we’re getting close….

The gutters-

We went with Masco Contractor Services for our gutters as they fabricate custom gutters on site, creating seamless gutters that are installed with hidden hangers. They were even able to match our roof color…we were extremely happy with the results!

The return of George and Kris-

With the gutters now in place and a date set to  refinish the upstairs floor, it was time to think about having more gravel brought in and the final grading done outside so we’d stop tracking red mud all over the place. We were super psyched to have George Lewis and Kris Cutter back to discuss our plans for the regrading and to show them what we’ve accomplished in the year since they’d been to see the place.  George had been such an integral part of our project in the early stages and we’d grown pretty attached to him…we’ve really missed having him around on a regular basis!

Counter tops-

We spent quite a bit of time searching through log cabin magazines trying to decide what type of counter tops to put in and in the end decided that we would go with granite, in some shade of black, as we felt we needed something to break up the monotony of the wood tones of the walls, floors and cabinets. We found ourselves rather bored with the usual patterns of granite in stock at most of our local granite stores until we stumbled across a pattern we had seen on line call Black Marinance (or Black Mosaic) and discovered that one of  the larger suppliers in town, Classic Granite and Marble, actually had a few slabs of it in their warehouse. We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it and, though we searched through their entire supply, in the end, that’s what we went with. We were not disappointed by our choice one it was installed!

Lighting-

We’ve had much fun figuring out and finding lighting for the place!  Most of the ceiling lights are attached to the heavy timbers that support the ceiling so a few of the ceiling lights we had picked out had to be returned as we realized they just didn’t look right hanging down from the beams rather than lying flush against the ceiling.

Flooring-

Another decision that took quite awhile to make was the type of hardwood flooring to put down. We found many different type of wood in different shades that we loved, but once we took the samples to the cabin, we realized they just didn’t look right. Some were too light, some had too much variance and looks way too busy once there was a large area covered. After going back and forth with different samples, we decided that a medium toned wood worked best with the walls and our favorite ended up being a hand-scraped, 5″ Walnut Koa. Once we picked out what we were going to use, we had the upstairs floor refinished by Eco Flooring to match.

Appliances-

Dave, in usual fashion, thoroughly researched appliance brands and models and did a price comparison for everything we were interested in purchasing. In the end we decided to order everything from HHGregg as they were able to give us the best deal, matching everyone else’s lowest price and throwing in a $500 gift card as well!

second Thanksgiving-

With Dave’s family all in town for Thanksgiving,  following suit from last year’s second Thanksgiving at the cabin with my family, we took everyone down the day after to check the place out. Rather than haul all of our leftovers down as we did last year, we decided to stop and pick up lunch from our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Caporal. The atmosphere was slightly different from last year when we ate outside around the bonfire, using a microwave we had brought along and powered with the generator in order to heat our food!