Odds and Ends

The knee wall framing is finally in place. In the back loft, anyway...

The work has been minor since the ceilings for two reasons: We spent the 2012 cabin budget on them, and we're too busy enjoying the place.

The LSW is right - Vermont is a epicurean paradise. Food gathered at the Brattleboro Co-op is usually supplemented by stops at farm stands, resulting in our going from mostly eating out to mostly eating in. Amazing what you can do with a grill, toaster over, hot plate and dorm fridge.

Uh...amazing what the LSW can do, that is - I still mostly don't cook.

Recent trips have mostly involved meeting the neighbors, geocaching and attending local festivals. The night routine tends to begin with cheese, pepperoni, crackers and drinks and proceeds to sitting around a campfire until bed time. Nice. Really nice.

On the work front, though, we have managed to make a small dent in the punch list despite the lallygagging:

• The bath - and about 20% of the remaining walls - has been primed. The bath has also been painted.
• The Vanity is installed. We finally have a working sink! Unfortunately, I've lost the thing on the faucet that closes the drain, so we have to reach into the vanity and close it manually. Eventually I'll get around to ordering a replacement part.
• The knee walls on the back loft are completed.
• The fire alarm has been installed. Improperly, it turns out. According to the instructions, it was supposed to be at least 6" down from the peak, something I didn't know when we installed the box and put up the ceilings.
• The 3-way switches for the track lighting has been hooked up. While doing it, I found that I only needed 3-lead wire between the two switches, as power comes into one and both track lights hook to the other. I made the mistake of running 25 feet of 3-lead wire to both track lights instead of using the 2-lead wire I already had - a $30 mistake.
• I used scrap EWP ship lap to cover the Tyvek under the porch roof. We'll do the remainder of the underside in T&G bead board pine next spring. We've got to get something up and paint it blue because the hornets love the underside of the roof.
• The remainder of the tile backer board for the entryway is now installed, as is the marble threshold for the bathroom.

Front wall primed. Side wall, not so much.

 I'm planning a solo trip soon to replace the basement door with something that seals better (in what I'm sure is a futile attempt to keep the mice out), finish what little remains of the drywall mudding, and clear out the material scraps. That will be followed by another weekend trip with the LSW and the Boy in which we plan to complete the priming and close the place up for the winter.

Looking around, I believe that next year we'll be able to finish the place and start working on our long neglected primary home. Unless we decide we need to immediately turn to the guest cottage that will allow us to share it with friends...