A little bit of floor, some lighting for the shet-let, and an adventure in the woods

On Saturday we tidied up the joist surfaces to prepare for installing flooring. We had some narrow gaps that had to get insulated.

The drive up was pretty.

and we had a hawk soaring at tree-top level again.

We had to clean some varnish off the big joists that didn't set correctly (because it was drizzling last weekend), so Eliot sanded a few off and we re-applied varnish.

When we finally got to floorintg, we discovered that our stack of plywood had sucked water in with capillary action and molded a bunch. We salvaged enough pieces for one of three rows, which we wrapped up around dusk.

So, kind of disappointing progress, and rain forecast for Sunday.

Sunday

The rest of the family slept at the hotel, and then joined us for Sunday morning. Siobhan picked some flowers.

Siggy tried out his bed.

After the other folks departed, we used the rainy day to finish up some loose ends in the shedlet. Jon trimmed up the spare chain on the folding bed. Eliot installed six light fixtures and some switchplates. Jon installed the second wall heater.

Check out our new look!

Eliot cleaned up the dirt, which accumulates pretty fast up there.

We decided to spend the afternoon on a wacky adventure in the woods. We plotted a course on forest roads over Tacoma Pass into Western Washington. Why won't OSM connect our route along NF42 to the ridge?

Oh. That's why.

There was a route around the washed-out bridge that involved fording the stream, which we were willing to try.

This got us to some pretty gorgeous valley views.

But ultimately, about two miles from the pass, we encountered a washed-out road. The shot on the right is looking back over the washout after exploring on foot. There was a bit of road up on the hillside, enough for motorcycles, but a bit dubious for a heavy, wide truck.

There was another route back over the river, but the path down the hill was pretty lumpy. We tried it out, but once we had the truck balanced on the front-right and left-rear tires, we decided maybe this wasn't the route for today. It was a fun detour.

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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.

It is DONE!

The final inspection was today. This guy is Levi, the county inspector, and as you can see, we passed! He only had two questions for me. One was about the energy efficiency credits and the blower door test, for which I had the compensating paperwork for the low-flow faucets already prepared. The second was asking for a smoke detector outside the bedroom; I pointed up and he saw that we already had one tucked into the alcove. And that was that! I got up at 5am to be certain I'd be here before the inspector, and I was ... by about five hours. In that time, I took another truckload of tool buckets down to the storage container, then picked up all the floor protection in the great room and vacuumed and mopped. It's glowing! Then I went back down to the storage container to get a hammer so I could glue in 32 wood plugs to cover the screws for the french doors. I fought with installing the screens, but the frames are too big! The manufacturer said "yeah we don't even make th...

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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