Kitchen begins!!!!????

Memorial Day weekend, started working on the "kitchen". WHAT???? Don't we have enough going on to start one more big thing??? HA.....

Actually, Home Depot had 2 cabinets marked down and they were in the style I wanted for the kitchen. So I worked a deal and could not pass it up. What we have in the picture is the part where the cooktop will be installed. To the left of the wall cabinet will be an 18 inch "drawer" cabinet and then the sink base.I might add one more cabinet to the line here depends on walkway room. Also put down 2 more cases of flooring, should be 8 cases to go till we got the main floor covered. Certainly is easier to sweep the tile vesrsus the wood floor.

Still working on the water pump, stupid things.... grrrr.

Sunday was supposed to be "hot and in 90's" turns out we had all day rain till 4 when we left.

BRRRR!!!! Feels like February

Went up on Friday looking to work on the bathroom, Friday was rainy, dreary and cold. Yucky weather. Totally depressing. We burned a ton of wood to get house warmed up enough to want to even stay over. Saturday we made egg/cheese sandwiches and had a headache moving in so we worked on easier projects. Installed first wall upstairs to help frame in the bedroom.

We also ran electrical wires for the ceiling lights upstairs. Should be able to prep for insulating the roof next month. We have a couple of outlet boxes to install but that will not take long to complete. We purchased a new crimper for the pex pipes and should have what we need to run water lines in the bathroom.

The boys were all helping me get stuff done, as long as I was rubbing their ears!!

April 14th- crawling in the bathroom

Weekend of FUN!!! Hooked up the drain on the bathtub. Set new record for trips to hardware store (5) plus Home Depot.

Not sure how I will get under the backpart of the bathroom to hookup sink and kitchen drain yet. Pretty tight fit.

Once done we looked at the door frame as another request for privacy was made by the wee one. And lookee there, it doesn't fit!!! Not only the rough opening but the door will swing into the tub. YIKES! What happened?

Long story short we moved the wall 6 inches out to make it "fit". Only thing I can think is the plans were for a 28 inch tub and a 30 inch door. we have a 32 inch door and a 30 inch tub.

Destroyed the 10 foot drywall around door as we tried to remove it. What a mess. We got wall moved, looks fairly straight and ready for new drywall.

Bathroom is now the quest so we will be beating up the plumbing next couple trips.

We did have some fun, took dogs and kids for walk, hit Subway for a poorly made sub and then walked to the beach park. Hunter was first to go swimming and then Hank jumped in as well.

Sunday was grey and rainy, no motivation to do much. Read about 100 pages in my cabin book and laid around.

April 7th Easter weekend

Well last weekend our trip got cancelled  due to stomach issues, flu,rotovirus, whatever it was we were not doing much but hanging on. Good Friday drove up and crashed at the G'parents so kids could visit. Saturday morning got to place around 6:30, built a fire in stove and put the coffee on to brew. Had breakfast at the "log cabin place" and they asked where the kids were.....people starting to recognize us.

Anyways we worked on drilling out the major holes for the upstairs wall and was able to get the stair light circuit and the fan circuit run. Broke 2 drill bits doing the holes. While the battery was charging for the drywall cutter we also worked on hanging the insulation and drywall in the bathroom. Got that hung then started working on the tub. Ran the lines to the "solar shower" tank and got them in place, just need a tank and a "solar thingee" to make the water hot now.

Outside wall REALLY leans out , tub surround will need a large shimout to make it stable and straight. More custom work!

March 18 " Let's go swimming?"

Holy smokes...... where did winter go? Just 2 weeks ago we were snowed in and this week kids are running around in 80 degree weather wanting to go to the beach!!!!

We even slept with windows open last night. Crazy stuff. Saturday was ok, waaaaay tooooo tired to do much, we hit the stores and had lunch at G's, but rest of day was spent in slumber, slow motion. We all slept in on Sunday, wake me up at 7am, rush to get to church and all. Made our first camp breakfast and had eggs with sausages. Cinnamon rolls for snack.

Hauled 6 tarploads to the back woods, kids earned 5 bucks helping to rake the side yard. Also installed 3 sheets of blue board and finished the trim out for the rest of the north wall. This will probably be the first wall we side with the cement board. Swept out the cabin and cleaned up all the winter mess. Dumped out the ashes in the stove.

This picture is my leg in shorts in March at the cabin.

The raking crew. We need 4 more sheets of blue board to finish this wall.

Hey it's still winter up here!!!

Weather reports were deceiving, night time temps were expected to be 28-30 degrees, high enough that we can camp out without too much difficulty from cold temps. The actual weather though was a good storm that brought about 6 to 10 inches of new snow to the HL area. Grayling got 13 inches and Gaylord reported up to 17 inches of snow. We were driving up and just north of Harrison road conditions really switched , one moment wet roads from constant rain then the next a good covering of slush. By the time we hit exit 189 it was snow pack.

These pictures are from the morning after. We left snow pants and such home ( who needs snow clothes when Spring is just around the corner??) Power outages were common, we missed the tree falling on our power by about 4 cabins so we had electric.

Going home on Saturday the roads were mostly plowed but COLD temps were coming and we left a little early to make sure we had good driving and no ice slicks. Not much work done, we played in the snow, made lunch and such. Took time to enjoy the place. The kids are getting good at hitting targets with the bb gun.

Dogs are looking for the ball, it sank into the snow and Hunter is digging it out. Snow was at least 24 inches deep and dogs were not running away today!! We dugout the driveway to get into the drive on Friday night but paid to have it plowed out so when it froze it was cleaned out if it doesn't melt by the time we get up again.

Feb. 18th

Futon moved to loft "where it's warmer" in Winter. The mutts need a doghouse for the cold, they were troopers while we went to the store and eat lunch.




Hung some drywall on stairway wall. Noticed we goofed on the electric wiring and need to get it buried in the wall.

Another decent day weatherwise, we got there bout noon and got a fire started to warm up the house. The breeze off the lake pretty much killed any wild ideas of hanging the blue insulation outdoors. I keep forgetting it is winter in Michigan. Ben wanted to shoot his bb gun but I didn't want to stay outside so we set up the targets upstairs. He shoots high and to the left, need to work on that.