The weeks news. The cabin build starts
It’s been another hectic week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven.
I’m a bit late this week because of having to haul in building materials and other supplies for building a cabin, plus feeding more mouths. The building materials my son ordered last week were delivered on Wednesday. Since then, we have laid out the floor and nailed the joists and sub floor down. The original plan was for a one-story cabin with a loft for him and his wife and a bedroom on the first floor for their two kids. After some discussion, we decided to go with a New England saltbox style home, instead. This gives them more room on a second floor for both bedrooms and leaves a larger open first floor for their growing family. This increases the needed building materials, but I am waiting until we run out before having him order more so that we won’t have any extra. Though it would get used sooner or later, there’s no sense spending the money now. Better to get him settled first, then make plans for later projects.
Stiff and sore has been the order of the day since the building started. I’m not as young as I used to be, and my son has been a stay at home dad since his second son was born. His stamina isn’t there any longer, and within a few minutes, he is huffing and puffing like a steam engine pulling a heavy load of freight up a long grade. I am hoping that by the time this build is finished, he will have slimed down and have more energy. I, myself, lost forty pounds up here my first year, and my health improved greatly as a result.
We have made more trips than is usual for us up to the city this past week. In addition to our monthly trip for supplies, after the building materials were ordered for my son’s cabin, there was a trip to Habitat for Humanity searching for doors and windows, of which we did have a few good finds. We will likely be making a few more trips up as we find things we need that can’t be found locally, or as cheap, as we can find up in the city.
About three weeks ago, I purchased some old barn board from a lady in Washington. I was able to purchase half of what she was selling for $100 but the catch was I had to pull the usable boards apart from the walls. This board had apparently been slated for a building project but had wound up not being used. Since then, it had been languishing on the ground where it had been set after the barn had been taken down. We spent a couple days over the next two weeks tearing boards apart and hauling them back to our lower lot. Today, I took my son with us and we made our last trip to harvest the boards. We wound up leaving some behind because it was next to impossible to tear apart with the tools we had available to us. I believe that I now have enough to finish at least the kitchen ceiling and possibly enough to finish the living room ceiling. We shall see.
While I was looking in the Marketplace on Facebook last night, I came across the antique stove that I had originally had in mind for my kitchen. It looked in good condition and was in a price range that I could afford. We decided to go take a look at it today on our way to get the rest of the barn board. We wound up bringing it home with us. It is a Detroit Jewel gas stove with an oven and broiler on one side and the burners and warming drawer on the other. There are a few minor issues to fix, but overall, it is in great shape. It even has the right colors to match the kitchen décor! I have decided to place the antique stove I brought up from Florida for sale online.
Rain has hindered building, but I don’t mind. The alternative is a tinder-dry forest and a risk of fires, which nobody up here wants. So, we work around the rain. It will take longer to build, but I am sure things will be tight by first snow. The rain has helped me get started on a few of my indoor projects I need to finish before winter, such as getting another coat of polyurethane on the living room walls. Next, I plan to complete the front wall of the kitchen which has been left unfinished since I added it on several years ago. I had to fix the shoddy roof the past owner and builder put up on the main cabin before I could complete the wall because rain and snowmelt leaked into the front wall and ceiling of the kitchen. Now that the roof is tight, I can finally finish it and move in my antique cook stove, getting rid of the stove that came out of Casa Del 5th wheel what seems like ages ago. It’s nice to see things moving forward.
The lovely wife is now on summer break, which means I haven’t been going into town as early as I would otherwise, and therefore, haven’t seen any of the old loggers. I will have to try to get down there soon and catch up on any local news.
With more traffic on the mountain, moose seem to have been steering clear of this side. Normally, we would have seen a few with new born calves by now, but as of this writing, we haven’t. Other wildlife has been scarce as well, and I can only surmise it’s because of all the activity going on.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
