Dec. 26th

Ceiling fan getting installed. We need to get wall built on right side of stairs so wire can be worked down to the switch box.

Wow 40 degrees today. Nice day to be up north, blue skies too. Ben tried out his pellet gun out back. Woodstove kept place very toasty.

I'm sick of posting pictures of the stairs, but we got to the last two and then they will all be installed. Need table saw to cut two risers and then we will be done.

Anyways enough steps were done that kids and dogs are going upstairs. Hank was totally freaked about being upstairs, funny since he climbs trees at the drop of a squirrel.

Hunter was sleeping next to me while I sat in chair. We built a safety rail on end and need to fill it in a bit to keep everyone from leaning over the edge. First step is a doosie.....

Dec. 18th

Mr. Hank trying out the first steps that are completely nailed down. Actually screwed and glued....
Remianing steps will be done next trip. We had to repair the center support and let it harden(gluewise) and we ran out of shims for the face risers.

We built the scaffolding back up in the living room area to install the ceiling fan next.

Need to build wall upstairs to allow for wiring to travel from crawl space to upstairs too.

Turkey day

Well weather held off and temps were in the mid-50's. We went up on Friday and slept over night. The woodstove did its job, will be really nice once the insulation gets done.





On Saturday, the stairs were assembled and screwed into place. The treads are still loose but everything else is screwed down. I ripped the risers to correct height and they are ready to go.

Next step is to glue and screw the treads down. From the measurements, it does not look good for the stove unit, it is too tall to fit in the place we need it to go. If it did not have the microwave it would be ok. Oh well Craigslist I guess.

Raked more leaves up around outside and picked up more junk to throw out. Yard should be ready to be setup for porch next year. Need to move the dog run.

november 12th

Another short day trip. Weather was nice and we ended up in the mid-50's. Took time to rake leaves out front and play with woodstove.

Anyways, the stairs had a bit of a out-of-square issue that needed to be addresed. We ended up adding a 2x4 "shim" to one side to bring the top into square. WOW really off. There was also a problem at the bottom as the floor drops off 1/4inch on one side.

Dealing with that kept the stringers from being cut which would have messed up the stairs. Everything in the picture is held together with 2 long woodscrews currently, do not walk on the steps!!!

Next trip we need to trim the risers and start the glue and screw.

Told the neighbors work crew I do not like their idea of dumping their leaves into my front yard especially since I just raked my yard. A "gran torino" moment.

stairs stairs stairs

Well October 30th was mild and clear ( for once). Woodstove really worked to get cabin into the comfortable range ( 65-70 degrees).

Our only task was the staircase, taking the trial run and adjusting our "real" 2x12's took two tries but better right then making firewood.

Pictures show the efforts made, the system of parts are tacked in place, the cutting and moving and re-marking wore me out. Know when to quit!!!! Took time to stare at it and drink a hot tea ( Earl Grey of course).

Had a really cool looking red headed woodpecker eating at the birdfeeder. And lots of squirrrels.

Next trip we will make final adjustments to the stringers and then glue and screw time. Need to setup table saw to cut the stair treads.

Oct. 23rd leaf raking day

R we there yet???



Sheesh everyone grumps about driving up north sometimes, or they are all asleep.




Fall 2011 from the front porch. Would be nice if those two buildings went away, you can see the lake but the camera doesn't show it very well.




Self portrait. Nice day at cabin, we were there by 11AM and had a good time, pizza for lunch. Temps in cabin were 40ish and within an hour had it up to 65 then to 75 with the woodstove working. Heat is definitely upstairs not worried about heating house as I was previously. hunter was snoring on couch, all tired out from walking and playing outside. Hank curled up in front of stove.

Zone electric should take care of bath and bedrooms. Really wished we could have done the insulation this year. We got the stairs template cut out. I used a scrap piece of wood for our first run, really hard to visualize the whole thing till I cut it out then it fell into place. I can see why some carpenters do not do stairs and leave it to others.


And yes, it is a tad low where we want to put the oven unit. Try not to notice that detail just yet. Or the really small closet space that will be created behind the stairs. Oh well.

October 1st- feels like November

Well every year has this day,time to shut down the cabin. Night time temps were about 33-35 degrees and someone had to stay up to keep the fire going. We camped out and did ok, burned a lot of wood though. Breakfast was a culinary delight and even the boys got a plate of eggs and bacon with side of potatoes. Hank and hunter are working on "wait" in the picture .
Ben is learning the hatchett. He has a bit to go in that department.
End of the year, flannel season will commence!!! The coathook will get installed next year as soon as we insulate the walls and such. We will still go up and play but no overnites at the cabin during the winter.

