Quotidian Pursuits

Decorating and Closing Up

2011-02-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

With all the little wrap-up projects done, they only thing I had left to do was to clean up and the do a little decorating! Above is pictured the kitchen area. The crock will be our drinking water storage until I eventually install a water system in the shabin. I plan to install a high efficiency chest style refrigerator underneath the counter in place of the cooler you see there now.

I laid out a rug in the living area.

And another one up in the loft.

I hung a rack for hanging jackets and other things, like our hiking equipment.

I hung some prints over the door.

What really makes the place are these five paintings, hung on both sides of the living area. They were all painted by my paternal grandmother, and they depict scenes from the summer vacation spots during my dad's child hood. My parents were very kind to give them to me last year, with the intention that they be hung in cabin. I am very grateful to have them, and I think they look fantastic and fit the place perfectly.

And with that, I closed up all the shutters, locked the place up, and said good bye. We will return later in the year, once things have warmed up. There will always be more projects to improve the place, but for now we have a great start on something to enjoy for many years.

Deck

2011-02-28T16:48:00.000-05:00

I wanted to create a nice outside area where we can set up some chairs to relax and enjoy the outside. I came upon a new product at Lowe's and decided to put it to use. It is a patio tile that is made out of recycled rubber. While durable for outside use, it is very soft and forgiving as well as porous for draining any rain. With limited time, I wanted to do something very quick and easy. So I stopped at Lowe's and picked up a truckload of sand bags, the rubber tiles, and some pressure treated lumber on my way up. The first thing I did, shown above, was to nail together four pressure treated boards to make an 8' x 8' box. The area in front of the shabin is already pretty level, and there is no topsoil to speak of. The soil is mainly rock and sand with some clay.

Next, I unloaded the bags of play sand. Above, you see the 900 lbs of sand in place.

Then, I cut and removed the bags.

And, using an 8' board, I spread out and leveled the sand.

Finally, I laid down the rubber tiles on top of the sand. Instant patio! It looks like bricks, but is oh-so-soft. In the summer, I plan to erect a shade sail over it to provide protection from the noon day sun, and just take down the shade when we leave.

Composting Toilet

2011-02-28T16:34:00.001-05:00

One really important addition to the shabin is a composting toilet. After extensive research, I decided on a Nature's Head Dry Composting Toilet. It was designed for mainly for usage on boats, and so it is compact, low power, and sturdy. It is quite simple in design and operation, and there are mainly people who testify to its effectiveness. I found it very easy and quick to install. First, I placed the base of the toilet where I wanted it and marked the location. I made sure to leave enough space at the back and side to raise and remove the top section of the toilet, which is necessary for emptying it.

I then moved the base out of the way and installed the mounting brackets to the floor. Above you see my one goof. I have them turned the wrong way. Unless one uses screws that can fit into the recessed of the brackets, the brackets must be turned to they are outboard of the toilet base. Otherwise, as I found, the base will rock back and forth on top of them. This was not a big deal to fix, and I simply turned them around.

After the brackets are in place, the base is simply slipped between them and fastened with these large thumb screws. This means it is very easy to pull out the entire toilet and move it outside, which I think is what I will do whenever I need to empty it.

Here you see the assembled toilet with the integrated seat mounted on top. The toilet has a fan that must be run at all times, and you can see its power adapter plugged in to the outlet I placed in the toilet room. The fan draws very little power, about 0.1 amps at 12V. This is about a tenth of the output of my single solar panel. While the panel does not operate at peak efficiency throughout the day, and does not work at all when the sun goes down, I an hopeful it can keep up to provide constant operation of the fan. The battery bank alone should be able to run the fan for at least a month, so that should provide plenty of margin for error once we put it into operation.

The purpose of the fan is to draw air in from the cabin and vent it to the outside, so I needed to cut a hole in the back wall. I ran a short piece of tubing, provided with the toilet, from the inside of the wall to the outside.

Along with the toilet, I purchased a mushroom vent, the same used for boats. Pictured above is the main body the vent installed in the hole. You can see the integrated screen that will keep bugs out. The vent is fixed to the exterior siding with brass screws and sealed with silicone.

The bell shaped cap is screwed into the main body of the vent, providing a rain proof cover.

On the inside, I affixed the white hose adapter plate to the short piece of tubing in the wall, and then screwed the plate to the wall over the hole. After that, it was just a matter of cutting the remaining vent tubing to the right length and slipping it over the neck on the side of the toilet and the neck of the hose adapter plate.

And that is it, ready for us when we come back in the summer!

Cabinets

2011-02-28T15:58:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am re-using the IKEA cabinets from my (now demolished) mud room to outfit the shabin with storage. I already installed some for the kitchen. This day, I finished hanging the rest in the living area. The ones pictured are in the open area, and their tops are a little higher than the loft floor, which you can see on the right. A matching pair is hung on the opposite wall. The handle on the wood faced cabinet is still in its original position. I do plan to move it to the bottom.

