April 18th 2010

Time to update the WWW once again on our progress. On Sunday we had the opportunity to go and get some wood from a 100 year old barn that was being taken down. It was like a recycler/reusers dream come true, all that wood and so little place to carry it lol... I didnt get any pictures of the place, but here here some of the "truckload" we brought back. I would like to thank Scott from Cobourg for inviting us to his "dream"...

The posts that you see will be for the supports for the porch roof. In this load of wood we also captured 5 old rafters from the barn, they will be used on the porch as well. The shorter logs that you see will be made into a railing, either for the porch or for the loft... depends if Patty or I get to them first lol...

April 10th and 11th

Well it was a fantasic weekend, so we packed up and went to the cabin to get some more work done on the loft. I had some great helpers for this trip.... Brett, Dallas and Faith came along to help me as well as pick out their locations for their own cabins!!! We managed to get the loft floor completed as well as move the bed up to the loft (thanks Bud!)... The inside is so much bigger with out the bed on the main level. Really starting to come along now!

All three kids did pick out locations for their cabins... Brett and I started on his, here is the floor started:

I went alone and was determined to start the porch... I had to be creative around the rock by the front door, but in gerneral I am really happy with the progress and the look of the porch so far. I had to use lumber I had available, which in most cases was 2x4's (would have liked 2x6's but beggers cant be choosers) :) The porch floor will support the roof above, which I will be using cut down trees from the lot clearing as my posts. Should look great when I am done (fingers crossed).

I the end I was short 3 boards (which I have at home) and need to pick up some joist hangers for the 2x4's just to make it that much more secure. Its coming along!!!! :)

April 2nd 2010

Wow what a beautiful day it was, I even broke out the work shorts for the trip and boy was I glad that I did. We loaded up the truck and set off to the property around 11. I had hopes of getting the front of the cabin finished and also getting the loft put togeher on this fine day. Brett and his friend Joey came along to help and do some shooting, Brett helped do the loft and the two of them hung Scooby (finally found a good use for a over 6 foot stuffed animal that I won at Canada's Wonderlad a few years ago) in a tree for target practice. Over all I was very happy with the condition of the "driveway" to the cabin. I think on the next visit I will get the Jeep running again so getting things back to the cabin will be a lot easier. I also got the chimney siliconed and sealed, which was long over due.
Here are some pictures of the day:

Scooby all loaded up for the journey lol:

Patty and I are extremely happy with the way that the front has turned out. Next trip I hope to get the other window in, finish the floor in the loft and side another side of the cabin... Looking homey now!!!!

March 29th 2010 - Cabinet #2

Well after some discussion with Patty and some wood digging, we decided to make another cabinet to the one that I already made. This one will be 6 feet tall by 2 feet wide and is mostly made up of reused or recycled materials. I didnt how ever have any wood for the main supports so a visit to the lumber yard was in order, $8 later I had what I needed (sorry uncle Mike I had to spend some money :)). This cabinet will sit between the fireplace and the wash stand, you can nver have too many shelves in a 10x10 cabin I figure. The cabinet is not quite complete, but here is an update as to where it stands this morning.

Saturday I cut, planed and rough sanded the shelves:

Here are the materials ready to be assembled. They are all sanded to finish and at this point I am getting ready to pre-drill the holes for assembly. Ikea has nothing on me lol...

Getting set up to pre-drill the screw holes:

Adding the supports:

Its coming together now!!!

I have a few more pieces of the pine to cut and attach, then its light sanding and start to varnish it. The last picture is just to give an idea of what they will look like together.

I also was able to get a new door that will swing the opposite way... Its a wooden door, but we think its worth it to have it swing the other way. Its a bit dirty, but it should work out fine with some new paint...

Until the next post.... Cheers!!!!

March 21st 2010 - Kitchen Cabinet

Well I had some time this afternoon and evening so I thought that I would get started on the cabinet for the kitchen. This will be an upper cabinet that will be attached to the wall above the "wash station". I had some tongue and groove pine left over from a home reno, as well as some wood that I recovered from the landfill. The cabinet will be 3 feet tall by 4 feet wide with one shelf at 18" in the middle.
Here is what I started with:

The wood was quite greyed from sitting and weathering so I used an electric planner that I bought at an auction for $1 and stripped the grey off. I then used a belt sander with 50 grit paper to remove the planner marks, then followed up with a palm sander with 80 grit then to 120.

I completed the 3 main pieces as described above. The wood that I had as the supports had a bit of a finish on them, so I just sanded them with 80 grit and then 120 to remove the finish. Here is the cabinet starting to come together:

I attached the pine tongue and groove with my braid nailer and was really happy with the way it turned out. Here is the cabinet as it sits today waiting for a bit more sanding and then a nice semi gloss finish is planned.

I will update pictures as I get into the finishing of the cabinet. I think it turned out exactly as I had pictured in my head. This should provide us with some much needed storage space for food and dishes.
I just hope that it looks good in the cabin!!!

March 19th - 20th 2010

Since we had not been up to the cabin since the beginning of January, Patty and I decided to go up for a night and enjoy this early spring we have been having. We didn't bring anything to work on, this was just a relaxing visit. I made a sign for the cabin over the winter, here is Patty with it:

The cabin stood up well since the last visit. Both Patty and I really like the way the the wood has weathered on the places that we have removed the bark on the outside.

Settling in to the "relax" mode I felt that there was a need for a quick refrigerator... This picture says it all:

Once I had accomplished the fridge building it was time to sit and enjoy the fruits of my labor :)

As was Saloman:

Given the relax mode, Patty also settled in for some R&R:

I took the dogs and we went for a walk looking for Moose and Deer antlers from shedding. Less than a 100 feet from the cabin the dogs and I scared a deer, which I think out of all of us Saloman was the most surprised. We didn't have any luck finding any this time, but we did find some really interesting "nature creations".

The night was great. Patty and I had dinner outside and sat out until about 7pm. One note that surprised me was that there were mosquito's already!!!! Not many, but I think we both got our first kills in for the season. We lit the fire and settled in for some movies. After the first movie we has the window open, both of us down to t-shirts and the inside temperature was 35C... Hot to say the least. We both slept well and awoke to a cool cabin, but that was quickly remedied by lighting the fire again. We tidied up, made some coffee and decided that we would go and look for more antlers this morning before we headed home. Again no antlers, but found some more amazing nature creations:

We had a great time and I think we are both excited to get back again and start some work on the cabin again. I took measurements for the front porch, the loft and the kitchen cabinets. Until next time!!!!!