Shangri La

Shangri La

Saturday, June 26, 2010

The Remains of the Day

Is there anything better than sitting in a comfortable recliner, fresh from a hot shower and a cold IPA in hand after 6 hours of travel and 5 hours of hard labor? Save your breath - I can state conclusively that there isn't. Unless you garnish the scene with a hot barbecue pulled pork sandwich topped with cold slaw. And maybe some sweet potato fries. Ah, well - 3 out of 5 ain't bad.

It's troubling, however, that my 5 hours of work bought me about 1/3 more siding on the back wall. That's about 6 boards total, to be honest. If you subtract the setup and tear-down time, that's an astonishing 1 hour per board. Now, granted, there was measuring, cutting and test-fitting multiple times to accommodate the upstairs window, and most had to be stained after they were up, but really, 1 hour per board?? At this rate, the siding will finally be complete - what? - just before I'm dead? They say slow and steady wins the race, though, so I plod along...

It was a milestone day, however, as I was finally working from a power cord plugged into an in-cabin outlet. Yes, CVPS hooked us up yesterday, and Hennessey finished connecting the various circuits into the box. The wiring itself isn't quite done, but the circuits that are now have power. The cloud to this silver lining, however, is that I also got the bill: $847 - about $200 more than I budgeted. Not that the bill from Hennessey was unreasonable - the criticism is aimed solely at my optimistic budgeting. For the record, Hennessey was a pleasure to deal with - I'd recommend them without hesitation.

So now we're waiting on the state to approve the revised septic plan, and Taylor Excavating to provide an estimate. I dare not hope that Dan will tell me that the septic will be $3,500 bucks, but unless he does we won't have both a well pump and a septic system this year. Still, with electrical in the house, we have the option of carting in our own water and staying overnight. Hell, we could even splurge on a solar camping shower and portable toilet and make the accommodations downright luxurious. Huh. I wonder how the LSW would feel about that?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great blog. It's nice to see how other people work through the process of building small cabins and camps. We're from Philly and have small southern VT camp that we built a few years ago (outhouse + solar lights + 2 year old daughter). When I say "built", it's more like "got under roof", we're about 17 years away from completing at my current pace. On a side note, it's likely we've crossed path's at Top of the Hill. Being from the south I can say this is probably the best BBQ north of the Mason Dixon.

- Greetings from Philly and sometimes Whitingham VT.

CabinFever said...

Thanks! I've lived briefly in both Alabama and Tennessee, and I have to agree with you on Top of the Hill. We looked at property in Whitingham before settling a little further north. Inexpensive properties in Windham county are few and far between...