I hung the remaining two glass front cabinets behind the couch on the divider wall for the (future) shower. There is a gap between the couch and the wall, and I plan to use that area for a narrow cart or folding table that can be pulled out to increase the work surface in the kitchen area when needed.

Outlet Covers

2011-02-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

One thing I got pretty wrong was the outlets. I installed the electrical boxes at a time when I thought I would be using thin paneling, 1/4" or 3/8" thick. Later, I decided on using 3/4" flooring for the walls. Electrical boxes should be installed flush with finished wall. Mine, therefore, ended up 1/2" too deep.

Luckily, this is a fairly common problem, and there is hardware for that! Seen above, the white piece of plastic is an extension made for just this purpose. I installed such an extension for every outlet and switch. in the place.

The other thing I got wrong was being too sloppy in the holes I cut for the outlets in the paneling. I figured the outlet covers would cover up the ugliness. I was wrong. It turns out that standard outlet covers are not much larger than the electrical boxes they cover. Luckily, I found these over sized covers. And, even better, they are made out of real, raw wood!

Wrapping Things Up

2011-02-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

At the end of January, I went up to the shabin for one last trip this winter. This was just a (long) day trip, but I finished off a number of small projects. My goal was to get things in a state where they are ready for us to start enjoying the place come warmer weather. I am happy to report I managed to get everything done that I hoped to. One project you see above is the sign for our camp, posted to a tree at the entrance to our lot. I had the letters made a couple years ago, but now I thought it was appropriate to use them and unofficially christen the camp. I made the sign from a few scraps of pine paneling, to which I nailed the letters, and sprayed the entire thing with outdoor polyurethane.

There were so many little projects to cover that, instead of one long post, I will shortly make a small posting for each one separately.

Electric Power System

2011-01-18T17:08:00.001-05:00

I made it up to the land again this weekend for a day trip. I completed the power system while I was there. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wired the shabin so that I can simply plug in AC power from where ever I can get it. So far, that has been exclusively from running my trusty generator. Of course, I want to be more green as well as enjoy some peace and quiet, so I am dipping my toe into solar power. You can see our newly installed PV solar panel above the glass door in the above picture.

The solar panel feeds DC current around to the back of the shabin, where I have set up a low storage shed. In that shed, I have installed a pair of batteries to store the power. In the picture above you can see the batteries, lots of heavy duty battery cabling, and the small blue and black charger that regulates power from the panel to the batteries.The batteries are inexpensive, sealed deep cycle models from Wal-Mart. They each store 125 amp-hours of power, and are wired in parallel to provide a total of 250 amp-hours of power at 12V. I estimated that amount of power could conservatively power the lights and ceiling fan for about 12 hours of continuous use. It should also be able to power the small fan in the composting toilet for about a month.

I do not use 12V power, though, so on the other side of the mounting panel is an Tripp Lite inverter/charger. This is really the heart of the operation. The battery cables connect to it, as does an extension cord that plugs into the shabin. The inverter itself plugs into the generator, which I have also installed in the storage shed. When I turn on a light inside, the inverter draws DC power from the batteries, and supplies the AC power. If I have the generator on, it pass that power straight through to the shabin and charge the batteries at the same time. My system is really a hybrid. The solar panel, at 15W, is really only enough to keep up with the drain from the composting toilet fan that must run 24 hours. So, primary power is supplied by the gas generator. It is still more efficient than running only from the generator, because i can fully charge the batteries by running the generator for a couple of hours. I can then enjoy many hours of intermittent usage and silent power from the batteries, rather than running the generator all of that time. It also allows me to run the generator while running the air conditioner, which would otherwise deplete the batteries in a short amount of time. If the solar seems to be doing well, I will probably invest in more panels. A reasonably small solar system should be able to recoup our power usage (minus the A/C) during the summer when we are absent for one, two, or more weeks at a time.

I had time for some miscellaneous tasks after finishing the power system. One was covering over the exposed insulation in the shower area. I plan to eventually install a shower in that location, but it now looks like it will be a while before I install the water system. So, I used up some leftover flooring to cover up that wall. Above you see it half done, and the last anyone will see of insulation in the shabin for a long time. I have a few small remaining tasks to complete, and I plan to go up for one more day trip before closing up the place for a few months.

Paneling Complete

2011-01-11T19:13:00.001-05:00

I have been up to the land for three days of work so far this month, and that was enough time to finish paneling the inside. Above is a shot of the finished loft.

This shot shows the trim around the doors. In keeping with the rustic appearance, I went pretty basic with any trim. I simply cut down pieces of paneling, as I did for the trim around the windows.

I used some scrap panels to make shelves in the bathroom. The divider wall to the kitchen is only paneled on the kitchen side, leaving the bathroom side with the studs exposed. I installed the scrap pieces in the space between two studs. This should provide plenty of storage space for toilet paper and the composting medium for the composting toilet.

