Howell Cabin

Friday Christina got about half the laundry room tile laid out. The herringbone is pretty neat! Today's success was to fasten the remaining six top surface boards to the deck. Well, I've been calling it a deck, but a deck is big enough for a dining table or a hot tub or whatever. I think the thing I'm building is called a porch.   There was enough snow on the ground that the kids put some miles on the sleds. Wheee! Saturday Christina cut the tile for the laundry room. Jon cut the metal tile borders for the crawlspace hatch. My main project was fastening the treads to the front porch. I don't know how it takes five hours to install eight already cut and finished boards with 36 screws, but ... somehow it does. Other than plugs to fill the top-screwed holes, the entryway porch is complete. Hooray!

  Wednesday Jon went up to apply finish to the boards. The oil finish said it should be applied above 45F, and the forecast was for a high of 47F on Thanksgiving. So we rearranged our holiday for the weather. I started out with three hours of sanding. Boooring.   By the time I got o the cabin, the forecast had dropped, plus the can said it's supposed to stay above 45F for twelve hours, so that's not gonna happen. Time for a new plan. I remodeled the little cabin with drop cloths and heated it up to 70F. I stacked the deck boards in there for an hour and a half to warm them up. I wasn't looking forward to schlepping 600 pounds of hardwood up an icy hill. Thankfully with the chains on the truckasaurus made quick work of the hill. Finishing with a high-VOC oil finish meant two hours in a respirator. Sanding and finishing boring, but wow, this wood looks stunning.   Thursday This morning began with some final adjustments on the deck foundation. I had to adjust the stair stri...

Friday   Got up to the cabin in the afternoon. That was enough time to get the front deck joists installed.   First order of business was replacing the dead switch in the chop saw. Saturday Christina and Siggy came up. They began the layout for the tile in the laundry room. Meanwhile Jon continued work on the entryway deck. I cut and sealed the Ipe boards, added some additional risers, and cut the stair stringers. Siggy helped me install them.

Saturday   Tile! Christina got some tile installed this weekend! Jon was racing ahead trying to get backer board down. I had to finish a couple pieces in the main bathroom before anything could be done. Then I got the laundry room filled in.   Hector and his son Robert came over from Yakima to provide initial tile instruction.   The first step was to get all the tile for the floor laid out and edges cut.   Jon had purchased most of the rest of the Ipe deck surface boards in Seattle this week and hauled them up on the trailer. Each 18 foot board weights fifty pounds! Siobhan helped me unload them and stack them under the eaves. Sunday We came back for another morning of work. Christina got almost done thinsetting the first bathroom floor. Jon finished tuning up the subfloor in the upstairs bathroom and getting the backer rock board installed. Siggy and Jon took another little bite out of the deck, cutting the first five joists.

Saturday Starting in the shop at home, I made a dozen HDPE spacers to put between a sister beam and the ledger I had already installed on the house, to give water a place to escape. I was greeted at the cabin by the first snow of the season. Yay! It took a while to pull off all the concrete forms. And then to dig the delivery of pressure treated lumber (beams & joists) out from under the fresh snow pile. My accomplishment by the end of the day? I got two pieces of wood installed: one beam on the post bases, and the beam I sistered onto the ledge board below the front door.