Sheathing the roof

When we left our heroes, the rafters were up, and light snowfall was drifting gently between them to land on the tarp laid out on the subfloor. Time to get some plywood on top so that, at a minimum, we can get through the winter with a tarp holding the snow out.

On Saturday, we put the bottom 8-foot row of OSB in place. We really appreciated the pneumatic nailer for this part of the job!

It wasn't supposed to snow at all, but we picked up about half an inch.

It wasn't too bad, and now there's only a couple foot slot letting snow into the interior. Good thing, because snow was forecast for Sunday, with sunny skies on Monday. We laid the tarp back out and went home.

When we got back on Monday, several inches of snow had appeared, so we started the day by shoveling off the roof.

Siggy enjoyed watching this video of his big brother using the nailer:

On Tuesday, we finished sheathing the ends and gables.

Our neighbor Russ came over to help.

We worked late into the night to button it up, thinking this may be the last thing we can do before the cabin has to suffer the winter. We wrapped the house in Tyvek, and pulled the tarp over the top.

Pulling the tarp over was a comedy of errors. Two tired Howells, plus neighbors Russ and Daryl. Lots of lengths of rope to guide it. A screwed-together beam to coordinate the leading edge of the tarp. It kept getting stuck on nails and then on the ridge. Finally, we got it over the ridge and started it down the other side. It slid, and slid, and kept sliding, pulling all fifty feet of the tarp right over the ridge and down the tall side of the house. Oops.

A few more ropes and we tried again. This time the leading edge board broke, so we had to take it down. The third time was the charm. We got the tarp lashed into place, tensioned it up against the wind, and walked down the hill to leave our little building to its wintry fate.

(In the back of my mind, of course, I started thinking about ordering some roofing metal, you know, just in case we got another break in the weather.)

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The trim finishing journey begins

The last time we installed wood trim (almost two years ago!), we sanded and cut the material inside the cabin (it was winter) and installed it unfinished. Finishing it meant taping everything off and applying three coats of finish in place. Removing the masking was frustrating (the finish glued it to the wall in places), and in other places the finish still got where it didn't belong. Now the cabin is full of nice, finished floors, cabinets, and counters. It's not a shop. So this time, I'm sanding and pre-finishing all the boards outdoors. Thankfully, there's still pretty nice weather; that black tarp garage heats up pretty well when the sun's out. Today I got the first batch of wood sanded and a coat of finish applied. Christina installed eight receptacles in the kitchen and great room. My mom came up to enjoy the warm ambiance of the not-yet-active wood stove.

Uncrating the wood stove

I drove up to the cabin today to meet a tree contractor. Since I was up there anyway, I took care of some other business. I got the wood stove out and ready to install on Monday. I vacuumed up the tiny particles of styrofoam packaging material from last year's roofing panels that would have been much easier to clean up last year. I put the bathroom outlet back into its adjusted place above the backsplash. I corrected my installation of the heat pump wiring with a pair of reducing washers. Now it's really done. I replaced the emergency brake battery system in the flatbed trailer. I bucked a bunch of old logs into rounds for firewood.

Odds and ends

I made progress on a bunch of little things today. I painted a fencepost in 12" segments and pounded it in at the property line, where the outdoor camera can see it. Now we can measure the snow accumulation. I worked on finishing up almost-complete receptacle branch circuits. The first one I worked on was a little mystery: all the receptacles were installed, but the power didn't reach past a certain point in the line. After some investigation with a wire tracer and watching through the videos we took before covering the walls, I worked out what had happened: two receptacles shared a stud bay, facing into opposite rooms. The plan had been to bring power up to one box, jump over to the other box, and continue back down to the crawlspace to the next box. We forgot the jumper. I couldn't fish a wire between the boxes myself, so that repair waits. Upstairs, installing two receptacles completed the branch. The bathroom vent hole in the tile backer board was a skosh too small. ...

Howell Cabin

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