Here is the composting toilet. I have unpacked it, but not installed it yet.

I also has some time to do other little things around the place. I installed the cabinets for the kitchen. Behind the shabin, I set up a small shed to house the electrical systems, which include the generator, inverter, and storage batteries. There will be more on that in my next post. Finishing the electrical system is my next project.

Paneling Begins

2010-12-21T16:57:00.001-05:00

I made the trek up to the Shabin again last weekend. This follows a couple of inches of snow we received earlier in the week. I was the first vehicle to travel down our shared private road. The road to our land is 2 miles of ups and downs and hairpin turns. In other words, it was a nail biter.

This was especially true considering the 1500 lbs of wood paneling I was carrying in the back of my truck. At least all that weight kept the rear tires well stuck to the ground. I did not spin the wheels once! For paneling, I am using 5 1/8" wide rustic New England white pine flooring. Flooring for wall? Yes, and I will explain why. The only difference between unfinished pine flooring and unfinished pine paneling is the thickness. Paneling is typically 0.3" and flooring is 0.75" thick. Thicker is better! It feels more substantial when you lean on it, and you can nail a picture right to it. On top of that, flooring costs about the same or less than paneling per square foot. I believe that is because pine flooring is a widely used product with a decent market, while pine paneling has become a niche product.

The best thing I did to prepare was to buy a pneumatic nailer. This is saving me, because paneling take a huge number of nails and this makes it effortless. I am using this inexpensive Hitachi Brad Nailer and it is has been working great.

The planks are tongue and groove, and I am blind nailing them, meaning that I nail into the tongue part and the groove of the next plank. So, I start at the bottom of the walls and work my way up.

The work is pretty fast for plain walls, but going around obstacles such as outlets and windows slows things down a lot. Much measuring, cutting, and trimming is required. I did luck out on my first outlet. Notice that the top of the lower plank landed just right so that I only had to cut an opening in the one plank above. None of the other outlets were so cooperative.

I am keeping to a rustic look, and I want to avoid putting up much molding. For trimming around the windows, I simply trimmed down some scrap planks and nailed them around the opening.

Here is a finished wall. I had been debating how to finish the wood, and I was leaning towards shellac. However, I recently saw this fantastic cabin featured in Dwell. I think it my the most perfect tiny cabin I have seen. Its interior is unfinished New England white pine.That settled it for me, and I am leaving the wood unfinished to age as it will. I can get away with things looking rustic here, and it is certainly the cheapest and least effort approach.

This is the frist time I had been to the land in the snow. It is quite pretty and the shabin is very cozy.

After two days and 16 hours of work, I almost finished the downstairs area. I believe the downstairs will end up being harder than upstairs, due to all the windows, outlets, and divider walls. This pace is not has fast as I had hoped for, but not as bad as a feared. I am optimistic that I will finish the paneling during the next two day trip.

Insulation for Fun and Survival

2010-12-08T16:01:00.001-05:00

I ventured up to the shabin this past weekend. The weather was crisp and clear, with the temperature ranging from a high of 32F to something in the 20s overnight. One nice thing about this time of year is that the views get better once the leaves have fallen. I arrived Saturday morning and inside the cabin it was about 40F. I fired up the little heater and got to work finishing the insulation. At the end of the last trip I put up some batts in the walls, just the easy ones I did not need to cut, and had not yet insulated the ceiling. The heater was only able to get the temperature up to about 55F. If I was going to sleep comfortably that night, I needed to get to work!

I wanted to get the ceiling insulated first, so the first thing I did was to install vents within the rafters. These seem to be made out of the same foam material in which Big Macs used to be packaged. They create an space so that air can flow under the roof from the vents in the eaves up to the peak of the roof. Without that air flow, moisture can be trapped in the space, and moisture ruins the insulation.

Once the vents were stapled in place, then I could start insulating. The insulation in the walls is held in by friction, but the insulation in the ceiling must be stapled to the rafters. This was by far the most arduous part of the process, and it was dark outside before I was done. However, as soon as all the ceiling insulation was in place, the temperature of the shabin began to rise dramatically. I then spent the rest of the evening finishing the wall insulation and stuffing insulation into all the little nooks and funny shaped spaces.

Morning came with ominous dark clouds moving over head, with occasional snow flakes. During the night, there were high winds and some freezing cold misting rain. However, it was warm and quiet inside the shabin. It eventually got so warm, almost 70F downstairs and 75F up in the loft, that I had to strip the blanket off the bed in the middle of the night. I continued working Sunday morning, framing in the walls for the toilet closet and shower area. The kerosene heater ran out of fuel without me noticing, and I worked inside for 3 hours without the inside temperature dropping noticeably. With the insulation and framing work complete, I am now ready to start on paneling the interior. I have ordered 700 square feet of unfinished white pine, so I expect my next post will show some progress on paneling.

