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!

Work Continues

I'm back from all of my travels and will catch up on my blogging.

The factory sent roof panels for most of the roof, the guy on the left is standing on one of the prefabbed panels. The panels are made of a layer of 1x4 tongue and groove pine boards, 2 2" pieces of foam insulation, a 2" air gap and a layer of OSB.

But they had to build the valleys by hand and that meant a lot of hand cuts. The first step was to cut and install the 1x4 tongue and groove boards that make up the ceiling of the cabin. The guy on the right has finished the boards for that section of the roof and is trimming the ends.

The next step is to put in the foam insulation and put on the OSB, that is what the guy in the middle is doing. Those things in the lower right corner of the picture are the foam boards that are being used.


This is what the inside looks like. I am standing in the living room looking straight up, the front of the house is to the left and the bedroom is in front of where I'm standing.


This is a closer look at the inside of one of the valleys. It really looks nice!


If you look real close at the second picture, you can see a wire coming out of the center of the main support beam. It's kind of slick the way they do this. They drill straight down through the support beam and drop the wire through and lay it on top of the beam. For the lights that are attached to the log rafters, they drill up through the log, the 1x4 pine board and the 2" foam then they fish the wire up to the peak of the roof. All of the wires are brought together at one place and dropped down through an interior wall and into the basement.

Here are the pictures from my 2 regular places. The tarp is on because they haven't closed up the very peak of the roof (that will be done when the shingles are put on), so they are protecting the ceiling boards.




This is a new view, they finished the roof of the farmers porch. I really like this view. This is still the best place to catch the morning sun!


I mentioned that we are looking at the different options for the wood preservative we have to put on the logs. Here are the 4 choices:











I'm not to crazy about any of them. I think 078 is too orange, 996 is too pale. There isn't much difference between 077 and 005. They might be okay, but they look kind of blotchy.

We are still here!

I haven't posted for a while because there really isn't much to say. The work on the roof continues at the slow pace Tim said would happen. So there aren't enough changes to bother taking pictures of.

On the weekend of May 30 & 31, both of us went up to Maine, even though it was raining, the forest was too dry to burn anything, so other than cleaning up, we didn't do any work around the place. We did go to North Conway and I found 3 pairs of pants for $10 each!!

On the weekend of June 7 & 8, I was in Kennewick, WA visiting my Dad, sister and her family. Rick went up to Maine, but said there still weren't enough changes to warrant pictures.

Rick and I have been picking out tile, Formica and stain, so I'll post some pictures of our choices later.