Last Post of 2024
This is the last post of the year, but unlike previous years, I expect (hope?) for more activity during the winter than in past years. Skookum is still very much a messy construction project, but it’s also enclosed, warm, and functional. This post includes work from a couple trips to Skookum.
Recent work was mostly devoted to finishing the stem walls. The left photo shows the framed and insulated North stem wall, and the right image shows the same stem wall with a plastic vapor barrier over the insulation. I want to finish this wall first so I can move all the materials up against the wall and more easily access the rest of the cabin.
Wylie got a new and much larger backpack for his birthday (I’m feeling clever about that), so I loaded him up to haul in supplies. It takes about an hour to hike in, depending on snow conditions and how many times Wylie lays down. The snow is sparse for this time of year, but it was still handy to have snowshoes. There wasn’t enough snow for skis.
I used some old-fashioned bribery to get Wylie to use the nail gun, and then I put him in charge of putting up the tongue and groove (T&G) panels. He was intimidated by the nail gun initially, and it took him a while to get a hang of the process. The above video shows him working on one of his early T&G panels.
We stayed up at the cabin for two nights during our most recent visit. Our “bed” was a still-substantial stack of T&G lumber (Wylie is kneeling on the stack in the left image). Later we read a book and put together a puzzle (right image) before snuggling into our sleeping bags. The cabin has a computer and internet, so I can’t claim that movies were not watched and screentime wasn’t had during breaks from work.
Wylie put up nearly all the T&G himself and became much more comfortable with the process, as you can see in the video above. (The sound is from an audio book — something that clearly improved productivity.)
By the second day Wylie was putting up the T&G quickly and he completed the North wall, part of the West wall, (left photo above), and a decent chunk of the East wall. The stove kept us warm with a pot of hot water at the ready while it snowed and blew outside.
While Wylie was putting up T&G panels I moved forward with some other projects. I started on the frame for the bathroom (left photo above), did a little wiring, and attended to several small details. One thing I was worried about was leaving the batteries sitting at full charge for too long, so I turned off the connection to the solar panels and we drained down the batteries as much as we could. After running a chop saw, compressor, internet & computer, and lights over a period of close to 3 days, the batteries were down to around 50% charged, as shown by the 3 lit and 3 un-lit LED indicators (right photo).
Before leaving on the last day, Wylie stained the T&G with a light stain. Following directions from Tom, I had sanded and tack-clothed the T&G first. Wylie reluctantly stood for a photo with the stained T&G (right photo).
It only snowed 2 or 3 inches while we were at the cabin on this last trip — not much, but a little progress. It will take much more before I can use my skis. Fog settled in for our hike out, adding a little enchantment to the ending of our last trip to the cabin in 2024.
Lots of finishing touches being put in place. It looks like 2024 was a good year for the cabin, and now it is shifting gear to more finishing touches that add a lot of visual appeal. Keep it up.
It looks like you’ve got a duct behind the wood stove. Are you bringing in fresh air for the stove?