Lights! Heat! Bats!

2010-11-23T15:09:00.001-05:00

After a two-month hiatus, I made it back up to the shabin last weekend to do some more work. After opening all the shutters, I uncovered this cute pair of sleeping critters. I would have expected them to take off right away, but one of them opened its eyes and watched me, before flying away after I was out of sight. The other kept sleeping for a couple of hours before disappearing. I will apologize for the quality of my photographs. I forgot to bring a real camera and had to use my iPod touch instead.

It is getting colder, with temperatures below 40 degrees at night, so I now need heat. I eventually plan to install a vented propane heater. My cheap stop gap so that I can keep working through this winter is this kerosene space heater. It did an admirable job heating the uninsulated cabin all night using very little fuel. It is a bit stinky and requires cracking a window to supply it fresh air, so it is not a permanent solution. It did give me some idea that insulating the cabin will mean we can get by with quite a small heater.

I finished the electrical work I started back in September, meaning I wired in one last outlet, lights for the kitchen area, and this ceiling fan. The fan is out in the open vaulted part of the shabin, and did a great job circulating the heated air around the building. The fan was rescued from our house, which is now undergoing a major renovation.

Also rescued from the house were the cabinets I installed for my mud room project previously posted in this blog. I believe I will be able to use all of the cabinets to create the shabin's kitchen as well as general storage for stuff in the living area. I spent much of my time moving the cabinets from the truck into the shabin, and then reorganizing the piles of tools, hardware, and other stuff that had collected around the shabin into the cabinets. As space is a premium, this was necessary, despite having simply set the cabinets temporarily on the floor. Once I have the interior insulated an paneled, then I can start hanging cabinets on the wall.

And, speaking of insulation, I also brought up all the insulation and started work on installing it. I found a relatively new product that is not made with fiberglass. As anyone who has installed fiberglass insulation would know, the old stuff is very itchy and it take days for any glass fibers to work their way out of one's skin. This stuff feels like cotton and is a joy to work with. It is otherwise identical to fiberglass in its insulating properties and installation method. Because the shabin was conventionally framed with 2x4's that are 16 inches apart on center, I am able to just press the insulation batts into the voids between studs.

This was just a quick trip up at mid-day Saturday and returning mid-day Sunday, but I fell like I got a good deal of work done. My next trip will be to finish the insulation and, hopefully, get started paneling the interior.

Shabin Electrical Part 1

2010-09-23T19:46:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in the last post, I was able to spend an entire weekend working on the shabin. I got enough done to warrant two posts. After finishing the loft railings, I got to work wiring the shabin for electric. My original plan was to wire the cabin for 12 volt DC power. The shabin will be off-grid, so the idea was to store power in large batteries, much like an RV. As I got closer to actually doing the electrics, I switched to 110 volt AC. Technically, 12V power is more efficient for battery power, since the electricity is not converted. However, there are significant drawbacks. Because of the lower voltage, the current, measured in amperes, is higher. The higher current also larger energy loss over distance, which is dissipated as heat, not a good thing. To alleviate that requires thicker and more expensive wiring. Additionally, 12v fixtures, form switches to light bulbs, are specialized and more expensive. Finally, there is very little literature available on the best ways to wire 12v.

On the other hand, AC power is ubiquitous and all the necessary parts are cheap and plentiful commodities, and the knowledge on proper techniques is common and freely available. AC is much more appropriate for moving power over longer distances than DC, which requires thicker and thicker wire as the distance increases. Therefore, AC allows me to move the batteries outside of the cabin. The approach I took was to treat the shabin as one big AC appliance that I plug in. So, I ended up going with common household AC wiring

And here is the plug. This was the only unusual component I used, a 15-amp 110v AC inlet (inlet being the opposite of outlet, of course.) This was the one item I needed to order online. With this approach, I am free to use any power source, generator/solar/wind/grid, as long as it is converted to AC and has a power cord.

The rest of the electrics are standard, starting with the breaker box, which is where the power flows to first from the inlet. I have done home wiring in the past, but this is the first time I had wired a breaker box. It was a bit daunting, but I read up on it and it turned out to be easy. Typically, the most dangerous thing about the breaker box is the always-on high power line coming in from the grid. In my case, I was assuredly safe as long as I did not plug in the inlet while I worked.

Victory! This was the first outlet I wired. It is just below the breaker box. I plugged my gas generator into the inlet, and the circuit tester plugged in to the outlet lit up just as it should. That was a good feeling.

That good feeling was tempered when I nicked my finger with a knife shortly after this success. This would not be notable, expect that I forgot to pack the first aid kit. Lacking real band aids, I had to kludge together a paper towel and duct tape.

I continued to wire the rest of the cabin on Sunday. Since I want to insulate the walls, I ran the wires on the inside edge of the framing members. This is done by snapping a two chalk lines one inch apart along all the studs of a wall.

