Wood Stove & Farmers Porch

Now that it's getting cold, we decided we had to get our wood stove up and going. Rick ordered the stove pipe from a place in North Conway, NH, but one of the pieces didn't come in, but the store had one that was kind of blemished, so they gave it to us for free. We just installed everything and bought a can of stove pipe spray paint.



And it looks just fine!


Here is Rick building a fire and the fire warming up the cabin!
Actually, since the upper floor doesn't have any insulation, the stove can't keep the cabin very warm.

Another thing we got finished was the stair up to the farmers porch.
Actually, I don't know if I ever told you about the farmers porch. We just love sitting out there. We can light enough bug candles to keep the mosquitoes at bay. When it is warm enough, after we finish our work for the day, we set up our chairs and enjoy the evening.

More Interior Walls and Power Washing

Rick didn't get much done on the interior walls, he decided it is a lot easier with two of us. We got most of the interior walls built, but the doors we like have to be special ordered. When we get the doors in, we will finish those walls. Here is Rick measuring for the tallest section of the wall.




We decided that we would power wash the exterior of the cabin this fall, let it weather over the winter and put the preservative on next spring. Since the weather was nice this weekend and we can't be sure what it will be like for the rest of the year, we decided to power wash this weekend. We got a Troy-Bilt 2500 PSI power washer, it works real nice. It has a container you can put soap in so you can wash things off. We put some fence cleaner in there and soaped up the walls, then rinsed them off. We were able to remove most of the dirt and smudges on the logs. Plus, rinsing down the chimney removed all of the dust and the stones really stand out now. The log across the middle of the screen room was really dirty and stained. After I was done, it looks good, not great, but good. It will probably need to be done again in the spring.

Installing the interior walls

Installing interior walls in log cabins has a couple of extra steps that you don't have to do in normal construction. The first step is to saw two lines in the logs. They are wide enough apart for the a beam and 2 pieces of dry wall.


The next step is the hardest, for Rick at least. I tried this and didn't make any progress at all. You have to pound a crowbar into the wood and pry the wood out.



The beam is a wall stabilizer and is constructed with 2 2x6 boards separated by some 5/8" pieces of OSB. These beams are bolted into the wall with honking big bolts.



The actual wall is just normal 2x4 construction nailed down to the floor, but you can't just attach it to the ceiling because of the shrinkage of the exterior walls. Since the logs Lok-n-Logs uses are kiln-dried there will probably only be about 2" shrinkage.


So the walls are about 4" shorter that the ceiling. And you attach a 2x4 to the ceiling and bolt the wall to that board. The hole in the wall section is larger that the bolt, so when the outer walls shrink, the bolt will just move down in the hole. When you put the wall board on, it doesn't go clear up to the ceiling. You leave a gap between the top of the wallboard and the ceiling, then attach some molding to hid the gap. I don't really understand how this will look, but I'll post pictures when we do it.



This is what you do for the walls that run parallel to the wood beams. For the walls that run perpendicular to the beams, it's even more complicated. The walls are bolted to the beams and boxes are built to put between the beams. I don't know how the wallboard is attached, but will post pictures when we get to that.

Here I am, bolting the wall in.


We got the downstairs done in about 2 weekends, the started on the upstairs. There are 3 walls that will have to go clear up to the highest ridge. I helped set up the scaffolding, but then it was time for me to leave. Rick is staying up there this week and is doing the hard part of building the walls that go clear up to the roof beam, at least that is what I think he is doing.

The wood shed

All of the windows and doors were delivered in these two crates. Rick got the idea that they would make a great wood shed.


We looked out all of the windows and decided the best place to put it so it really can't be seen from inside the cabin. Over the last couple of weeks (whenever the weather permitted), we moved dirt and rocks so there was a flat place to place the shed. Then Tim moved them for us.

Rick cut the roof so it had a slant to it, then we put on a roof.

Then we used some log siding to side the sheds, put on shingles and TA-DA!




The axes and hatchet are all ready to go. Fortunately, Rick doesn't trust me with sharp instruments, so I won't have to chop wood.


And the best part is that other than 3 2x4s and the shingles, everything that was used to build these sheds came off the scrap pile.

The last of the chimney

The same week Steve and Tammy were visiting, Steve (the contractor) and his son Tyler were up at the cabin to finish the chimney.

On the outside of the house, in the screen room, a cinder block chimney was built, there is a real fireplace. On the inside a facade of cement board was built, we are going to put a wood stove in there. The cultured stone is attached to those. Cultured stone is a veneer that looks and feels like real stones. There are flat pieces and corner pieces. Here Steve is fitting corner pieces onto the outside part of the chimney.


After he puts up a couple of feet of corners, he starts filling in the flat pieces.


And just keeps going until he gets to the top.


After all of the stones are put on, Steve used a big pastry bag to fill-in with mortar. He let it dry for a couple of hours, then kind of smoothed it out then used a brush to remove any marks.


Isn't this gorgeous!


We are so happy with the way this looks. Steve did such a nice job, he order a mix of stones so there would be both yellows and reds.


This finished the inside of the chimney, but Steve couldn't finish the outside because of all of the rain. It finally quit raining on Friday, so first thing Steve and Tyler cut a huge hole in the roof.


After they cut the hole, they could finish building the cinder block part out and up through the roof. Then finish the stone veneer.


Here is the completed chimney.

Steve & Tammy's Visit

We had such a great week. My brother Steve and his wife Tammy drove over from near Detroit to spend the week with us working on the cabin. Rick and I took the week off, so we had 8 days to work around the place.

