Sawdust everywhere

I trust all my avid readers had a good Christmas. I planned on working through Christmas Day and meeting up with Stuart and Janet Doyle at the hot springs in Radium on Boxing Day but, none of my plans survived first contact. I spent 5 hours on Skype on Christmas Day with family and friends in various places around the world and Stuart sadly came down with 'man flu', which I didn't really relish and so we will have to try to meet up when they come south again next year. Hope you get well soon Stu.

I did manage a couple of hours work on the big day however and worked all day Boxing Day to make up for the lost time on Skype the day before. All told, it has been a good couple of weeks since my last posting and although it may not seem that much has been done quite a lot has been.

I finished the two small cupboards in the second bedroom …..

…. including making and fitting the doors.

I then set about decorating everything above the floor, staining all the wood and painting the drywall panels on the ceiling.

There was quite a lot to do and I finished with putting either log jam, silicon or beading/moulding on most but, not all, of the interfaces and corners.

I have got better at this as I have progressed and I was very pleased with the results in this room.

Before I could lay the floor boards in the bedroom, I had to panel and decorate the corridor leading down to the North Wing, past the main bathroom on the right (next task) and ….

…. the two closets opposite. (You can never have too many closets, I'm told). This is because the flooring in this section of the house covers the bedroom and corridor floor space and it all needs to be laid at the same time.

With the panelling and decorating in the corridor done, I was then able to make a start on the floor. I spent a morning sanding the sub flooring down. It was bad enough filling my lungs, eyes, ears and nose with sawdust but, it also managed to get just about everywhere else. It took me another half a day to clear up the mess. Happily, I was then able to start laying the floor boards and that is where I am now.

There is still much to do before this section is finished. I have to finish laying the floor boards, which then have to be sanded down and stained; doors for the closets and bathroom have to be made, stained and fitted; trim for all the doors, edges and windows has to be made, stained and installed and; finally, gaps will have to filled with log jam or silicon. I would like to think that all that will only take me another week but, with the New Year celebrations approaching, we'll see how much I can actually get done. All I will have to do then, before I can accept guests, is make a bed and I have been putting my mind to some design ideas. So with that happy thought I will sign off for another fortnight and take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Deep Freeze

I set myself two objectives this fortnight and, despite taking a couple of days off during the first week, I managed to achieve both of them. After posting my last blog page, I set about staining all the panelling and stairs in the stairwell and on the landing. However, even this relatively simple task seemed to exhaust me. I guess the weeks without a break were finally catching up with me and so I decided to take a couple of days off and just did a few simple things around the cabin and got in a bit of retail therapy in the form of a new pair of boots for the winter.

I replenished the wood supply under the covered deck which, as it proved, was timely as the temperature suddenly plummeted, reaching -27c one night. The wood burning stove managed to keep the place warm enough but, it proved to be a hungry dragon in meeting the demand and I had to get up twice during the nights to keep it stoked up. Even so, the hot air furness still kicked in just before dawn but, at least it proved that the systems are all working as they should. To be honest, I quite enjoyed the colder temperature. I tested out some of my cold weather clothing and even took a trip out on the quad to see what the wind chill was like. Needless to say, there was no exposed skin for that little exercise. All the clothing worked well and so I have no fears about cold temperatures.

Snow has come again and with it I can track the wildlife that visits the property, especially at night. Elk,  mule deer, cats of various sizes and a few tracks I haven't been able to identify. The builders on one of the other lots saw a cougar last week sitting under a tree just watching them. Cougars are like that, they will lie in wait for hours, even days, watching and waiting for an easy kill. Small dogs are probably the most vulnerable but, people old and young have been the subjects of recent attacks - not here though just in case you are concerned for my safety. 

Retail therapy also including buying some Christmas lights for the cabin, which I hung on the front and …. 

…. side of the cabin and they cheered me up considerably. There's no one else to see them at the moment, just me and the animals, so I hope they like them too.

Not sure what happened to this photo but, I quite like the effect so I have included it for you to enjoy as well.

There isn't really much to show you of the stairwell and stairs staining as most of it is clear coated but, for what it is worth this is what it looks like now.