We have several projects to work on too, stairs are all stained and ready to go. That would be a big help in working on the upstairs. Electric needs to be run and in place then we insulate.

Finish the bathroom, insulate ceiling and hang drywall, install tub etc.

Plenty to do, supplies are there waiting for us to install.

Sept. 10-11

Nicer weather for sure, bring on a long fall!!!!!

We now have working lightswitches in the hall and east wall. Ignore the "curtains" they are temporary.

I also took some time to work on making sure the siding will go up as planned. Many projects in the pipeline, Finish bathroom, more electrical stuff and build stairs. Supplies on hand just add time and skill.

Labor Day- cut short

Well Labor Day was supposed to be a great time, unfortunately it was not. Weather was good, even had Emily and the mutts up to visit. I got the bathroom lights installed, ceiling fan running and started on the East wall wiring. This includes the "crawl under the house" and let's just say that we will not do that too many times.

The husky is "bear" and he was visiting while his owner was off working the weekend. The dogs had the most fun I think. We also filled a 10 yard dumpster and that took most of Friday to haul the old stuff off the pile and throw away.

Next time we will have hall lights done and the east wall will be wired. That includes the heat and outlets. We should be able to finish the insulation and begin to add the wall coverings and such to that wall.

August 27-28th Summer is fading fast

Three day "vacation" and while still warm, weather was really nice in the morning and evening. The main project was getting the flooring installed in the great room. We had 3 cases and then ended up buying three more to get the floor mostly covered, still need to work on the area around the stove and then we continue down the hall to the front door. That will take 6 feet x 20 feet of tile to complete.

Kids took this picture instead of the electrical work we worked on Sunday. Switches for hall lights, east wall and outdoors was run. We have switches to add in next time. It is possible to have hall lights, bathroom and east wall electrical outlets done on next trip. A small trip under the house will be required. Guess who gets to go?

August 13-14th- rain and no heat

We tried making raspberry pastry, kinda worked. Need better way to cook then the sandwich maker we got, the coating is peeled off and needs to go away. Cast iron only!!



Hank was all weepy on Saturday, must have been the rain. He mentioned that Hunter missed his hotdog and scraps at breakfast adn I did not share them with him.




Ben is testing out the new walls for the bathroom. Not quite private yet. We did get most of the electric installed and are ready to pop in the shower/bath tub unit. Insulation is ready for ceiling and then drywall for that.

We need sink and cabinet still. Running water part is whole nother story as someone will need to crawl under the house to hook it up.



Maria is testing the shower unit. We bought a solar shower for rinsing off after swimming.
With all the rain there was not a lot of solar to warm up the water!!!

August 6th-7th Swelter-a-thon

Hank checks out the wall and notices it was not quite square. We readjusted and he was happy to sign off on the new wall. This is the end of the bathroom and other side is maintenance room.


This is the first sheet of drywall hung in the bathroom. We insulated the wall and then hung the sheet. The tub will be installed in front of this wall .


Wow, warm summer. 92 on Saturday. I think I sweated a gallon of water each day.
Was a bit tense, but worked through it.
Our "freebie" broadband came to an end, we had to upgrade immediately Friday to a wireless cell plan. No Verizon based equipment available took a chance on the Virgin mobile ( Sprint). Once we figured out how to make it work, we got decent speeds. 500k on Saturday
, over a meg on Sunday.

Ceiling fan was on sale and we bought the unit. By time I get it installed it will be fall probably.

We defintely will add AC to the cabin. Way too hot this year.

July 10th damn it's hot

Kids had fun in hammock after using 2 gallons of water for squirt gun fight.
Here is picture of the original hole in the wall that had old window. It was covered up with OSB early on.
Finished product- 6 hours later. And it opens and closes too!!! Screen door will wait a bit, need to clean out the junk to work on that. The committee also decided to revise the rule "No AC at cabin" to "maybe some AC at cabin...."

Lot of silly tourists this week, more then July 4th it seemed.

July fourth weekend

Well July 4th was a blast weekend, even had local fireworks!!!! (iykwim)....lol

Most of the time spent in construction was laying 6 sheets of OSB on the floor joists for the loft. Hotter then the sauna back home for 3 days. We got 6 more to finish the loft flooring to go.

