Soffits and vents

If you liked all that inside wood, you're going to love doing it again outside!

November 5-8 we got started putting the same tongue and groove material up for our soffits -- the exterior ceiling that covers the rafters.

The first day was a slow setup day; we got one side of the front section done, and the other just started. Jon stayed late and finished up the other side -- once we had the rhythm it went pretty fast.

The second day brought snow.

We finished the north end and started down the west overhang, which is a little shorter than the other.

On Sunday we finished the west overhang.

On Monday we got started on the bigger east overhang.

There two little gaps that needed to be filled, so Jon made just the right pieces of wood and painted them to match the siding. That wrapped up a four-day long weekend.

Two weeks later, we put in another couple days. Saturday we arrived to find our worksite -- and materials -- covered in snow.

We got the east overhang mostly finished. Jon had ordered enough extra bundles of material to definitely be able to finish, plus two more bundles besides, but as we got closer, things were looking dicey. The exterior layout was producing a lot more waste than he had planned on.

There were a few inches of snow on the ground. Our Genie lift had four-wheel drive, but that didn't mean it didn't slide in the snow. That was exciting!

On Sunday we finished up the last few courses, installing the fire-resistant metal vent strips. Thankfully, we just barely had enough wood!

On Tuesday Jon drove to Yakima to accept delivery of the vertical-grain fir cabinets into a storage facility. Twenty-five boxes. Aren't they beautiful?

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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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