given that we were only there for about 24 hours.

This will likely be the last update this year.

This weekend was all about painting. Last weekend we managed to get farther than anticipated by finishing the primer coat. Saturday morning started off with an Iced Latte… paint. That’s the wall color. Starting with the kitchen wall since that’s semi-gloss, we then moved on the bulk of the living room using eggshell. To top it off we finished off the kitchen ceiling with teacup white to cover the areas that got a bit texture.

With the painting finished, we moved on to cleaning everything up. All the plastic drop cloths on the ceiling and floor were held in place with staples. That mean ripping out the plastic, then going around the room with a small screwdriver and pliers to pull out the (what seemed like hundreds) of staples.

With the living room cleaned up and freshly painted, we moved on to a few other small tasks.

The kitchen door casing was cut and installed.

We planted two trees. A small Japanese Maple and a small Sugar Maple.

Did some additional framing on the built-in bookcase. There’s still a bit more framing to do then we can start adding the back/sides/top/bottom and make it look like a bookcase.

We also took a lot of measurements for things like the window casings, fireplace mantel, fireplace brick, pantry shelves. Lots of little projects to keep us busy over the winter.

To see the photos from this weekend check out the Living Room, Kitchen, and Outside categories.

We covered up everything in the living room and sprayed wall texture. This stuff is messy so we made sure everything that we didn’t want spray texture on was covered up. It was like working in a plastic cocoon. Later, as the texture dried out, it was raining texture. Since the ceiling was covered with plastic, the bits of texture would come unstuck from the plastic and fall as it dried.

Once the texture was dry, we put a coat of the primer on the walls.

This is a bit of a turning point in the build. Pulling down the plastic and uncovering the windows is a bit like opening a present on Christmas day. We get our first glimpse of what the room will look like finished.

With drywall hung on the living room walls, it’s time to prepare them for texture. Prepping the drywall for texture is time consuming! Seems like every time we fix one area we find more (or make more) that need to be fixed. The sanding, re-coating with joint compound, wait 24 hours, repeat cycle makes this one of the most tedious parts of the remodel.

Our skill at taping the joints leaves something to be desired so that isn’t helping. We’re doing something wrong because we’re getting a lot of bubbles in the tape. [edit: poor technique it turns out].

After a few days of this we decide it’s good enough to move on.

Finished up the drywall around the fireplace. Now that we have drywall up in the living area it looks way different. The transformation has been slow but it looks and feels so much better now. After having problems getting accurate electrical box cutouts in the drywall when doing the bathroom, we tried something different in the living area. We bought a Blind Mark kit from Calculated Industries. You stick the magnet doohickey in the electrical box, hang your drywall, then use the other magnet doohickey as a template to mark where the box is. The opening for the box is then cut perfectly. The only real downside is that you have to remove the outlets/switches to fit the magnet doohickey in the box. But it does work as advertised. We’re starting to work on the new drywall, taping and mudding the joints and screw holes.

Having new insulation in the walls makes it noticeably more quite and helps regulate the temperature. We’re betting on the windows and insulation to keep the inside comfortable in both the winter and summer.

The downstairs bedroom got some love. We insulated the outside wall and what we could of the wall between it and the utility room. new drywall was hung here as well.

To continue our quest to make the cabin efficient, we replaced the recessed light for the bottom of the stairway with an LED version.

Genny’s friend’s grandma was moving out of her house in Pville and needed to git rid of the washer and dryer so they were offered to us. Since we want a washer and dryer in the utility room eventually, this was a pretty good deal. We just needed to bring the trailer down and go pick them up, which we did. This meant we also needed to clean up the utility room so that we could fit a washer and dryer in there. With the two appliances in there, the room seems a lot smaller.