Scary Cabin

If you’ve been following along, you know that we had a goal to spend Christmas at the cabin. Well, we did it! Everything we wanted to have done wasn’t but we have 2 separate bedrooms and a working toilet upstairs. Good enough for us and Genny’s folks.

Leading up to Christmas, the 10 day weather forecast showed snow on 3 of the 5 days before Christmas, including on Christmas eve. Looked like we’d have a white Christmas. As it got closer, the forecast called for less snow but still some on Christmas eve. Christmas eve morning, it was showing snow with an estimate of up to 8 inches at the cabin’s elevation. By the time we arrived in the late afternoon, the snow has mostly stopped and there was about 3 inches on the ground. So we did have a white Christmas! I found out that Genny, being a California girl, had never experienced a white Christmas before. So this was an extra special Christmas!

After a leisurely morning with a good breakfast and opening presents we made a trip up to Laporte. Laporte is about 20 miles away and another 1500 feet higher. There a s good bit more snow up there. At least a foot. Not much was open so we just drove around and checked out the snow covered sights.

Is is possible to spend time up there and not continue with the remodel? I don’t think so. After installing the bedroom doors the one to the back bedroom just didn’t look right. We had moved that door when we expended the bathroom and had basically must moved the rough opening the 9 1/2 inches over. The top of the opening was left open in the bedroom to be used as a shelf. Once the door was installed, it became apparent that there was no way the door could be trimmed on the hallway side since we basically had ceiling right above the door frame. This small bit of ceiling also intersected half way over the bathroom door so we wouldn’t be able to put trim there either. After a bit of thought, I realized that this little bit of ceiling really should have been at least 5 inches higher. This leaves a bit of “wall” above the door frames so that they can have trim installed. Nothing like taking a hammer to new, textured, and painted drywall. We knocked out that bit of ceiling and re-framed it about 5 inches higher. This also meant that the shelf like structure in the back bedroom had to be raised about 5 inches. We got the framing and drywall done, now it’s just a matter of texture and paint. It looks more correct now. So I guess the lesson here is try to do things right the second time.

We spent some time thinking about and finalizing the trim along the stairway. This is another case of not really knowing how everything should fit together when starting out. Long ago the bit for railing was built, at the time, we weren’t thinking about adding trim to the stairway. The trim was added because the wall wasn’t in good enough shape to provide a clean joint for the laminate. Well, the railing mount doesn’t line up with the trim and it’s a little late to be re-building the railing mount. I think we came up with an acceptable solution and are now working to implement that.

We brought up most of the wood needed to build the upstairs bedroom window cases. Turns out I was short by one 1×4. What we had was cut and painted so at least the back bedroom inside window casing is ready to be installed. In addition, the bedroom doors were painted and one door frame painted. With the upstairs hovering at about 63/64 degrees, it takes a while for paint, wood filler, joint compound, etc. to dry.

Where are we now?
weekend n+0 - drywall prep (October 17/18th did some, not as much as planned)
weekend n+1 - finish drywall prep for texture (October 23/24/25 - texturing started)
weekend n+2 - texture & prime (October 31st / November 1st - prepping for texture)
weekend n+3 - paint & start bathroom floor tile & finish bathroom electrical (textured and prime)
weekend n+4 - finish bathroom tile & re-install vanity & toilet (paint, tile, and electrical finished)
weekend n+5 - install doors & start knee wall framing (laminate installed (most)
weekend n+6 - install laminate (laminate finished and stair trim)
weekend n+7 - finish laminate (grout, toilet, doors, stair trim)
weekend n+8 - break
weekend n+9 - break
weekend n+10 - Christmas!

Well, there’s still a lot of work to do upstairs so my estimates on how long it would take were, once again, way off. Even though the upstairs looks like a construction zone, it’s mostly finish type work that needs to be done.