Starting on siding

Time to give that first piece of siding under the electric meter some company.

Friday

detailing the housewrap

that's a purple thistle!

five wasps nests

ripping down a 24-foot-long board. definitely a two-person job.

placing the rest of the fan air vents, so we can work around the blocks as we install the siding

planer shavings

Saturday

the lift is popular

we always say he grew like a weed, but this weed has him beat

guinivere helped eliot with detailing the rest of the walls

guinivere cutting some detail flashing

the first row on the first wall is done.

work today was cut short -- because Jon cut his finger short with a box knife while scoring a siding panel. eliot and guinivere got some more prep work done while i cleaned up tools with my remaining functional hand. this explains why i'm not typing much today...

dinner was pizza at Beau's, a favorite in cle elum

Sunday

back to work, installing head casing trim over the windows

lifting second-layer panels up with two people (nineteen fingers)

this weekend we got about 3/4 of the west wall completed.

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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.

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...

Howell Cabin

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