I have been slowly easing into summer projects, and they just might continue at a slow pace. However, some progress has been made. The goals for this year are to: (1) Continue to improve the livability of the cabin, primarily by making the interior less of a construction project; and (2) Put up a shed so I can install a sauna and have storage for tools and the tractor. As usual, it’s not at all clear if any of the goals will be reached.
The tractor had a flat tire, but it seemed to hold air (at least so far) just by blowing it up. At any rate, the tire held long enough for me to do the worst of the dirt work for the shed site. The shed will be just north of the cabin, situated between the cabin and the outhouse.
The left photo above shows where the tongue & groove lumber had been stacked for over a year — it felt great to get it out of the cabin! The right photo shows stained and sealed tongue & groove lumber on ad hoc drying racks. Each board got two coats of stain and one coat of UV protection. I’m guessing that this stack is about 1/3rd of what’s needed under the eaves.
The shed will be a small pole barn. Each pole will be set on a concrete footer with a metal bracket to hold a 4 by 4 pole. For stability, fairly deep holes are being dug for the footers. I hired Mattihas to help with work on the cabin this summer, and in the upper left photo you can see him effectively watching his mother, Gretchen, digging his hole. Nicely done! Wylie decided to get into it and dug a hole, upper right photo. He insisted on digging it entirely himself and obtained the blisters to prove it. The ground was quite hard and rocky, tough digging.
We got the tongue & groove lumber installed under the north-side eave. If you don’t look too closely, it doesn’t look bad. One lesson learned was that we stained & coated the tongue, which made it a tight fit inserting the tongue into the groove. Hopefully I’ll remember that before staining the next batch…
Take the flat tractor tire off and have them put an inner tube in it. This fixes the leak, it doesn’t cost too much, and most any tire shop can do it. They may need to order the inner tube, but you could probably find one at a local big box store. The shed site looks great, what will the dimensions be?
Looks good. You’ve been busy!
Looks good. You’ve been busy!