Calling it done for the year!

Hi all,

Here are several photos taken last weekend, the 9th of Oct. This is the day that new carpet was installed, and we did some furniture shopping too. It took the carpet installers 4 long hours. We left while they were working, and ended up buying 2 recliners for the family room, and a bed for the spare bedroom. We sure have shot our budget for the year, but now we can relax a bit and enjoy! I am not totally done with the construction. I still have a 5 foot x 9 foot utility room to finish off, but that can wait until spring.
Winter is just around the corner in the Grayling area. We got some snow on Saturday, but it was not cold enough to accumulate on the ground. The fall colors are at peak right now and it is very beautiful. I will try and get some photos of the colors for a new posting.
That's all I have for now. I hope you enjoy the photos. If you look back at the photos I have posted at the very beginning of this blog you can see that we have done a lot of work. It's been fun, but we are both glad that we are nearly done.
Thanks for the visit!

The Family room is sporting 2 new chairs and carpet.

Spare Bedroom

Krystal enjoying a new pillow.

Man, this is what I have been working for!

Sue Ann taking it all in.

She seems pleased with my work!

Is was 32 degrees outside, but they looked happy to me.

All of the furniture has been moved out to the front porch, and Sue Ann is waiting patiently for the carpet installers to arrive.

We noticed this deer out in front, but I could not get a good photo without spooking her.

Bedroom closets are functional and simple.

Late Summer 2009

Hello to the few people who still have the patience to look at this Blog.
My apologies for not keeping it up to date. It has been a busy summer, and we have not been home on weekends very often, due to work trips to Michigan.
I had estimated that the cabin would be completed by the end of July.
WRONG!
Here we are in September, and I can see the end of construction is now within sight.
I have to finish the ceiling in the last bedroom and then we can schedule carpet installation.
I am starting to feel the weariness of working so many hours up in Michigan. I will be very happy to call it DONE soon. We look forward to the weekends up there with no major chores to be performed.
Sue Ann is busy giving the walls 2 coats of water based Ploy sealant while I do finish carpentry.
We did spend a very nice week up there during Labor Day. We worked hard but also enjoyed some relaxing times, including Kayaking on a couple very beautiful lakes located nearby. We also purchased a queen size mattress set so that makes me very happy. I have never been fond of sleeping on the Futon Couch. We also took the time to assemble a dog enclosure for the Beagles. They seem to have gotten used to spending all day out in the cage. I still have to build a dog house for them, but I may cheat and buy a plastic one.
We look forward to having visitors this fall. Winter is very close by. We can tell because the temps at night are now in the mid thirties.

Here are several photos taken recently. Thanks for the visit.
Randy

Kayaks ready to go whenever we need a break.

View from our fire pit.I like to keep a coleman lantern running for old times sake.

Cooper wanted to get into the hammock.........I think.

My Birthday presents included a nice bottle of Strawberry Margaritas. Thanks for the cards!

That's me taking a much needed nap. The hammock is one of my favorite things about the cabin.

We had visitors late in July. My Mom and two sisters stopped by on their way home from a week of camping in the UP. We enjoyed the company!

The bathroom mirror turned out nice. I also made a small shelf that in now under the the mirror. No photo of that yet.

The kitchen is all done and we are happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks again for visiting.

Early July 2009

It's just after the Fourth of July weekend and we are back in Indiana and back to reality. We just spent 4 days in Michigan and we got a lot of work done up there.

A couple milestones were reached this weekend.

1. Kitchen is complete

2. All walls and ceiling in Great Room are covered in Knotty Pine

3. Sue Ann completed a front sidewalk. It looks great.I forgot to take a photo:(

I still have 2 bedrooms and a utility room to go, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

We hope to have guests next weekend. The Grimm's are going to pay us a visit. Hope to do some fun things and relax a bit too. We are also looking forward to a visit from Mom, Sara and Jan at the end of the month. It will be nice to have family up to see our progress.

Here are recent photos, taken during the last few weekends. I hope you enjoy them.
Take Care,

Randy

Sue Ann prepping the kitchen floor for tiles.

Vinyl Tiles being placed on the kitchen floor.

Soon, the yellow plastic "curtains" will be history. We are tired of looking at them, but they keep people from looking in while we are gone.

Making a mirror for the bathroom.

The very last section of ceiling to be done!!!

Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


New Bear Carving to greet visitors.

Sue Ann in her new Kitchen.

Chicken cooking on our new Charcoal Grill. I had assembled it an hour earlier in the day.

Full Moon photo taken Saturday night, July 4th, 2009. This was our Fireworks!

The view is from our porch. It got down to 39 degrees that night. Burrrr!

I entered this photo, taken by Sue Ann last summer, in an on-line photo contest sponsored by Digital Photo Review web site. It won a prize! 96th place out of 219 entries.

Update for early May 2009

This is the compressor and nail gun needed to put up the paneling boardsJust a few photos of the progress.

I was able to nail up interior wall covering for the last 2 weekends. We are using 6 inch wide, Pine Planking. The boards were purchased from a local lumber mill. They are milled with a tongue and groove system on all 4 edges so that when they are installed on our walls, there are no nails visible. It's a very nice look. We are using unfinished wood, so we will have to paint finish on it later. We will use satin polyurethane with no color added. It will take 2 coats, so that will be a big project in itself.

I installed my first Pre-hung door. It is in the bathroom. What an adventure. I finally got it right, but not without a serious amount of yelling. I was by myself, so I took the brunt of the criticism! I should have done a bit more research on that chore. But I think the 2 remaining doors will go faster.
The Kitchen and Family Room walls are about 1/2 done. It will look nice when completed. The cathedral ceiling will be a challenge. But I keep telling myself that I only have to do it once.

Bathroom is finished except for trim work and some built in shelves for towels, cleaning supplies and misc. storage. I want to finish out that ceiling in the main room before I install kitchen cabinets. We bought the cabinets and they are sitting in position, but not nailed down. After the ceiling is done, then it's down hill from there in the main room. Last thing will be floor covering. We are leaning towards carpet to save some money. Later down the road we can upgrade to wood if we feel the need.

We are taking a 2 week break from Michigan for family visits. Sue Ann is returning today from a week in California. She called several times to tell me what a great time she was having. Next weekend will be a trip to Illinois for a belated Mother's Day visit to see Vivian and John. I am sure that they will want to hear about Sue Ann's trip back to CA.
Enough rambling from me. Sorry that I don't write more often, because it is kind of fun to document what we are doing at our cabin. We hope to have it done in July. We'll see.