Dutch Door

Ray mentioned the door he installed this weekend in his last post. I wanted to add a few more notes about this door's history. The house my mom and aunt grew up in was unfortunately demolished recently to make way for yet another McMansion. My aunt visited the house one last time before it was torn down and the current owners asked her if she wanted any keepsakes before it was gone. My aunt rescued this dutch door, which was originally installed by her father in 1948. She gave it to us and it lived in our garage for well over a year in the hopes that we'd be able to use it in the cabin. I know it was not easy and I am so grateful to Ray for doing the extra work necessary to make this door work.

Coming up Next

Yesterday I drove up to CF to plug away at the doors and windows for a couple of hours. We have a dutch door that we've been planning to use for the back door leading out to the porch and, after four tedious hours, it is finally installed. It even opens and shuts! It occurred to me that at this point we can actually close the doors on the cabin, and even *gasp* leave the dog at home while we go out! Maybe we'll finally be able to go to a nice supper club on a lake...

I also got two windows installed, which is less that I wanted to get installed, but more than we had at the beginning of the day, so progress is progress.

These are preparations for the next big step in this building process - putting in the wiring. My dad and uncle are coming up in September to bring some modern conveniences to this old shack of ours. I picked up the electrical permit from the village president on my way out of town so we are clear for take off. Well, after we install just 5 more windows, then we'll be clear for take off. Oh, and build our interior partition walls, then we'll be clear for take off....

Let's Build Some Walls!, Part II

Last weekend I persuaded my friend Pete to spend the weekend with me sweating in the woods hauling around heavy things instead of tending to his family. I am very grateful to have had the help.

Having fallen short of the previous goal of having all of the walls buttoned up, the Tyvec wrapped around the outside walls, and the doors and windows installed, we set out on a Saturday morning trying to do just that.

First stop, more plywood. In this picture we have made some progress and filled in some (but not all) of the open spots on the front:

I got tired of putting up the plywood (which only one person can do, after a certain point), and Pete helped me unroll the house wrap and get our first layer going:

If you look closely, you can see that the "door hole" is now a "doorway"!

I went back to nailing plywood while Pete took over installing the front door. Late in the day it was pretty clear that we weren't going to get all the windows in, but I was happy to at least be able to close the door when we were ready to leave.

Getting the house wrap on all the way to the top was challenging, because again, our ladder doesn't go all the way to the top. I ended up climbing onto the roof and reaching around the eaves, trying to hold the material against the wall and wildly smashing it with the stapler, hoping that the end result would be... ok. Here I am at the top:

let's zoom out a little...

We'll file that under "good enough". Notice how wrinkly the top piece is compared to the relatively smooth and flat layers further down.


Oh well. When we install the siding, we'll have to do a better job setting up some kind of scaffolding to do the upper part of the wall. (I don't think we will be able to install the siding from a ladder). We can use that to do a better job on the wrap, and maybe nail down the plywood a little better before we call it "done". but until then, I think we can call this building "weatherized"!

While I was finishing that, Pete came up to the roof to take some pictures, and monkey around. This isn't a zoo, you monkey! Get off the roof!

While I wish we could have done all the work from the ground and/or ladder, if we have to go on the roof, we can at least pause appreciate the view!

And lastly, in the previous post, we started out mentioning that the roof was completely shingled, so here is a nice wide shot of the roof from the top. Do people appreciate a neatly shingled roof? I sure do. I especially appreciate not having to do it personally. I should add that the roofers did this during one of those 110 degree heat index weeks. It seems like they really didn't want to do the job on account of the weather, but in the end it's hard to turn down a paycheck. And for that, we thank them.

Darn near a cabin...

Well the rumors have been confirmed, there is indeed a roof! Before I jump right into the very latest it looks like we have some catching up to do. Apparently it's been exactly 1 month since we posted any new pictures. tsk tsk. Let's review the progress.