I used my circular saw to cut 1/2 inch deep grooves at each chalk mark, and then used a chisel to create a notch in each stud. The wire is run and secured in the notches.

The wires are protected from penetration from future nails or screws which metal plates.

By the time I left on Sunday, I had wired in all the outlets, the bathroom light, and the loft lights as shown above. I had to stop when I ran out of wiring, so on the next trip I can finish the minor remaining tasks of wiring the kitchen overhead light and the living area ceiling fan.

Shabin Loft Railing

2010-09-23T19:04:00.000-05:00

I went up to the shabin this past weekend by myself, while Lizz entertained an out of town guest. This afforded me two full days of work, and much was accomplished. The first thing I did Saturday morning was to finish the cable railings for the loft. As shown above, there are two railings. Twelve cables run the width of the loft and protect the opening to the living area below.

Since the stairs run up through an opening in the loft floor, I wanted to prevent accidental falls into the stair well. For that, I ran cables perpendicular to the ceiling, which is set at 45 degrees. The cables also have the effect of eliminating the bounce originally present along the open end of the loft.

Here is the view down the stairs. I think the railings turned out quite snazzy.

Loft Railing

2010-09-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

We made a quick day trip up to the camp yesterday. The main purpose of the trip was to deliver our new sleeper sofa. When I designed the shabin, I used an IKEA sofa as a reference for the living area furniture. I assumed we would buy the Ektorp corner sofa with a pull out bed. A corner sofa would provide the maximum amount of seating in a small area. A pull out bed would give us the second sleeping area we needed. Given the small proportions of the shabin, and the tight tolerances for things like loft stairs, the exact size of the sofa became critical. I was quite dismayed when I recently went to order the sofa and learned it had been discontinued.

Craigslist came through, however. I found this beauty for sale less than a mile from home, and it only ran me $100. The left side pulls out into a full size bed, and the right side is an ultra comfortable chaise lounge. Lizz claims it is the most comfortable piece of furniture we own. The sofa is in pretty good condition. The fabric is a bit faded but sturdy and the pattern is not something we would not have chosen for ourselves. In other words, it is perfect for a cabin in the woods.

Here we see the tight tolerance between the couch and the loft stairs. While we were up there, I also started on safety railings for the loft. I decided to use steel cables for the railings. Cables would be strong and the least obtrusive with regards to light and air movement. I also figured that they would look pretty cool. I purchased most of the materials from E-Rigging, who I will say were extremely quick fulfilling my order and much cheaper than buying from Lowes.

The first step was to carefully measure all the mount points for the cables. That was a bit time consuming. Since everything up in the loft runs at an angle, I got to use my 9th grade geometry, go Pythagoras! I spaced the cables 3 1/2 inches apart, with the top cable 42 inches above the loft floor. For the cable mount points, I used #0 size lag screws with eyes as shown in the picture.

In order to maintain tension in the cables, I used large (3/8") turnbuckles rated at 2000 lbs. These have shackles on one end whose bolts are slipped through the lag screw eyes.

I used 1/8" uncoated steel cable rated at 2000 lbs. Each cable is looped through the eye end of a turnbuckle, and secured with two screw down clips. The other end is secured in the same way on the matching eye screw. Once secured, the cable is tightened by adjusting the turnbuckle. I used galvanized steel for all the hardware, which should be perfectly fine for interior use, and is a huge savings over using stainless steel.

I think these are turning going to look great. This was just a quick day trip, so I did not have enough time to finish. I finished 8 of the 12 cables for the loft opening. I will also install a set of cables along the side of the stair opening to prevent falling in the hole from the other side.

Shabin Loft

2010-08-30T21:43:00.000-05:00

We made it up to the camp again this weekend. This trip was marked by lots of progress in the sleeping loft. The first task was to install our air conditioner, which would make working up in the loft feasible in the 90+ degree heat. I purchased a portable air conditioner, the kind that sits in a room and vents out via a duct to a window. My idea was to use it instead install it as a tiny permanent air conditioning system up in the loft, from where the cold air would pour down into the rest of the shabin.

The first step was to cut hole through the rear wall of the loft. This was a bit daunting, given the implications of messing up, but I managed to cut the opening exactly the right size for the vent hose.

I sealed the vent hose to the sheathing with silicone sealant.

From the outside, the vent is unobtrusive. This model of conditioner is designed to expel most or all of its moisture in the air venting to the outside. It also has a water reservoir and a fitting for a hose to drain the excess if it falls behind. For now, I will leave the drain alone and see if it becomes an issue. If it does, I plan to put a pipe through the outside wall as well to continuously drain any water.

After installing the vent, it was simply a matter of plugging in the air conditioner to an extension cord running to our generator. Ah, wonderful cold air! At 10,000 BTU the conditioner does not have the capacity to cool the entire uninsulated structure. It was enough to make the loft livable. Once the shabin is insulated, I expect it will be enough to take the edge off the hottest days.

