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.