More Cabin Time

We've made several trips down to the cabin lately and each one results in so much progress.  Last time we were down there the goal was to get the extension under roof, which promptly became impossible when the generator started leaking gas.  With a fixed generator and a few extra pairs of hands, we set off a couple weekends ago to give the roof another go.

Mom looking anxiously towards the open roof.

First roof joist is up (but not attached)

Steve working hard.

It was flipping cold that weekend and with no electricity, Allie and I spent a good deal of the day huddling around the kerosene heater trying to stay warm.

Allie spent a lot of time playing this iPod game, so much so that it killed the battery.

Thankfully, I brought my awesome hat, which proceeded to keep me much warmer than I thought possible. A small tree was leaning into the roof space so the sawzall and I became good friends hacking it down.

There's even a tiny pile of wood for a future bonfire!

When they put up the barn siding last time, they covered the windows and door, so Steve had to cut openings for all of them.

Yay for extra help!

Another roof joist waiting to go up.

After a lot of work, we (the guys) were making great progress on the roof.  We only had to go to the hardware store once for more plywood.  I was all over that trip because it involved a heated car and it was awesome.  I almost didn't get out of the car after that.

Cookie break!

OH NO looks like someone lost a head.

They even got the tar paper stuff down on the roof before it was time to go.

If everything had gone as planned, we would have gotten the door and the windows in too before leaving for the weekend, but as we're all learning, nothing goes as planned when it comes to this little project.  It turns out that none of the windows actually fit in the window holes, which is a wee bit embarrassing, but not unfixable.  All of the windows are going to have to be a smidge taller by redoing the supports under the windows.  However, that is a project for another day, and we ended by covering all of the window and door holes with plastic sheeting to keep out the elements.

I wish that was the end of the adventure, but alas it wasn't.  We had an outrageously long trip back because we had to stop numerous times for Allie to get sick.  Turns out she had some kind of 24 stomach bug that decided to hit as soon as we got in the car.

Cabin Part Deux

After a fun filled and slightly disappointing morning at the cabin, we moved on to bigger and better projects.

Like holding up posts!  I'm not really holding it up, these are the posts for the new deck.  So far there isn't anything beyond the posts, but with winter approaching a real roof has higher priority.

(Photo by Allie, who's got a lovely little blog with a great name, if only she updated more!) 

Allie went all artsy and took pictures of powertools, and dang she makes powertools look pretty.

This is mom's new (to her) cast iron claw foot bathtub.  It's sitting in the back yard until the bathroom extension is done, which makes sense right tubs in the yard in southeastern Ohio.

Relaxing in the hammock left by the last owners.  Great for one person, a hazard for two let me tell you! 

And look, Allie back to sleep in the car. 

Mom sitting and lamenting her broken generator.  She really wanted to get the roof up.

 

When you've got a meadow the size of a football field (or bigger) you need some serious power to get it mowed, especially when it's approaching three feet high.  Mom's tractor is just the tool, although it was a bit funny to watch her learn how to drive it!

Having the tractor sit open in the field is what inspired the afternoon part of the project, a Garage in a box.  She needed a decent way to store it so that it was better covered and less visible to someone wandering through.

So we worked and worked on getting all the pieces together in almost the right places. (Photo by Allie)

About 2/3 through I just had to lay down and lounge in the sun.  It had finally warmed up in the afternoon, and after a morning of three layers, being warm was glorious.  This winter is positively going to freeze me; there's no way I'm going to get used to being so cold here. (Photo by Allie)

Progress the roof frame is getting higher off the ground. (Photo by Allie)

And there was plenty of time for goofing around. 

And funny faces. 

It took a lot longer than expected, nearly 3 or 4 hours to get the whole thing together, but that's mostly because there was a lot of putting together to take apart, and we weren't even making mistakes!  There's still one more to put up but there just wasn't enough daylight to get them both done in one day. 

This was my trip down.  A great book, and some serious heartburn.  Lisa See has written a bunch of other books that I look forward to exploring in the future.

By 7pm it was time for dinner, which closely resembled lunch but with more chicken (not for me).

Steve likes chicken.

And Allie does too, at least she did before she started working at Chick-fil-a.

After dinner we packed everything up, including the generator and drove back home.  Thankfully, I didn't ride with the generator, but I heard that it was gaseous.  They drove with the windows down the entire way home.

So that was our weekend at the cabin.  It looks like we'll have several more before it gets too cold to work.

Weekend Cabin + More Camera Time

Back in March, for my mom's birthday, they found a little cabin on a lot of land down in southeast Ohio and have spent the spring and summer getting it fixed up and enjoying the quiet solitude of the wilderness.  The whole thing is pretty rudimentary at this point as it doesn't have any utilities or running water, but mom's had fun learning about creative technologies to get these things hooked up eventually.

Last weekend we drove down and spent the day working on the extension their building.  It's going to be a bedroom and a bathroom, since the only bedroom right now is in the loft.

With an early start (we left around 6 am) a tasty portable breakfast was totally necessary.  While they weren't my homemade apple turnovers, they were still delicious.  If you couldn't tell, I once again got to drool over Allie's Canon Rebel T2i like I did a few weeks ago.

This might be one of my favorite pictures ever.

No cabin is complete without some creepy crawly bugs, and the crickets were all over.  You couldn't walk through the meadow without disturbing them with each step.

This bug was huge.  I don't know what it was, but it's size was pretty impressive. 

This is the progress they'd made in the previous weeks.  The subfloor and framing were all done and we were hoping to get the roof up and get the rest of the barn siding up. 

Having some fun! 

Allie didn't last long, she ended up like this by about 10am where she stayed until we woke her up for lunch. In her defense, she now works two jobs along with college full time and extracurriculars, so slack was cut.

Dad and Steve were working on securing one of the corners which hadn't been fully secured when they did the framing. 

What a cutie! 

Pneumatic nail gun!  Since we don't have electricity, we had a big generator to run some of the power tools. Steve really enjoyed working with the nail gun.

Mom watches hopefully; this is her retirement getaway, and she's been enjoying it thoroughly.

Dad got a turn with the nail gun too! 

Unfortunately after running only one line of nails, something went terribly wrong with the generator.  It was leaking gasoline and both Steve and dad couldn't figure out where or how to get it fixed.  That put a big damper on our plans since most of the power tools run from the generator.

So we switched to putting up the barn siding. 

Making faces! 

Despite the appearance, I did actually help.  I really like drills and got to help put up the siding and work on another project, which we'll share more about tomorrow.