I was able to get up to the cabin a few times this Fall. These trips were more about fun than work on the cabin. On the opening weekend of duck hunting season, Chris and I tried our luck with ducks and grouse. We saw ducks and some beautiful sunrises, but the ringbills proved to be too fast for us. Grouse hunting was more successful, and Chris managed to bag his first grouse ever.

The following weekend Dad came out to visit. He bought us a few windows, and we were able to install them. We also fished a nearby lake. Of course, as usual, he outfished me. His 23" walleye was a real beauty.

A few weeks later it was deer season. I was lucky enough to be able to take a doe on the first morning. It is a game-changing experience to take a deer on my own property because I realize I can now manage the property to enhance those hunting opportunities.

Finishing Up (for this year . . . kind of)

I went back up this weekend to finish up most of what I wanted to get done this year. The west gable needed sheathing, and that went pretty fast. I then put up Tyvek on that gable and on the dormer. That pretty much did it! Now I expect the cabin to be able to make it through the winter.

There were a lot of little things that still needed to get done. I got the deadbolt in and I moved some gravel along the patio to take care of settling/erosion issues. I also braced the patio roof. After that, I cleaned up all the mess I've left over the summer.

There's still a ton of work left, but it's at a point where I don't have to worry about it anymore. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy it some this Fall!

Wrappin' It Up

We were down in Mankato for the first part of the weekend (which was a lot of fun, by the way), but I was able to head up to the cabin on Sunday and get a little more done on Monday. It's time to get the sheathing on the gables and wrap the house in Tyvek. Since I don't have scaffolding, it wasn't immediately obvious how to work up there under the rake, but Jim had a suggestion that worked out well. The ladders were set straight up and held in place with straps so they couldn't tip. Then, the ladder jacks were used on the inside of the ladders to hold up the aluminum plank. It worked great, and was easier to put up and adjust than scaffolding would have been. The sheathing went really fast, and the Tyvek wasn't too bad.

I had a little extra time to work on "fun" stuff. I walked down to the lake at sunset, and there were wood ducks everywhere. Cool. Also, a few weeks ago I put in a micro food plot. It may be too small to really bring in deer, but I wanted to get at least something started this year. Really, I just want to see if I could get something to grow and to learn what I could to be ready for a bigger effort next year. It looks like the seeds have sprouted well, and if I were a deer, I'd be eating there.

The final task was to put in the exterior door. Marie had painted it a few weeks ago, and it seemed about time to install it. It only took about an hour or two. It's really nice to be able to lock stuff in the cabin now. With the one gable sheathed, the Tyvek on, and the door in, the cabin feels noticeably less drafty compared to the start of the day. However, Luke doesn't seem to like the door. In - out - in -out -in - out - you get the idea.

Next weekend I hope to get the other gable sheathed and to take care of some of the remaining little details. It's getting really close to being ready for the winter!

Roofing!

The past two weekends, we managed to get the roof up on the cabin. It's a 12 in 12 slope, so there is no way to stand on it without help. By installing sets of roof jacks every four feet or so, we were able to work fairly comfortably. Also, Jim has some jacks that fit on ladders and a plank to span between them, so that gave us a really stable platform to use to get the roof started. In addition, Jim was able to borrow a roof lift for the week, so we were able to use that to get the shingles up the roof. By the end of this first weekend, we managed to get the back side of the roof pretty much done, including a set of roof vents.

The next weekend, Jim and I were back up there, and Mike and Tony were able to make it too. We thought the second half of the roof would go really fast. We managed to get it done, but it was more work than we had imagined.

It was great to have the help and get the roof on. Not only was it fun to work with four guys, but it is a huge relief to know that the floor should now stay pretty much dry regardless of weather. For this year, there is still a little more sheathing to put up in the gables, we have to install the door and a couple of windows, and wrap the whole thing in Tyvek, but that seems a pretty minor compared to what we've got done!

It's a Cabin!

This was the week that I hoped to basically build the cabin. I met Jim after work on Friday, and Saturday we started framing the walls. Our friend Aaron loaned us his compressor and framing nailer, and that really sped things up. We had the walls framed by the end of the day. On Sunday, we put up the ceiling joists for the loft and the interior wall to hold them up.

Jim left Sunday afternoon, and I stayed to work all week. A full week of vacation is hard to part with, but I really want to get this cabin weatherproof as soon as possible. On Monday I was able to put up most of the wall sheathing and the loft subfloor. It was nice to get up on the loft and imagine how it will look from there when it's all done.
Tuesday was really tough because it rained most of the day. The next step was to put up the ridgeboard, and this was a daunting task on my own. It's a 2x12 about 30 feet long, and I guess that it was between 100 and 150 pounds. I had to get it 18 feet up above the floor level. I have to admit, I felt really proud to get it done.


Wednesday the weather was better, and it was a lot easier to really get to work. I framed the rafters over the loft, and I framed the dormer. This was all pretty easy because I was working off the loft, and I didn't have to lift the rafters very high. The rafters were built from 16 foot 2x10's, which is heavier than the minimum recommended in the rafter tables, but I'm sure I'll be glad to have the extra strength and ventilation that they'll provide.

On Thursday, it was time to put up the other 14 rafters that were not over the loft. This was a little more challenging because I had to get one end of the rafter up to that ridge board 18 feet above the floor. I found that I could just push the rafter vertically up until it leaned against the ridge board and then walk the other end over to the wall and rest it on the plate. It was exhausting, and, again, it felt really good have done it. Looking at the finished rafters, I really like how tall the 12 in 12 slope makes the cabin.

