Posted on

Labor Day , Day 2

 

After getting a semi-restless night’s sleep, we got up and got after it.  Ron began assessing next-steps, and I packed up the tent and bedding.  We decided to skip breakfast, and planned to get lunch in town.

Step one was removing the floor, so we would have access to the floor joists.  Ron measured where it ‘should’ be, and we removed all the nails that would be in the path of the Skilsaw to cut away the plywood.  Some of the nail heads popped off, so we knew we would need a new blade after this process.  Once the plywood was up, we were able to cut away and remove the floor joist and replace it with a new one.

We found the dry-rot.  We think this could be the issue the previous owners encountered and decided they didn’t want to deal with fixing, so they sold.  Fingers crossed this is the only ‘big’ issue we encounter.

Eventually, we beefed up the floor beams, and we got the floor joist married (after Ron used the Skilsaw to rip a 2x6x10′ board down to 2×5.5, then notching out where it needed to sit lower at two beams, amazing work) to the rest of the exterior joist. While writing this is easy, actually doing each of these steps is difficult, and drains both of us physically and mentally.

Floor repair complete, it was already about 3pm at this point.  Being Monday of the Labor Day holiday, but not having a wall on r-cabin, we had a tight deadline of ‘sunset’ to get everything buttoned up.  Lets just say we didn’t make that deadline.

To the wall!

We decided, with this view, to replace the 4’x3′ window with a 5’x5′ window.  Picture me, one day in the not-so-distant future, sitting on my couch, with an open window, looking down the river.  Thankfully, we had to replace the wall, so expanding the window was a no-brainer.

As you can see, we were working by LED’s and Lanterns well into the night.  We ended up finishing around 9:30pm, cleaned up the tools, buttoned up the house, and headed home after a major roadblock on r-cabin progress was complete.

Hoping to return again on September 16th with all the windows, and get r-cabin dried-in and moving towards occupancy!

Even Rogan likes looking down river.

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Labor Day Weekend, Day 1, Sunday

We had a holiday weekend, and needing/wanting to tackle the serious work of replacing the dry-rot and making progress on the rehabilitation stage of r-cabin, I spent Friday ordering all the windows from Millwork Outlet in Maple Valley, and Ron and I spent Saturday getting supplies and purchasing our Honda Generator from Goodsell Power Equipment.  The drive Sunday was beautiful and we’re still trying to get to know all the named peaks on the route.      

When we arrived at r-cabin, we unloaded the truck, and loaded it right back up again with a pile for the dump we had left over from the last time we were up (our neighbors had brought over home-made cookies to welcome us to the woods after we had loaded the truck with this pile of rubbish and we missed closing at the dump by 15 minutes).  After finally discarding the rubbish, we stopped for lunch in town.  Back at r-cabin, we got to work removing the siding, and assessing the full depth and breadth of the dry-rot.  This is where the kitchen used to be, but won’t be where we put the new kitchen.

Assessing the best way to access the rotted floor joist, Ron made a cut in the decking in front of the door and we removed the decking in a small section.

After bracing the beams holding the roof up to ensure r-cabin didn’t kill us, we finally removed the exterior wall. 

What?

It was about this time, that we knew we needed to head back towards Interstate-5 to get to a home improvement store and buy the correct size plywood for the flooring and the lumber to replace the rotted floor joist.  There is a Home Depot in Sedro-Woolley, and we figured we had just enough time to get there.  However, it wasn’t until we get into town that our phone get service again, and learn that HD was 1 hour away and closed in 10 minutes.  I did a search for Lowes, and there was one in Mt. Vernon, that closed in 1 hour 10 minutes and was 1 hour away.  We did some two-lane highway passing and got to Lowes 14 minutes before they closed.

Racing to the lumber section, we got some assistance from a Lowe’s Employee, and bought 2×6’s, 2×8’s and some spare 2×4’s, just in case.  We also bought plywood and screws, and a gas can for the generator.  When we were loading up, Ron began to get very worried that we didn’t get big enough floor joist’s, and we would have to drive another 2-hour roundtrip in the morning, so, 10 minutes after closing, he went in the Exit and pleaded his case with the workers, asking to let him make one more purchase.  He exited with 2×10’s after a few minutes and we finished securing our load.  You can see Ron testing the load by standing on it.

This is the not-so-glamourous side of rehabilitation.  Eating Taco Bell at a gas station because everything else is closed because you were shopping for lumber.  Sometimes, food’s just fuel, and anything is better than nothing.

So that was the end of LDWWWD1-D.  Here you can see we set up the REI half-dome on the deck, and had a pretty comfortable first overnight stay falling asleep listening to the river and dreaming of the visits to r-cabin that won’t involve tool belts, Skil-saw’s.

 

 

Obligatory Rogan Photo, he likes the way it smells out here!
Posted on

So much Rubbish, everywhere!

Seeing something with fresh eyes, like when you show up after purchasing something after visiting one time, and seeing all the rubbish everywhere, helps one understand how much work will be involved.  This was the case when we arrived two days after closing on r-cabin, and realized we needed to get a container delivered in order to get a clean slate at the property.