I'll add some furniture on the landings at a later stage but, I have to make it first.

This is leading down into the basement and I probably won't put any furniture on this landing.

And so, to what I have been doing this week. I made a start on the second bedroom.

I set myself the objective of getting all the wall panelling done and I achieved this with a day to spare and so I made a start on the two small cupboards, similar to the ones is my bedroom. I got both of them built and on Monday I will make a start on their doors.

The panelling went well and I was particularly pleased with the result in this corner with the beam coming through the wall.

Sorry about all the scaffolding and other junk but, I am still working in here.

And that just about covers it for this fortnight as far as the work is concerned. I expect this room will take about another three weeks to finish completely and then I will have to decide what to do next. At some stage I want to make a log bed for this room but, I think that will have to wait until I can get some appropriate wood from the forest in the spring/summer.

I have just about finished my first winter stew that has been on the go for three weeks. To be honest, I'm sick of it now. Three weeks of the same thing is enough. It has served its purpose and saved me a lot of time preparing meals but, I need a change. So, it is back to different meals every evening of a while, until I'm ready to face another stew of sorts. The fire takes time to keep going as well both during the day and through the night and every few days I have to spend a couple of hours getting wood in from the wood pile. I stack some of the large pieces under the covered deck for easy accessibility and this I use mostly for slow burning fires to keep going through the night. During the day I use the smaller stuff, which burns faster and produces more heat and I keep a ready supply of that on the quad trailer in the garage.

I won't be posting again before Christmas so I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Only the howl of the timber wolf

Today is the first full day off that I have had since I moved in and, true to form, it has really been forced on me. My muscles have been getting more and more tired and an accumulation of minor knocks, cuts, sprains and repetitive stress injuries have forced me to listen to my body and take some down time. The good news is that I have plenty of time today to devote to the blog.

All of the above has meant that I haven't quite managed to achieve everything I would have liked to do this last fortnight but, even so, it hasn't been a bad couple of weeks. I started last week with panelling the stairwell and that went pretty smoothly and this week got the second closet on the landing done and made a start on the railings on the landing balcony and the banisters for the stairs.

I started panelling from the basement upwards ….

…. and covered the ICF blocks on the first landing.

I continued on up to the second landing …..

…. where I also joined the logs to the ceiling and finished the trim work around the beam and panel/drywall interface.

I then set about the walk-in closet for the second bedroom which, along with the one for the main bedroom, is on the landing .…

…. in which I put some shelves as well has hanging bars .…

…. and finished it off with hanging the doors and applying the trim.

So ended the first week.

The easiest part of the next task was always going to be the railings for the main landing balcony. The only thing that was going to make this difficult was the size of the spans. At over twelve feet long, the railings would be too heavy to manoeuvre to put in place and so the first decision was to decided whether or not to spit each side into two smaller, more manageable, sections. As this would also involve putting in additional posts, I decided in the end to stick with single spans and build the banisters in place. Fortunately, all the materials were already prepared. The railings (above) have been in the house since August waiting to be used and getting in the way ….

 ….  and there were more than the 38 spindles I needed, that I had prepared in the summer with the ones for the North Wing deck.

In the event they all went it remarkably easily and, once I had got all the drilling done, quite quickly.

The same was true for this smaller railing on the stairs side of the landing.

At the end of it, I was pleased with the result .…

…. and it has transformed the landing balcony ….

…. which now looks much more in keeping with the rest of the cabin.

The stair banisters were always going to be a much more difficult kettle of fish to handle. The length of the runs and the heights of the posts meant that they could not be symmetrical, therefore each rail and spindle would have to be made bespoke. In addition, I would have to find the rails from the wood pile and strip and prepare them. So some outside work with my trustee old chain saw, which I have nicknamed the 'goblin slayer' (from the Hobbit). It hadn't been used for months but started first time, which was a bit of a relief.

This time I decided to start at the top and work downwards. This was mainly because I wanted to get the parts I use the most done first, so as to make going up and down the stairs, especially at night, safer.

The first flight took me a whole day but ….

once I had learned a few ways to make it easier and faster the second flight took just over half a day, including all the staining.

