Windows! Finally!

Trudging slowly toward my goal of drying in the cabin before this winter.  Before I can insulate the gaps and chink, I need the doors and windows in.  I've taken my first steps towards that with this window.  I used 4 x 12 doug fir.  Love the look, but would not use doug fir again.  Way too heavy and unmanageable.

Suggestion to anyone at this stage:  Adjust your window heights so the tops and bottoms of your window openings fall in the gaps between logs.  Cutting horizontally through logs with all that rebar is worse than a root canal -- without novacaine. 

Starting Up Again!

Wow, the winter was long and wet! Usually I can get up to the Cabin by mid-May to begin work.  This year we didn't get up there until mid-June.  You can see that I still have some snow on my north side.

I rented a telescoping forklift to lift and set some interior beams and second-floor joists.  It was difficult maneuvering the head and arm of the lift through the open gable ends with the beams/logs attached, but ultimately it worked.  The main interior beam is 16 1/2 inches high and 28 ft long.  Pretty hefty. 

The second floor joists are a little different than what you normally see.  I had the upper and lower portions of the log joists planed flat so they will sit evenly on the log girders and make it easier to lay the tongue and groove.  I'm going for a rough log look without the difficulty of using rough, round logs.  I hope it works out. 

Finally, I set the front balcony beams.  The front of the cabin will have a covered, walk-out balcony that runs the entire length of the front of the cabin.  We are looking forward to spending summer evenings out there. 

Help from the Kids

Cam is helping Dad re-grade and compact the ground surrounding the cabin to prevent flooding.  The girls love to play in the snow, even without gloves.  Not until their hands are near-frozen solid do they realize the snow is actually cold.  This is the first snow of the upcoming winter season.  In a few months, the whole area will be covered in 6+ feet of snow.

Fall up on the Mountain

These pics don't even do justice to Fall on the Mountain.  In the early morning and late afternoon, when the sun slants through the trees, the foliage lights up like it is on fire.  It's really a remarkable sight. 

the roof (part two)

More pictures of the new black roof. 

the roof

The theme for this summer/fall at the cabin has been the roof. Just like everything else it has taken longer than we had expected but we are glad to have it done. We feel blessed that it is finished with no real mishaps. It looks great. We decided to go with a black roof because the logs are pretty rustic and the black will supposedly fade a bit. There aren't any other black roofs in our area so we thought it would be great to something different. We are happy with he results.

August

Dave took a few days off of work to go and finish the roof. Thankfully he had some help but he did do a little solo climbing of the roof which makes us all crazy. They put the insulation and plywood on and then had someone come put more tar paper on. We are hoping to have the metal up in the next few weeks. The good news is that Dave is finished with his own scaling of the roof. This is a relief. Now we will be trying to clean up around the cabin a bit before snowfall and then next summer have it all dried in.