Once the air conditioner was running, I got to work laying down a floor in the loft. As I described in my last post, I got a click together laminate floor. Not having to deal with glue or nails was nice. The flooring also came with a thin foam underlayment layer already attached. It turned out that the pieces did not really just click together easily, but were rather obstinate. However, after a few rows I worked out the right techniques to deal with them, and the floor went down a few hours.

Here you see the finished floor. The last part over by the edge was the slowest. I had to cut lots of irregular shapes to go around the opening for the stairs, as well as the small rail I screwed into the floor. That rail is important to the next project, which is to install safety railings along the open end of the loft and in front of the stairway opening.

My last project this weekend was to assemble a bed for the loft. I found this simple steel frame on Amazon. The frame does double duty substituting for a box spring. It also provides plenty of space underneath for an all important storage area, without raising the mattress up too high to the low ceiling.

Moving our mattress up to the loft exposed open space downstairs, which was largely taken up by the mattress on the floor. This makes room for the craigslist prize we will bring up on our next trip, a sectional sofa with a fold out bed.

We made it down to the river on both days for much need cooling off. Here are some pictures from our time down there.

Loft Stairs

2010-08-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

As planned, we went up to our camp this weekend to recreate and put some more work in to the shabin. This week's project was to create easy access to the sleeping loft. My original plans where to have a simple ladder that could be hooked to the loft edge for access, then hung out of the way on a wall during the day. However, a ladder is not the safest or easiest way up and down. Also, since head room is an issue in the loft, I also wanted to come up near the center line. Putting a ladder in the middle of the room would really intrude on the area below, where we want to have a pull out bed.

My next plan was to install stairs. Given the space constraints, I wanted to put in alternating tread stairs. An example is pictured at above. They provide the same foot fall and riser height as normal stairs, but they require one to always alternate stepping up or down the same way, allowing them to take up roughly half the amount of space. In our case, the stairs would run from one side of the shabin up to the center line, where I would build a landing on the front of the loft. The stairs would hang over one end of the sofa we plan to put downstairs. After some thought, and staying in the shabin a couple of times, we decided we really needed something that would get out of the way. So, I changed my mind one last time and decided to go with the more conventional pull down attic stairs. Those are available as assembled kits from any home supply center. The typical ones are a bit flimsy, so I special ordered a set of heavy duty stairs.

To use the stairs, I needed somewhere to hang them as well as somewhere to land when you reach the top. I built an extension to the front of the existing loft, a little over two feet wide. On the left side I framed in an opening for the stairs, and on the right side I would add more floor. In the picture above you can see my framing for the extension, with the stair kit already hanging in its opening. The loft was originally half the total space, leaving eight feet open to the living area below. Now we have about six feet open. I think this also adds some critically useful space to the loft, enough to stand at the end of the bed and change clothes. The feeling of openness downstairs is largely the same, so I think this was a good compromise.

Here we see Lizz making the inaugural climb up the stairs. I guess she had some confidence in my construction abilities. I did hang the stairs using twenty 3" and 4" lag screws, so there is a pretty good chance it will hold up. At this point, I still need to trim a bit more off the bottom of the stairs, which is why they are a bit crooked. Still, they were perfectly functional and much easier than clambering up and down a ladder.

Here is a shot of the stairs running up to the new landing. I am hammering down the particle board flooring to create the landing. For our next trip up, I will lay down the cherry laminate floor and we will move our mattress upstairs. I plan to finish the loft with a set of safety cables to serve as a railing. I may wait until the walls are finished to install those, though.

It was not all work this weekend. Carleigh got some quality time in nature. Here she is teaching Buzz Lightyear about nature, showing him the leaf she found. We made it down to the river on both days. Carleigh loves to swim in the cold water, and I really appreciated cooling off in the water after working in the heat.

I should also share what everyone else was doing downstairs while I labored above. Note that Carleigh only eats the middle of Oreo cookies. It was great that we got to relax a bit, and the stairs were a fun project. All in all, it was a really great weekend.

Shabin Floor

2010-08-19T08:44:00.001-05:00

Progress continued on the shabin, albeit slowly. We went on two separate week long beach vactions since my last post, so time has been short to either go up to the shabin or post about it. We made it up there once more in June and one weekend in July. Both weekends turned out to be 100+ degrees, and the good news was that camping was not so terrible in the hot weather. With a fan going in the shabin, I could work pretty comfortably. In truned out that Carleigh loves swimming in the river, so she and Lizz spent most of the days down there enjoying the cold mountain water. I also appreciated being able to cool off after a day's work in the heat.

I decided that the next project for the shabin would be a finished floor downstairs. This is the opposite of typical house construction, in which one usually does the floors last. My reasoning was that we wanted to use the shabin for camping as we went along. A floor makes it possible to put a real mattress down, and get a reasonably comfortable place to sleep and change clothes. We tried tent camping with air mattresses, and that was simply not very comfortable and it took a lot of effort erecting and dissassembling the tent that could be better spent on finishing the shabin.

