Man down

Well, how many of you had money on the roofers not turning up? If you didn't, you should have. To be fair to Sean he did originally say that he was going to shoot for the 10th but would guarantee the 17th for starting. It didn't work out badly in the end because all the materials didn't arrive on site until late on Saturday, ie; yesterday. Not everything we need to get the house to lock up is here yet but, there is enough for the roofers to start work and make a big impact. Sean, plus three workers are all due here this evening by about 2200 hours and I hope to be able to add a post script to the bottom of this posting before I retire to let you all know that they have indeed arrived.

Owen is pulling out all the stops to get all his ducks in a row for doing everything that needs to be done over the next 5 - 6 weeks, which includes getting the water and electricity connected and the septic system put in. We also need resources for putting on the siding on the dormer walls and the wall in the second bedroom. None of this is helped by him being away in Missouri for so long. He went down there to do a job that was supposed to take him two days. He has been there for over 10 days already and it is likely that he won't be back for at least another 10.

Dwayne and I therefore plodded on, moving things along, getting things done and taking decisions in the absence of both Kevin and Owen. We finished off putting the plywood and mesh lath on the garage ICF blocks. We also put three bags worth of mortar on the mesh but, as I only had three we will have to wait until next week to finish this job.  We put the external trimming on all the windows that have been installed and we laid out and cleaned, with muriatic acid, all the stone we collected last week. We also started the onerous task of back filling under the decking with material (soil) that Steve Carpenter gave me at the back end of last week and finally we started staining some of the fir timber on the inside of the cabin.

Plywood, mesh and mortar on the garage ICFs.

Just waiting for the corners before we can start setting the stone. They should be here next week.

Trim on all the garage windows ...

… and the main cabin.

I promised I would show you the 'with' drip cap and ...

… 'without' - detail.

Back filling underneath the deck on the front and south side of the cabin is complete - back braking stuff in the crawl space and put Dwayne off work for a day - man down.

A bit easier under the east side facing the lake.

Once the windows are in, I will trim them and put short pieces of timber either side of the escape/drain path, which I will finish with pea gravel.

We also made a start on staining some of the fir timber inside the cabin.

Only about 2-3 inches of these beams will be visible, hence I haven't wasted stain doing them all over.

Some of the roofing materials. There is another similar load of 2" x 12" x 12'.

All the logs that Dwayne cleaned safely tucked away under a tarp to protect them from the sun and rain.

Most of the stone we collected last Friday laid out and cleaned.

This view gives you a better idea of the colours in the stones.

And finally, 8 more sacks of mortar ready to be used for the stone walling.

Kevin will also be back tomorrow and therefore I am expecting some rapid progress over the next couple of weeks or so. There is much to do.

PS. The roofing team has arrived.