The picture is the "trial-run" ceiling fan to make sure the blades have plenty of clearance to the roof line. BAsically it hangs down 36 inches fromt he ceiling and can have a 52 to 66 inch total blade length. Should provide a good amount of air movement in the house. We will also have fans in the two bedrooms to help move air around, really trying to not install air conditioning.

Spent about 500 bucks on wiring and such, getting ready to run outside walls electrical so insulation can get started. Cabin needs insulation so we can work all winter and not freeze like years past.

window weekend June 19th

Amazing what can get done with a little effort. We finished all the window replacements. This picture is after finishing the upper windows ( picture order is backwards). This was the hardest to do window as it was all ladder and scaffold work and the kids wanted to see what we did up high.




Emily was in charge of pictures and only took like 10 to get this shot.




Finished product for the weekend., Ignore the scrap pile and junk, dumpster coming soon!!! All we need is the door to go in on the left side of wall and then can start siding.

The last window. Takes the boarded up look away and really helps light up the cabin. This wall will be first one sided.

Weekend of June 12th - red flannel alert!!

Well good thing we got the woodstove, had 4 fires in it over the weekend to warm up the place. Temps earlier in week were in 90's but weekend kept drifting into low 50's /40's and solid breezes off lake kept it cool. Breeze helped keep mosquitoes at bay too!!

Not much work, seems we forgot the framing square so cannot layout stair stringer without it. Installed small window in maintenace area of cabin and it has a good view of road. Took measurements for roof and to start siding outside of house.

Early Sunday coffee drinkers got to see two deer walk in and sample the bird feeder offerings.

Hank got out of the pen again, but this time rolled in something that really stank.

Memorial Day 2011

Four Days of relaxation at the cabin. Wow what a nice time. Weather was a mixed bag, cold, rain, hot, sunny. Typical Michigan I guess. We got the woodstove working and had two fires in it, one for testing, and one because it was in the upper 40's on Saturday. We also found we can cook on the top and so we made fresh rolls and heated up our brats and sausages.

Lot of work got done, not too many pictures though. The stairway was framed in and we hung 3 of the 4 sheets of drywall inside the stairway. Next is the stringers and steps up to the loft. We framed in the wall-hallway section- pretty time intensive with all the angles and such involved.

Emily helped with the tree fort and the picture shows up putting the initial flooring. Next step is rest of flooring and then the railing so kids can play on it.

Pretty mellow time.

May 7-8 weekend

SPRING has SPRUNG!!!! What a beautiful weekend we had. PERFECT weather.

Saturday we spent working on the wall layouts and tightening up the floor joists in the loft. Nothing to photo as not much changed. We are ready for walls to go up and next time we work on the place that will get done.

Sunday we switched gears and began our clubhouse project. Kids wanted a tree house to go with the swing set. This is pretty much the same as building a house project so the day was spent on that.

April updates

Well plenty of work this month, not much posting. We finished the floor joists for the loft and began the center wall that will support them. This picture is from the front door. We also got the stairway hole framed in and ready for stairs.








This picture is from the "front of the cabin" ( most people would say from the back). The area to the right will become a bedrooom soon.

little fire but fire nonetheless March 12th

Well it's still Winter up here and once again we are working on the woodstove. Today we had all the tools AND the correct seals. Got most of the pieces installed, sealed and screwed into place. Enough was assembled that we lit off a firestarter to see the flame in the stove. Small victories.

The other picture is of the best behaved character today, good ole "LC" also known as hunter. Good ole boy just wanted to sleep off his chicken skin and gristle lunch.....

And the other picture is the Hub now closed. Very sad in my opinion. Little market was so convenient and they had raisin biscuits. Oh well not everything works out as planned. Hopefully the meat market survives.

Feb. 26th

Cabin was a bracing 20 degrees when we arrived. We delivered our woodstove and made tea on the gas stove. Refilled the squirrel feeder and sat around figuring out the stove for about an hour. We need a 45 degree pipe to connect to the outdoor chimney.

No snow on the roof, the 12 inches we got missed the area I guess.

Remodelling season is getting close!!!!

Feb. 13th play in the snow

Playing in the snow this weekend. Funny how going up north causes tension headaches.... or maybe it's something else triggering them. Who knows!!!

Hank helped decorate the snowman for the kids once they finished making him. We all took a nap/lunch break while the clothes dried out on the "close line".

Snow pile was about 4 feet deep and Hank was playing king of the hill. We had about 8 squirrels at the feeder and spent a bit of time just watching them fool around on the feeder.