I found Lumber Liquidators to be a good source of inexpensive flooring. Choosing from their clearance section, I chose an engineered wood floor for the downstairs, and a laminate floor for the loft. An engineered wood floor is basically thin plywood planks, with a finished hard wood top layer. I found a really nice one that has a hand scraped hickory finished layer. This should provide a nice, rustic feeling. A laminate floor is also composed of wood, but with an aritficial top layer that looks like wood. I chose one that looks like Brazilian cherry.

The hickory floor is a snap together, floating floor, meaning that it does not require any adhesive or nails to install. It is a good idea to use an underlayment, as that provides a cushioning layer to improve the feeling and sound of the floor when one walks on it. I chose an underlayment that also adds some insulation as well as a vapor barrier. The underlayment is simply rolled out and cut to length on the floor, and the seams taped. You can see my first two rows above.

Here you can see the underlayment almost complete. The niche in the back corner is going to be the closet for the toilet. The flooring is still in its boxes, stacked up where the kitchen will be.

Once the underlayment was down, I could start installing the floor. Since all I had to do was snap it together, the work was a matter of selecting random lengths of flooring to stagger the pieces, and cutting the last piece in each row to fit. As a floating floor, it requires room to expand due to temperature and moisture, so I mainted a gap between the floor and all walls using shims, which you can just see around the edges in the picture above. I am really happy with the way the floor looks.

Along with the floor, I also spent a good deal of time sealing up openings into the shabin using sealant and lumber. The outside door in the rear of the cabin is not air tight, but is just a basic shed door. The closet itself was not sealed. This alows ants to find their way in, and in addition to working on the floor I found myself fighting their colonization efforts. All in all, it took both weekends to get the floor laid, which amounted to about two full days of work. By the second weekend, however, we had a mattress down and spent our first night in the shabin.

We are planning to go back up this weekend. I will be starting the next project, which is to finish the loft. I plan to move our mattress up there as soon as the stairs are installed and the floor is laid. That will free up downstairs space, which is pretty crowded between the king sized mattress and all the tools. Look for an update after the weekend.

Shabin Door

2010-06-05T21:36:00.000-05:00

Our most recent, and somewhat daunting, project for the shabin was to install a sliding glass door behind the shed doors. The way I remembered it, such doors came disassembled in boxes roughly the height and width of one panel, but not anymore. The door came fully assembled, and cannot be laid horizontal. So the first challenge was to transport the door up to the land, which is well out of range of the nearest Lowe's delivery area.

To use our truck to transport the door, I made a couple of cradles out of three 2x4's. You can see them running about half way up the side of the door on each end. The door is packaged with a lumber frame, so I nailed the cradles to the door. I ran a couple of straps over the top of the door to add some more stability, and we were off at a cautious pace for the remaining 40 miles to the camp.

Miraculously, the door made it unscathed all the was to the camp. Even more amazingly, Lizz and I managed to get it off the truck and into the shabin without dropping it!. The door is inside because my plan was to install the door backwards. Typically, the door is placed into its opening from outside the house and nailed to the outside of the jack studs. Because we want it to hang inside the opening for the shed doors, we need to nail it from the inside.

Since the door opening is already fully filled by the shed doors, and the glass door has a 1.5" overhang on its outside face, the first job was to install a secondary frame behind the original door frame. This also allowed me to size and plumb the opening just right for the new door.

After that, all we had to do was slide the door in place and screw it to the new frame.

Now we have a fully sealed structure, ready for luxury camping. This ended up as a single day project, inclusive of the time to drive up and back and buy all the materials; not too shabby.

Shabin Built!

2010-05-16T10:57:00.006-05:00

Much progress to report! As planned, we contracted with a builder to put up the basic, weather-tight structure. We went with In-State Builders in Romney, WV. They did a great job! The total cost was a bit less than a similar size shed from a home center before delivery, and this was much higher quality and built to my exact specification. If you have a building project in or near Hampshire County I highly recommend Roger and his crew.

Here it is with the doors open, and Carleigh included for scale :-) We had the plywood siding stained with a semi-transparent oil based stain. The oil penetrates the wood to offer good long term protection from the elements. As a semi transparent finish, the wood itself still shows through. That gives it a rustic, weathered appearance we wanted. The silver-grey-blue shade fades in nicely with the surrounding trees, and the cabin is all but invisible from the road.

An important design feature of the cabin is that each of the windows have shutters which we can lock. This should provide us good protection against weather and people who may come wandering by. This was an important feature for us, given that the place will be unoccupied for long periods of time. The main shed doors function in much the same way, offering protection to the sliding glass doors we will install behind them.

On the inside, we have one big room and a sleeping loft. The overall size is 12' x 16', while the loft is 12' x 8'. In the right rear corner of the cabin is a utility closet, which is accessed from an outside door.

