finishing the dormers, closing in the chimney, putting in the basement windows and starting the roof

Okay, so I got a little behind with my bloggin’ over the holidays…bear with me, a lot has been happening so this is going to be a long one!

When the JM Logcraftsman crew left on Thanksgiving Day, there were still a few things left unfinished.  They had run out of log siding for the second time so were unable to finish one of the dormers and, therefore, unable to stain them as well. In addition, the original basement windows that had been delivered with the rest of the kit ended up being the wrong size so new windows had to be ordered but had not yet arrived before the crew left. The wiring on the second floor was also incomplete and that which had been done was done incorrectly as, once Andy left, it had been left to be completed by one of the crew members who was unfamiliar with wiring. The original plan was for Mr. Lipham, Andy and one other crew member to return the first week in December to finish these three things, as well as to finish staining the outside of the cabin. The first week turned into the second week, which then turned into no communication from anyone as to when they might be back.

Granted, this was all during the holiday season and Mr. Lipham had also taken on building another cabin in Arkansas so I have no doubt that he and Andy both were being pulled in all different directions.  Having said that, regardless of what is happening on their end, the fact of the matter is that our place is still unfinished and we need to move forward.  Our local contractor, Todd Hawkes, had lined up people to start the plumbing, the HVAC and the roof and they were all ready to get started. Unfortunately, the dormers in particular had to be completed before the roof could be put on so, still hearing no date for Mr. Lipham to return, Dave arranged with Battle Creek to have the log siding and basement windows to be delivered directly to us so we could move forward.

Finishing the dormers

Although the log siding had yet to arrive, we went down the weekend before Christmas to start staining the dormers in the front so that the roofers could at least start on that side.  Dave also wanted to change out the trim on the arched window over the entrance as, on closer inspection, we realized it was less than spectacular to say the least.  By the time we finished the front dormers and had stained what we could in the back, the siding arrived so the following weekend we were able to get that up and finish staining the last dormer so the roofers could begin.

Putting in the basement windows

Meanwhile, the new basement windows had also arrived.  Thankfully, they proved to be relatively simple to put in and made a huge difference in the amount of light in the basement once they were in.

Putting in the fireplace/chimney insert

One of our next goals is to get the fireplace in working order so we can warm up the inside of the cabin to make working on the inside a little more pleasant during these coming winter months. Over the past few weekends we’ve been making progress and were finally successful this past weekend in getting the last of the chimney inserts in place and closing up the chimney.

HVAC & Plumbing & roof

While we’ve been busy with our projects on the weekends, there has been much going on during the week as well.

putting in the knee walls

Initially, we wanted to keep the tongue and groove of the roof exposed on the front side of the upstairs bedrooms and build knee walls on the back for storage. However, once the air vents and pipes were placed, we had to rethink which walls we were going to keep exposed on the second floor.

A visit from Dave’s folks

Although Dave’s parents have been avid blog followers, they haven’t had a chance to get down here to check the place out since construction began.  Fortunately, they were able to come down and spend Christmas with us and we brought them down on Boxing day to take a look around.