Lights, camera, action!

Let's just start this entry out with a moonlit view of the cabin from last night:

This weekend's trip was primarily for Eliot to work on shooting scenes for the film he's making for class. We got here yesterday to prepare. In the evening, I took the shot above, and a couple of the night sky, including the lunar eclipse.

Eliot shot this sunset time lapse.

A first for this trip was that I brought up a folding bed. I slept better!

We woke up to a gorgeous sunrise.

While he is out adventuring on snowmobiles, I installed new receptacles in the attic. That lets me move the WiFi router and printer up and out of the way.

The main motivation, though, was to run power through the gable to supply the webcam, so I can enjoy the views while I'm at work. I got the branch circuit done, drilled the hole in the gable, routed the wire, installed the camera mount, and then, on the way out the door to install the camera, I fumbled it onto a cinder block and parts fell out. Awww.

While I had the ladder out, I went around to the south side of the house and hung the floodlight fixture.

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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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