I celebrated with friends over whiskey, cheap beer, and a rousing game of wiffle ball. It was a 6 to 6 tie. The game lasted 3 innings til it got too dark to play anymore. I also managed to pick up the first tick of the season. As I was sitting here typing I felt that familiar crawling feeling. I figured it was too early but a few warm days is all it takes for those buggers to wake up and start crawling around.
Spring is here.
So not a lot to post an update about the progress is pretty boring at this point. Pretty much once you see some drywall tape, and a few taped joints they all sort of look the same.
But we are slowly making progress. The house is really humid and the premix joint compound is taking forever to dry. Going on three days for the stuff that we started with. We are also struggling with the way the drywall in the cabin was installed before we bought it. The never taped it and I can see why. They must have bought 12 foot sheets and installed them vertically, then cut the tops off and used the pieces all over the place. It is a mess. Factory seams against butt pieces, vertical and horizontal seams overlapping. So rather than taking it all down, we are just taping, a lot! There is most of a 5 gal pail of mud up so far, and over 300′ in tape and I still have the ceiling and some wall seams to do. I am going to get pretty good at feathering or we are going to have to sand a lot.
We also have the shower panels glued up and caulked. I need to get a finished picture of that up here. But I have a few more small pieces to put up after I figure out the shelf for the shower bucket. Anyways, that is about it, just working away on it pretty much every night. Enjoying some Brewers wins to keep me entertained.
We finished the bathroom drywall!!!!
Had a little fun goofing off, with the new GoPro Camera. I set up a time lapse to take a photo every 60 seconds. I lost some after the battery died at the end. I am really not happy with these batteries I hope they get better after a couple full charges and discharges. An hour in time lapse mode seems really low. Good thing I got 3 of them. They also take forever to charge even in the wall wart.
It was a pretty big weekend around the cabin. A lot of small project areas are getting finished up and the place is really starting to look good. Drywall creates a very nice sense of completeness. I know that there is still a lot more work to do but my mind is pleased with how the spaces are now clearly defined. You can no longer see through the walls and the final shapes are starting to take form.
Wide view of shower
Big beautiful sheets of drywall
The wall we built between bedroom and living room.
Another wall shot
More wall.
Beardos at work here, move along.
Hot ladys can do drywall.
My brain has been really occupied with some of the more exciting details of the finishing process. We are planning on putting a small, 15″ wide shelf or counter in the bathroom for a sink basin, and place to hold toothbrushes and whatnot. I came across some pretty cool ideas on the interwebs for using black pipe to make shelves and tables. Here is one example, and I really like the design and industrial style of it, so this is how I am going to build the sink, towel bars and storage shelves in the bathroom. Might even do a TP holder out of it too.
Also a link to my pinterist for this design styles/
Took a run into Ashland, got a speeding ticket. Bought groceries, had lunch at Pizza pub. Worked on the house. Sheetrock is getting hung.
More Wife action.
Working hard.
I had a pretty great night at the cabin, I started off by finishing up the garage door track that I started the night before. I will seriously never look at another garage door with a passing glance. These things are hard to install. I am sure some of that is due to the fact I have never done one before but, they are pretty nuts to install, and this one does not have an opener. The 10-12 hour time frame for installation is pretty darn accurate.
Garage Door Track, even installed the warning.
I shot a little video of the door if you want to see that.
I also got the knob installed in the door. High security here folks.
Shed door knob
Shed door knob
At that point it started getting dark so I put some $$$$ beer in the snow fridge.
Mountain Crest Motivation
And headed inside to wire up the bathroom.
Fancy “Antique” Brass Finish wall sconce.
And Install the other catdoor, into the bedroom.
Bedroom cat door.
Bathroom Switch
Sawdust box.
Last night I spent a couple hours at the cabin working on some more bathroom stuff. I framed some more and cut a bunch of plywood. 3/4″ is total overkill but I had some left from the shower sub-floor. So I cut the platform for the toilet seat and framed the sawdust box.
Humanure toilet frame.
Also finished up the shed roof. I need 3 more shingles to finish the roof cap. I also need to finish the door but that should be done this weekend. This will be the first major achievement at the cabin.
Shed Roof,
I chose to spend my Friday half day with the wife and make run to Duluth for some building supplies we couldn’t get at the local hardware store. Picked up a bunch of stuff including the shower pan, plastic sheets for the walls, and some glue-less vinyl flooring. We got a light fixture and some door knobs. I really do enjoy shopping at the local hardware store, since it is a Co-op but their selection on some things is not the same as the big box home improvement places.
The drive to Duluth was interesting. Having not really spent much time there. It felt a bit odd to be in a bigger city that was not Milwaukee. The streets are crazy in Duluth and it seemed like everyone else had the day off or a half day, everything was packed. We also picked up some tools to finish the rest of the cabin. Compound Miter Saw and a Table Saw. These are going to come in real handy in a few weeks with the cabinets.
The highlights of the trip were the drive over the bridge, the ice is breaking up and the wings. It seems that BW3’s is the best I can find so far. I have heard rumors of better at local bars but I have not tried them yet.
Ice in the harbor breaking up.
The wife wearing her new crown.
After returning from that the wife went off to do some laundry and I roofed half of the shed.
Finished up the door framing and the electrical. All the fans are working on their own switches. Headed to the home improvement store tomorrow to pick up the bathroom fixins so I can wired that up, and get the shower stall framed up.
In continued remodeling news. We framed the door in and rerouted a bunch of electrical to make room for the door opening. We also had two ceiling fans on the same switch. I had to redo that because the switch is now in the other room. I ran all the wires and am ready to wire it up.