Snowmobiles, deck joists, and a heater

Friday and Saturday

Most of the time we spent goofing around with snowmobiles, which aren't really part of the cabin structure per se. We gave each machine a sporty vinyl race number to make it easier match the covers to the sleds.

On Friday Christina finished gluing down the bathroom floor tiles; we didn't get a photo before stacking supplies on top.

The kids couldn't resist snowmobiling until after dark. We took this dusk shot by Big Creek, about a quarter mile behind our cabin.

Saturday started with more noisy-sled riding. Christina cleaned up messes and glued down the aluminum border for the crawlspace access door. Siggy got confident enough to ride a sled on the steep hill behind the shed to park it.

Sunday

Jon drove back over the mountains to get things more prepared for the winter that's already well underway.

The two beams that were in place Siobhan and I had covered with plastic to avoid accumulation of more ice. I melted a little more ice off with a heat gun. Then I tweaked the shim to get things level, and screwed them into place.

Next, I cut a dozen joists. The joists have a little tab to support the decking where it disappears under the door threshold.

The first nine joists went in pretty fast. The sky was blue with a few clouds.

I ran out of joist hangars, so I ran to town for parts and a burger. Right about then the snow arrived, so the last six joists took more time just to keep sweeping the snow out of the way. I knew things were getting silly when I had to scrape ice off the table saw.

Before it got too dark to measure, I banged out a new set of stairs for the porta-potty. Our plow guy demolishes them if we forget to move them out of the way.

My enthusiasm for building deck joists was to provide a safe place for the expensive hardwood decking to rest for the winter. The sun was just setting at this point, so I restacked a bunch of lumber in the cool glow of an LED flashlight.

Then I hauled all the tools down to the storage container and re-stacked all the other spare lumber under the big eaves.

One more task before I go. The four plug-in 1500W electric heaters are having a hard time against the cold weather, and we have 1°F weather in the forecast. I hung a 4000W workshop heater and plugged it into the dryer outlet.

I turned off the water pump, drained the water system, and spent two hours home driving over the pass in blizzard conditions.

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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.

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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