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.

Not David Bailey

It's Sunday evening, the clocks have gone back and I was just about to settle down and watch a movie when I realised that I have been living here for a fortnight now and I am due to update this blog. So I have just had a nice hot shower and here I am at the computer. It's snowing hard outside, it has been for a few hours, and there is about five inches of wet snow on the ground. I don't think it will last that long but, who knows.

The big news this fortnight is that I have found my little digital camera which isn't great and doesn't turn me into David Bailey but, it is better than my iPone camera that I have been using for the last two years for the blog. So I'll start by showing you some better photos of my bedroom and en-suite bathroom and then I'll show you what I have been up to these last two weeks.

Most mornings the sun wakes me up by shining straight through the french window onto my bed, …..

…. which as you can see I had already made by the time the sun came out on this occasion.

This camera has a slightly wider field of view than the iPhone and therefore you can gauge the room size better.

I am afraid that I haven't had time to put any pictures up or to get any rugs for the floors yet but, they will eventually make the place a bit more homely.

So far the wood burning stove in the Great Room has managed to keep the house nice and warm and therefore the furness and baseboard heaters (one of which you can see here) have not been put to use yet. 

A better view of the vanity in the en-suite …..

and the shower, which has proven a great success. No problems with moisture for the wood in the shower area. The extractor fan takes all the steam out almost instantly and the dry atmosphere in the cabin absorbs any residual moisture very quickly. I also gave the beams a couple of extra coats of external wood stain just for good measure.

My main effort this fortnight has been finishing all the high areas of the Great Room, which included painting the white wall boards, staining the beams and then putting on the trim to cover the gap between the two. I also managed to put this fan up - sorry about the specks of dust on the camera lens.

I have also put the trim on the prow windows and doors which wasn't as straight forward as at first I thought it was going to be but, the end result is good.

I have also removed the plastic protection from the windows and that has brightened the place up considerably. 

I had to wait until it was dark outside to take these photos as all my attempts during daylight didn't show any of the detail because it was too bright outside. You can see my neighbours house in the distance through the windows.

I also put up the panelling on the other side of the Great Room (top left of the photo), by the second bedroom and once the window is in (you can see one on the floor here) I will be able to get the scaffolding out of the house.

The next task is to do the panelling at the entrance and on the stairwell. I'll make a start on this tomorrow after I have finished making the internal windows for the second bedroom, which I will then have to take into town to have the glass made for them.

The only negative thing this fortnight was that I dislocated the middle joint of my little finger on my left hand. I managed to do it climbing up the scaffolding would you believe. I put it back in place without any pain at all but, I should then have put a splint on it, which I didn't. So now I have a permanently thickened joint and I cannot straighten the bloody thing. Well, at least it isn't my trigger finger. Hey ho!