Waking up from hibernation

Our cabin project slept through the winter under a metal roof, wearing its "Tyvek Pajamas". But the winter didn't sleep. Here were a some visitors.

Are these wolves or coyotes? I can't tell them apart.

And our first shot of the cougar!

First thing we did was hang construction lights through the cabin so we could see things in our still-windowless building. Much better!

Then we ventured into the crawlspace to clean up a bit of mold that had grown from water that ran down through the floor before the roof got put on in the fall.

Oh boy were we in for a nasty surprise. In the fall we had only cut in two foundation vents, and those ended up getting covered by the housewrap, so we had no venting. And we hadn't yet put down plastic over the dirt, because how moist could it be in there? Turns out, with thermal cycles and nowhere to go, there was so much moisture that some of the exterior-facing rim boards were damp! Lots of mold. Aaargh.

We hosed the mold down with TSP substitute, then uncovered and cut in the foundation vents.

After too much time underground, we cleaned up the great room and organized our tools.

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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...

Appliances and mirrors

In pursuit of being ready for final, I came up and installed the fridge and dishwasher with Jeff. We hung mirrors in the bathrooms.

Fit and finish stuff

Jeff and I worked on repairing the drywall gap in the stairwell and tricky bits of wood trim in that space; sorry, no photos. Christina practiced cabinet knob installation and did some more work adjusting the cabinet doors and drawers. Jeff and Jon got half of the stairwell closet space drywalled. I didn't realize it was a fire code requirement; I had been planning to leave it open to make utility repairs easier. But it's got to be done, and now the difficult parts are.

Howell Cabin

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