August is Over, Nooooooo!

August 30, Sunday:
Deb, Jennifer and I looked at lights, picked out a ceiling fan for the living room, and also finalized our decision on kitchen appliances. I spent a little more time picking out electrical stuff so that I can get a good start the wiring over the Labor Day weekend. Lots of work and lots of play is the plan.

August 28th and 29th:
Skipped work on Friday so that I could get a little extra done on the cabin before driving back on Saturday to pick up Jennifer from the airport (oh yeah, Jennifer decided that Benin Africa was not for her and arrives at SF Saturday night at 7:45pm). More on that later, maybe. So I was up at 4am on Friday making plans for the day. Stopped at Lowe’s in Chico to pick up the main electric panel and a bunch of other electric stuff. Met Marshall (Loerke Insulation) at 9:30 to work out the final details for the insulation and sign a contract. Sidenote: Marshall had some really cool baffles for maintaining the air space at the sloped roof. I had been planing to cut and fit soundboard between rafters but the product that the pros use will be a real time saver. So not to bore myself, or you, I will make the rest of this post short and sweet. Saturday morning I finished wiring the front and back porch lights, primed and painted three additional gable end vents, cut and screwed in place 40 blocks which meant 320 screws driven with my new 18v cordless impact drill (insert here the double grunt Tim Allen makes on Tool Time because I can’t spell it), and installed R38 insulation in the porch ceiling below the dormers. I felt hungry a lot but since Deb was not there to make me lunch I just kept working. 7:30 to 2:30 with only water, now that is a diet plan! O yeah, Patrick Riley had a crew put on the metal roof underlayment this past week. Now if it rains the cabin roof is watertight except for the chimney. I’ll post the picture later.

August 22nd and 23rd:
I loaded up all of the chimney pipe and parts, porch lights, some wire, and tools while waiting for Tim to arrive from his job in SF. Deb, Tim, and I left Vacaville around 8pm and arrived at Almanor late. Stan and Will drove up for the weekend to help work on the new cabin and were still up when we arrived. We got up early Saturday for a buttermilk pancake breakfast and headed over to the new cabin with our first priority of choosing the location for the wood stove. It was decided that a corner installation would fit best so I began reading the installation guide to determine exactly where to install the pipe and to determine if any framing must be adjusted. Luckily the pipe fit between the existing first floor joist layout but that meant that we needed to head out a ceiling joist and 2x12 rafter at the second floor. I made a trip to Chester to get some lumber and connectors and Tim, Stan, and Will began drilling blocking for attic ventilation and installing the recessed lights for the front and back porch. We made good progress on Saturday and rewarded ourselves with a great cocktail hour and dinner at the home site cabin. A warm shower sure feels great after a long day of work. Among other things Sunday was playing with clay day! We started working at 8:30am with Tim and Will installing the clay wrap on the in-wall drain lines from the second floor. Will made the work go fast by cutting all of the pieces first and then placing them on the shower and tub drains. I continued to frame out the chase for the chimney, which now included relocating a wall from one side of the room to the other side (Deb decided that the closet in the upstairs west facing bedroom should be on the same wall as the fireplace chase). That made good sense and it was better to move the wall now at frame stage rather than live with a bad layout. Later while reaching up with the skill saw and sawsall to cut out rafters and roof plywood for the chimney I realized that eating sawdust wasn’t so bad now that I don’t wear contact lenses. (Remember that eye surgery this time last year) It is still no fun cutting lumber above your head but at least without contact lenses it is tolerable!

August 15th and 16th
Things are still moving fast. On Friday night, August 14th, Deb and I drove to Almanor (new cabin or old cabin, it will always be “going to Almanor”). Pete drove up Saturday morning. The plan is to finish the DWV and install gas pipe on Saturday and then install the water pipe on Sunday. We stopped early (around 5:30pm) so that we could drive into Chester and attend a fundraiser dinner for Hospice (sat with Claude and Elizabeth Walker). Things went well and Pete finished all of the work he planned. I worked on pickup items and cut and installed backing for Pete and also lowered the 6x8 header for the kitchen window which was originally framed to high for Deb to see out. I cut in the underfloor access so that Pete could crawl under the downstairs bathroom to install the trap for the shower pan. We were thinking that Tim should be here to be the first one to crawl the “rock free” underfloor space.