Unfortunately, there were two problems, 1) the contractor still isn't finished, so Rick didn't want to start framing the walls because it might interfere with what Tim was doing and 2) it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained!!!

Since we couldn't do anything outside or upstairs, we decided to insulate the basement. This was on our task list, just not at the top. What we did was install 2" tongue & groove foam insulation right against the cement wall, then build a 2x4 framed wall on the outside of that. When we finish the basement, we will put fiberglass insulation in between the studs then put up wall board. Putting the insulation along the walls was easy, a couple of inches had to be cut off then a bead of caulk put in the groove. The hard part was insulating the small section between the sill and the floor. We had to cut one piece for the vertical section against the outer rim joist and another for the horizontal section against the sill joist. Then we would use caulk to seal up the small spaces and "Great Stuff" to fill up the bigger space between the edge of the sill, the bottom piece and the piece against the wall. In case you don't know, "Great Stuff" is that stuff that expands as it dries. Somehow or another, I was put in charge of the gooey stuff. I try really hard, but no matter how hard I try to be neat, things always get a little messy.

Here are some pictures of us working.

I don't think Tammy is just pointing at the wall, I think she is holding it up.


This is me cutting out one of the innumerable pieces. Steve and Tammy brought a bunch of their tools and one was a jigsaw, it was perfect for cutting out the pieces.


This is what the walls look like after the 2x4 frame is put up.


Here Steve and I are putting in the pieces in prepartion of sealing them up.


Steve, Rick and I working away!


Steve and Rick are figuring out where the frame of the door needs to be planed.


Here we are, Steve, Tammy, Teresa and Rick.


It really was a great week. We got a lot accomplished and had some fun while we were at it. We went out to dinner at a new place nearby, a smoke house. They served ribs, pulled pork and other good food. One night we went to the Magic Lantern in Bridgeton. It is a new theater that is designed to look like an old one that used to be there. We saw Wall-E. The cool part was that we got to sit in the balcony. More theaters should have balconies! One night we ordered lobsters and clams -yummy!

All in all, it was a good visit. I hope they come back again! They are certainly welcome whenever they want!

Our first weekend visitors

Not much has been happening with the house, so there isn't anything to report there, but this weekend we had our first weekend visitors. Our friends Jenifer, Doug, their two boys David and Daniel and one of their friends, John came up for the weekend.

Of course if you come up to visit us, we will put you to work. Rick and I packed a bunch of equipment in the truck, so the first thing was to unload it. We bought some scaffolding, this is Doug and David unloading it.


Here are Daniel and John working.


We also had a very heavy furnace. I'm glad Doug was here to help Rick and I didn't have to.


Here are the three boys, John, Daniel and David.


We didn't have anything real planned for the weekend, but decided to burn some of the construction debris. The boys thought this a great idea, so they were more than happy to help stack up the wood.


But before we could have the fun of the fire, we had to do some work. We had to build up an area for the wood shed (I'll post more about that later). I'm on the tractor and Doug and Rick are smoothing out the dirt I dump out. I think the boys were jealous, they wanted to drive the tractor!


A cup of diesel fuel and a match was all that was needed to get the fire going (of course we had burn permit).


After a while, there were a lot of great coals and we had s'mores. That's Jenifer in the back putting one together. John and Daniel look mesmerized by the fire.

Shingles & Windows WITH PICTURES!!!

I added the pictures!!

It’s amazing, we haven’t seen much progress for a couple of weeks, then in one week, big changes! We talked to Tim on Monday and he told us what was planned for the week, finishing the roof and installing the doors and windows. So we were excited to see the place.

We didn’t come up until Saturday night because we went to a gradation party for the daughter of one of our friend’s. It was fun and we got to see a lot of people we enjoy, but the whole time I was thinking about what the cabin looked like.

TA-DA!! Wow, doesn’t it look great! I’m so glad we choose the green shingles! Here are the four views of the house.

Check out the railings on the porch. I didn’t like the standard railings that came with the kit, the balusters were 4” in diameter and I thought they just looked too chunky. So I found some I liked. These are only 2” in diameter. I’m not sure what kind of wood they are, they don’t have any bark left on them, but the different colors of the wood sure gives them a lot of character. Check out this section, I love the curve on the top rail.

Rick and I took this whole week off The task for this week is the chimney. About 8:00 Monday morning, Brian showed up. He is a stone mason that was hired to do the chimney. Steve got here about 8:30 and they got started. When they poured the concrete floor for the sun porch, they put in a footing for the chimney. Here Brian has just gotten started, he first puts up a box of plain block and then on the inside he lines it with fire bricks that are the inside of the fireplace.

Then he just keeps building up the box, he fills in behind the firebricks as he goes along.

Since this is a short week anyway, no one else will be here and they will be done with all of this tomorrow. I don’t think they will do the cultured stone on the outside, but the fireplace will be build.

Rick has all kinds of work planned for the week. Of course, I don’t know what it is and when I ask, he just says we’ll keep busy. Today we used the tractor to move sand around to under where the porch steps will be and Rick has worked out all of the details for how to build them, so I guess that will be one of the tasks.

We got the estimate for putting in electricity, $16,000! And that is assuming they don’t hit ledge, so we are also going to get 8 more of the deep-cycle batteries and continue to stay off the grid. And we are going to get a box-scraper for the tractor and smooth out the driveway even more.

If you are in Maine this weekend, come by and visit!