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.

Cabin Work Continues

Hello Loyal Readers,

Sorry for the long delays between posts. We have not had much activity to report lately.
But............we finally started working on our cabin this past weekend. We drove up to Michigan on Friday evening and purchased our first load of interior, Tongue & Groove, lumber panels on Saturday morning. The lumber company that we chose is near Fairview, Michigan (the Turkey Hunting Capitol of Michigan!). It is located East of our cabin, about 25 miles.
We got home from the lumber company at about noon on Saturday. Then we spent 1/2 hour unloading 750 pounds of 8 foot long, Tongue and Groove boards. The paneling we chose is pre-finished, 6" wide, Knotty Pine. The boards are milled so that they lock together as they are stacked up the wall. You start with a row at the base of the wall and work your way up. The boards are nailed with a pneumatic Finish Nail Gun. This nailer is powered by a small air compressor.
It was slow going at first, while I got the basic technique figured out. Cutting the Electrical outet openings is a bit challenging, but I am getting faster at that.
We worked the rest of Saturday and 1/2 of Sunday before calling it quits for the weekend. Sue Ann acts as my assistant while I do the cutting and nailing. She makes sure I get a nice random mix of boards, and also holds the 8 foot ladder while I climb. What a team!
The dogs are not really that thrilled about watching me work from their crate, but at least they get to go with us! We can't let them run loose in the cabin while we work or they will eat my tools and lumber!

Here are some photos. We have a long way to go, but we are happy with the results so far.
Take Care,
Randy

Very Happy Beagles

We made a trip up to our cabin this weekend. It was very relaxing, especially for the dogs.

Snowman Camera Link

One of my favorite Websites is called Snowman Cam.
It's a live Web Camera located in Gaylord, Michigan. That's about 25 miles north of our cabin.
I like to look at this site to see how much snow is on the ground. Plus it's really great to see live animals at various times of the day and night.
It's not uncommon to see Deer, Turkeys, tons of Squirrels, and an occasional Bear.
Give it a look and let me know how you like it site.
http://www.snowmancam.com/
Take Care,
Randy

Winter Fun

Sorry to all who have been watching for a new Post. I have been lazy.
We have kept busy with Holiday activities and travel. We spent Christmas here in Indiana and then right after Christmas we drove to Centralia Illinois to visit Sue Ann's parents. We had a nice visit there and enjoyed the trip.
We've been to our cabin for a mid November trip, a mid Dec. trip, and we were there for a very nice 4 day New Years vacation. We toasted the New Year in front of a roaring Wood Stove fire and a crisp 5 degrees outside. We have enjoyed Snowshoeing for the first time. It is really fun and great exercise. We also installed a new floor in the bathroom. That is the only work we have done for a few months. We will begin putting up the inside wall covering in the spring. Looking forward to that task.
We hope to have the cabin finished by July.
I have uploaded several photos taken this winter. Hope you enjoy them.
If you have any questions about them please reply with a comment.

That's all for now.