Howell Cabin

Christina has been hard at work on the tile for the last several weekends. She's been working her way through a difficult pattern in the laundry room, made more difficult because it interacts with the gaps in the floor for the service and machinery hatches going to the crawlspace. Here she is back in February doing battle with the beginning section. Look at that tricky tile cut! The rest of us have been mostly goofing off, building snow forts,   riding snowmobiles... Some of us crashing them and fixing them.

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. ...

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.