So, the Great Room has a different feel to it now. I still have some staining to do in the stair well and some caulking to do but, after that I have to decide what to do next. I am minded at the moment to get on with the second bedroom because, when that is done, I will then have somewhere for guests to stay and I am expecting my first sometime in the new year. I am managing quite well without a full kitchen at the moment with the wood burning stove and BBQ to cook on proving to be more than adequate.

My first winter stew has been on the go for over a week now and I have discovered that I can make toast on the wood burner as well. What more do you want?

The main cause of most of my woes this week has been the power tool on the left in this picture, which I call the 'wrist breaker' and to which Alan Barbone can fully testify. It has thrown more than one person off the scaffolding and this week it damn near broke my wrist while I was cutting holes for the spindles on the stair rails.

The ski slopes opened this weekend and a few friends came down from Calgary for the occasion. There is still no snow here though, which I am not complaining about as it has warmed up again. There have been plenty of mule deer and elk about and the rut has started, even in my back yard would you believe. The silence of the nights is broken only by the howl of the timber wolf and there have been plenty of eagles circling above the lake and the cabin looking for prey.

So, a few Skype calls to make now and then, as it is poring with rain outside, I think I'll watch a movie.

Starting to come together

Well, I am beginning to feel that it is all starting to come together. I have at last managed to get the larger of the two scaffolding apparatus out of the house and I hope that I won't have to bring it back in. The glass for the internal windows in bedroom 2 arrived (a little late but, I am not complaining) and today I fitted them and put on the trim. There is no other reason now why I need the scaffolding in the Great Room and having it out of the way has opened the room up again.

The window didn't go in quite as smoothly as I had hoped because the frame proved not to be square but, ….

…. it went in well enough.

I spent most of the last fortnight working on the front entrance to the cabin, which is now finished. As you will all appreciate, there is no rushing finishing work. Coats of paint have to be left to dry as does tile mortar and grout so, to fill in the gaps, I also finished all the high areas of the ceiling above the landing and stair well.

To be perfectly honest this was a pain in the arse. I couldn't get any scaffolding on the landing and so I had to use a ladder to get to most of the beams and dry wall. But, it is done now ….

…. and so I should only have to use the ladder a minimal amount to fit the last pieces of trim on this side, once I have got the panelling finished which I hope to do over the next fortnight.

The main entrance is now done and I have panelled the outer wall of the stairwell on the opposite side as well. 

I started with panelling the closet and drywalling the inside, which wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be and I was very pleased with my 'mudding' (got to know the jargin if you are going to do this stuff) 

The other side of the stairwell was fairly straight forward and last week I had dinner three times with one of my neighbours and one of the other guests is a great fan of Canadian Rugby so, I dug out my print of the Rugby Match, by W H Wollen, to show him and he was as pleased as punch.

I also had to box in the area where the log walls meet the roof both here and …. 

…. above the front door.

I then focused on the hall way putting Log Jam chinking in all the log cracks and joints; getting the trim on the door and side panels; tiling the floor and finishing off the closet. 

I even dug out some things to go in the hall way. At a later date, I'll probably add a chair or two or even a bench and maybe a table or shelf. For now though, my 4.5 inch shell cases and a mirror will suffice. 

Another closet to pass muster with Lady Catherine de Bourgh …. 

…. complete with some outdoor clothing and ….. 

plenty of shelving for hats, gloves, scarves and the like. NB the outstanding drywalling - you can't see the joins.

I was also particularly pleased (seriously) with the tiling, the colours of which match the beetle kill wood colours - you can't say I'm not colour coordinated.

Altogether it was a pretty successful couple of weeks. The wood burning stove has kept me warm and I have not yet had to deploy the backup systems (furness and baseboard heaters) although they are on standby as a quick reaction reserve in case they are needed. It will be interesting to see how the wood burner copes when it starts to get really cold. I'll keep you posted on that one.

The snow came and went almost as quickly as it arrived .…

…. and in spectacular fashion in some areas.

There has been an abundance of wildlife about, including mule deer, elk, wolves, eagles and osprey and  - me.

Next week I am going to make a start on panelling the stairwell from the basement all the way up to the ceiling of the main cabin. With that happy thought I'll sign off for another fortnight.