Friday I did some of the remaining framing like the rafter ties, the gable window, and part of the patio roof. It had been getting warmer and warmer all week, and this began to exacerbate a little problem that I'd been having. Aaron's compressor is really good - it's got enough power to keep up with you even when your driving a lot of nails. I was running it off of Jim's generator, which is also really nice, but is little underpowered for that compressor. With the heat, it quit running the compressor entirely, so I had to continue nailing by hand.

At this point, I'd spent five nights on my own camping and working. The neighbors were nice enough to stop by and check on me once in awhile, and had to make almost daily runs into Home Depot, but for the most part I was alone (except for Luke, of course). I would wake up and start work, and then stop when it got dark. There really wasn't much else to do, so it wasn't that hard to keep going. It was exhausting, though. I was really, really happy when Marie arrived with Jim and Julie on Friday afternoon to help with the second weekend.

With the extra help and a rented generator that could keep up with the compressor, we were able to finish up nearly all of the remaining framing like outriggers and barge rafters, gables, fascia boards, and the rest of the patio rafters. Jim was really confident jumping up on the plates or working off the extension ladder, and that really helped get some of tougher steps done.

Marie and Julie had picked out a good exterior door and the perfect color for it, so they painted it. The cabin's almost to a point that it needs its front door!

On the last Sunday morning, we were able to get up about half of the roof decking. Like I mentioned, I love the look of the 12 in 12 slope roof slope, and I think it will be great at shedding snow, but this is the time that we have to pay for that slope. I'm not really comfortable yet working on the relatively moderate slope of the patio roof, so the steep part of the roof is really intimidating.

At the beginning of the week, I had hoped to get through all the roof decking. The fact we were probably less than a day behind at the end of the week is still pretty great. Up to this point we've been saying "We'll be up at the land this weekend", and at the beginning of the week all we had was a floor. Now, though, I think it's much more than just "The Land", and we can realistically start calling it "The Cabin".

Flat and Level

We've been up working on the land for several weekends now, and, I have to admit, the progress doesn't look impressive. Marie's parents offered to come up and help us this weekend. Once Jim showed up, the structure seemed to fly up!

At first Jim and I worked on the floor girders. They went in fine except for one pier that was about a half inch too high. I had designed the pier-to-beam joint system to be adjustable with diffent shim thicknesses, so that wasn't too awfully hard to take care of. The other 11 piers were fine. Since 11/12 is more than 90%, I'm still claiming that we get an A for the pier heights.

While we were doing the girders, Marie and Julie worked on the patio. It was a lot of weight for them, but they did it really well and had all the pavers laid before we had the girders finished. That's over 90 pavers - nearly two tons! The pavers fit in perfectly between the footing pads we had done last week, and that was reassuring.

For the subfloor, Jim and I got the sheets in place while Marie and Julie drove nearly all the nails. The subfloor makes a nice shady place that Luke discovered almost immediately. We were done by about noon on Sunday! It's hard to believe that walls will be going up next week.

Dirt and Concrete

This was the weekend that we planned to put in our foundation. For several reasons, we decided to use a pier foundation, but it really boils down to the fact that it's the only option I could find that gets us below the frost line (60 inches!) while still being inexpensive and something we could do ourselves. We have to distribute the load over more soil area than the tubes alone provide, so we're using the 24" diameter tube bases that you can see in the picture.

We wanted to do it ourselves, but the thought of digging 16 holes that are five feet deep was more than we wanted to tackle. That's why we contracted Larry to help us out with his 30" auger. Even so, dealing with one unfortunate big rock and all the dirt that came out of the holes made the job a little tricky. And of course, after Larry left, Marie and I were left to place the forms and backfill the pits on our own. Marie developed a very effective bulldozer technique that you'll have to ask her about sometime.

We discovered that our land has lots of wild rasberries, and having fresh berries for breakfast was an outstanding surprise.

On Sunday, we cut all the tubes so the tops are level. We also put together a series of square forms on top of tubes that are below grade. These are going to be footing pads for posts that hold a roof over our patio. I've planned it so that the square pads will fit in with the paver bricks - essentially taking the place of a brick in the pattern. We'll see how that works out . . .

On Monday the concrete truck was scheduled to arrive at 10:00. This was a tense moment because Larry has had some trouble getting his equipment up our driveway. I've done a little work on it to make it more accessible, so all I could do was hope the truck didn't get stuck. Boy, was it a relief when the truck made it up the driveway with no problems other than a pine bough that went into the driver's open window.

An hour later, the concrete was poured, and the truck was gone. Marie did a great job as a concrete finisher. After the work was done we had a little fun and put our name, the year, and Luke's paw print in one of the little footing pads. Here's Luke looking proud next to his autograph.

So now, the piers are in place. We're ready put on the floor beams and lay down the paver patio. Hopefully, that will happen next week, and it will finally start looking like something!

Getting Started

I've decided to put together a little blog about our cabin up north. Mostly, I just want to post pictures showing the progress of the project. I don't expect it to be witty, enlightening, entertaining, or helpful. In fact, it's probably not worthwhile to anyone in any way, so I may even be a little surprised if anyone follows it. With that stellar introduction, here is the first post.

There is a picture of the site before we started. There is also a picture of the progress after the first two weekends up there in May. We picked the spot and cleared the grass and topsoil. I also cleared the driveway and took down a few old aspens that appeared likely to fall toward the future cabin.

The past weekend we had a wedding to attend Friday night and ran a 10k on Saturday morning, but we still managed to make it up the land and get some work done. We had some fill brought in to level the site a little more. I also managed to drive a shallow well and put in a hand-pump. The well-driving got troublesome when the pipe broke in the fittings a couple times, but I eventually managed to get it down to the depth I needed with the threads in tact. There's a picture of the progress (you can see the well in the background). There's also a picture of me being completely delighted that the well was working.