Setting the trusses in place was only part one of the job. After I left the other guys came back the following week and nailed on the plywood decking for the roof. Here is a picture of where they left it:


Looking pretty good, eh? having the plywood down goes a long way to making it look like an actual building, even more so than the trusses alone. I somehow got the idea that the plywood decking would help keep water off the floor in the event that it rained, but I was sorely mistaken. It did rain during our next visit, and the water from the roof just pooled and poured in at the edges of the plywood, thoroughly soaking the floor and everything on it. Nothing new though.

This picture shows the temporary scaffolding that the carpenters rigged up while putting on the plywood decking:


It's these kinds of "tricks of the trade" that we really don't know and couldn't know that let the pros finish so much faster. That and having all of the best tools.

We started out this visit with grand plans to finish putting on the sheathing on the exterior walls, wrapping the walls with the required vapor barrier (to keep moisture out of the walls), and install all the doors and windows. My sister met us there for the weekend and to the delight of everyone spent a lot of time with the boys, taking them swimming, to movies, and doing whatever else they could think of! We were thinking that this would give us plenty of time to finish our goals. Again, we were mistaken.

As it turns out, getting sheets of plywood 20-30 feet up in the air and nailed onto a wall is harder than it sounds.



I managed to complete the first couple of rows (above what we could reach from the ground) by sliding full sheets up the ladder, popping them into place and holding them up with one hand while hammering with the other. That was a pretty good system but we started to run into a problem. Our extension ladder apparently isn't tall enough to get all the way to the peak, and when standing near the top rung with the ladder fully extended, I couldn't get the plywood up into position without that terrible sickening feeling that everything was about to come crashing down (self included). We took a break to think and devised a method of hoisting the plywood up to upper regions using a c-clamp and some rope looped over the trusses like a makeshift pulley. I wish we'd thought of that earlier! This let us get the last two pieces up without so much ladder anxiety. This left just one little hole at the top. One little, impossible to get, nerve wracking hole.


In the end, we were able to close up the hole by bringing the extension ladder inside and setting it up against the wall (it does go to the peak when the feet are on the floor). We ran our rope through the hole and hoisting the piece up from the outside. We pulled it into position and then screwed it to the studs from the inside. I'm pretty sure that's not how the pros would do it, but the pros probably would not be attempting this with just a ladder and a rope.

End of the weekend, one wall done:

We Have a Roof

That's what the rumors are, anyway. It may be the the last thing we hire someone for, but getting someone else to do all the roofing was probably a very good idea in the long run. We haven't seen it yet, but I'll be going up to CF this weekend to check it out and will come back with pictures!

We also wanted them to finish up some of the wall sheathing (especially in the super high parts), but for some reason we couldn't get anyone to actually commit to doing it. I always think that if you can pay someone to work then they will be happy to, but it doesn't seem to work that way... At any rate, Pete and I are heading north this weekend to finish that part, hopefully completing the "weatherizing" by putting the vapor barrier all the way around, and also installing the windows and doors! Windows and doors might be a stretch, but we'll see.

Musical Theater Hits a New Low

I try to keep non Camp Freedom posts off the blog, but this was just too important. My sister just passed this tidbit of information on to me. For all of us who have spent way too many hours trying to figure out just what a "Foot-Foot" is, this is for you...

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/theater/reviews/the-shaggs-philosophy-of-the-world-at-playwrights-horizons.html

Yeah, doin' it.

Truss Day

If you're like me, you've been lying awake at night wondering what the cabin will look like when the trusses go up. Last Saturday the trusses finally started moving into position:

This is what it looks like from the inside with about 5 trusses up. In order to get them up, they are lifted over the wall at the far end, slid along the top, and then the peak points down while everyone gets into position, ready to swing it 20 feet in the other direction.

The key to making this a success is the skid loader that the contractor brought. We place the trusses in the middle of the fork, and lift it up high enough to grab it from the top of the wall.

The last one was the hardest. We ran out of room to push them up from the inside with the big pusher stick, so we had to make a longer pusher stick, about 30 feet long, and lift the last truss straight up in the air as high as we could, and then just pick it up and place it on the edge of the wall.

The last truss is in place:

The view from the inside:

The view from the woods: