11-9-2008

So it has been getting cold at the cabin. We already had snow once. I wasn’t there but the news was calling for 6 inches… we are supposed to get more snow tonight.

Getting ready for winter has been a priority… we put up more firewood and I started the battery box… I just need to put the top on and put the side insulation and the rest of the t&g on the side of the box.

There is a photo of the center island. I need put a back on it with the rest of the t&g we have and some sort of shelf.

The railing for the second floor has been cut. One of them is a bit warped. I am hoping we can lag it into shape.

Spent a little time turkey hunting today. Called back and forth with one for 20 minutes but could not get it to come in. I had deer come though while hunting and we saw a nice buck on Friday… Now if the deer can be here in a week I will be happy.

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11-1-2008

Not really an update this week as I have things to take care of. I did run down real quick yesterday to drop off my craigslist dinning room set… had a really nice cabin feel to it… and only $100….

We also brought out a cabinet my father-in-law had that we are going to use as an island and some pallets I scrounged up ( if you are looking for pallets check Gander MTN – they had tons ).

While we were down there the local auction house was doing horse auctions. We stopped in a looked for a while. I have no idea how they judge horses… many look the same but the prices were very different. wish we had a space at our regular residence… would love to have a couple of horses… but I would need a draft horse to carry me around 🙂

thats probably it for this week… we are planning on going down next friday to do some target practice maybe next saturday we can get some work done…

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10-24-2008

I have been fighting a cold all week but could not sit around the house today. So I went down to the cabin today. Feel like I am paying for it now…

So for the cabin this week we :
• installed the larch in the loft area
• Used danish oil on the 4×6 posts (two coats so far – I figure 1 or 2 more) – Next spring I will sand down the walls and apply the same finish there also
• Started building my battery box. I should finish it next week. I will have photos then.
• First floor ceiling has now had one coat of mud applied. Might not get to much further on this this year.
• Installed some freebee carpeting in the upstairs bedroom. Thanks Rob

Some things left this year :
• Finish the upstairs walls
• Finish the battery box
• Clean up and finish painting the first floor
• Put another coat of oil on the 4×6 posts and stain other wood work upstairs
• look for a dining room set on craigslist
• Find a propane cook stove for the kitchen
• Install one more cabinet we have that we are going to use as a island
• Sand down the stairs
• Put up more firewood

Didn’t have time to turkey hunt and given that I did not feel well perhaps that is best… but we did see 10 or so turkeys at the bottom of the field (200 yards away)… these seem to be the same birds we keep on seeing in the area… Hopefully they will stay in the area. Probably 8 of them are yearlings so we are hoping they stay in the area for good.

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10-18-2008

So I started out today doing some turkey hunting… unfortunately I was five minutes behind the five that came through… maybe next week….

On the cabin we basically finished the hanging the drywall. We were short a little piece. My F-I-L thinks he has a small piece back at his place. The areas we dry walled today were under the loft and the bedroom along with the half walls in the loft.

We also sanded the exposed 4×6’s larch posts. I have to figure out what I am going to use to finish these still…

I painted a older set of fireplace tools… I have found that high temp grill paint polished looks great.

We also picked up a couple of sets of brackets for stacking some of our firewood. We setup one of them on the east side of the porch. We are going to setup the other on the west side later.

Seeing as we are almost done with construction I finally picked up some replacement dewalt batteries… For the price of these that might as well be crack… We had one dewalt battery and a cheaper Roybi set. The dewalt is so much better but the batteries are just so expensive… So now between my father-in-law and me we have 5… Just in time to be almost done 🙂

So once we get the drywall muded the last real task for this year is going to be hanging the larch on the upstairs wall. Then we will finish painted the floor… then just enjoy it until spring… that will be nice

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10-17-2008

I’m using up some extra vacation time so I headed down to the cabin for half a day. I will be going back down tomorrow but had to come back so my wife could take care of some things this afternoon. So in the half day I was up we :

• Installed a new gasket on the stove door
• installed the last two posts for the catwalk railing
• Installed some bracing under the catwalk across from each post to keep them from twisting if someone leans over the edge
• built the other half wall into the loft area

The last picture was a camera phone photo sent from my father-in-law of the turkeys that came through after I left. Next week Tomorrow is turkey season… wonder if they will be around 🙂

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Our Off the Grid Cabin, Projects and what ever else I feel like putting here