For our first working trip, we loaded the truck up with tools and supplies. We also stopped at Lowe's on the way to pick up a few more things. I ordered what we needed on Lowe's web site the day before. That is a great way to do the home center thing. Their web site is well integrated with the in store inventory, so you know if they have something in stock or not. After ordering and paying, they collect everything from around the store and have it waiting for you, and they help load it into your car! This let us just stop off at a Lowe's next to the interstate on the way up, and saved huge amounts of time and headache searching through the store.

The first project was to use the left over stain and cover the inside of the doors. As these will be open whenever we at the camp, we wanted them to both look nice and be protected from the elements.

I think they look great! Among the things we picked up at Lowe's was a cheap picnic table. It came disassembled and the wood unfinished. I used some more left over stain to coat it as well. So now we have a color-coordinated picnic table.

The next project is installing a sliding glass door behind the shed doors. Stay tuned!

Carleigh Sledding

2010-01-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

We are getting a lot of snow today, much more than expected. We took Carleigh out to play with her new sled, and Lizz edited this movie of the footage she took: YouTube
- Sledding with Carleigh

New Project

2009-11-13T12:51:00.007-05:00

Having sufficiently neglected this blog to shed all of my handful of readers, I thought it was a good time to start posting again. I have a new project that I have started rolling during the last two weeks. This hearkens back to the good old WV compound. We have been making use of it over the last couple of years, camping in the little RV, playing home base for a motorcycle trip each summer, and even tubing on the river a bit.

A number factors have lead us to consider making capital improvements to the compound. Among those factors are the desire to have somewhere comfortable for more than one person to sit out rain, the poor defenses of the RV against the local mouse population, and a gasoline-drinking, camp site vandalizing bear that has recently moved in. We started thinking about building something more permanent.

A full on house or cabin was considered, but those are expensive. They also require a great deal of time and effort to manage their construction. An alternative was proposed a couple of weeks ago, briefly negotiated, and settled as a course of action. The idea is to build a tiny cabin, really a shed that contains the virtues of a cabin, though in abbreviated or miniaturized form. The basic requirements were provisions for: a hot shower, a toilet, a king sized bed for the parents, separate sleeping area for children, comfortable seating for everyone, and pancake making facilities.

I quickly progressed from this to a working design. The basics are a simple 12'x16' box with a steeply pitched roof. On the outside it looks like a shed, with out swinging barn doors and shutters on all the widows to lock things up tight. On the inside, a set of sliding glass doors reside behind the barn doors. Walls are insulated and paneled. The front half is the living area is open to the rafters and houses a sleeper sofa. The back half has a loft above for sleeping and a small kitchen, toilet closet, shower stall, and utility closet. It is a lot of fun trying to work out how to fit all of these pieces in a small space. It has been dubbed the "shabin." Shed + cabin = shabin.

The cabin will be completely off-grid. Most systems will be adapted from RV components. Power will be 12V supplied by battery. Energy will come from the generator we already have, but could switch to solar panels in the future. Water will be brought in via car from the nearby spring. The toilet will be a composting model. Propane will supply an instant water heater and a cook top.

This week we secured a builder. He will be putting up the basic, weather tight shed structure this winter. We will be finishing and furnishing the insides our selves over the spring and summer. So expect more posts in the future to track our progress.

Virginia Weather

2009-02-14T16:49:00.002-05:00

Two pictures taken two weeks apart...

January 27, 3" of snow

February 11, 72 degrees

Mud Room Project Finished

2009-02-13T22:16:00.002-05:00

So I wanted to get back in to the swing of posting projects I am working on. I have in fact done a few, and I have a big one planned for this spring and summer. I just have been far too lax in posting them. To start off, let's see how the mud room turned out...

After plastering and sanding the walls, and many coats of primer and paint, I finally got the walls back in to shape from the mess removing the wallpaper created. This allowed me to finally move on to the fun part, the cabinets.

I got the cabinets at IKEA, from their kitchen collection. These are the closest things to LEGO you can do in home improvement. The room has windows on three sides. For the plain side, I have a large wall cabinet and a matching wine rack bolted to the wall, with a large cabinet and counter top below.

For one of the window sides, I wanted a bench to run below the windows. I also needed somewhere to put our small wine fridge. The base of the bench, being built here, is made from two long wall cabinets, the kind one would put over a stove. IKEA has a nearly endless selection of cabinet sizes. I completed the bench with a narrow wooden counter top that runs over the cabinets and fridge. For above the windows on both sides, I mounted more wall cabinets with doors that swing up.

And here is the final project. You can just see the matching wooden counter top mounted on the large cabinet. I think the wood counters look quite good. There were a lot of fun to finish using the vegetable based oil that IKEA sells. It provides a nice finish, and yet is safe for food preparation.

I actually have a couple more smaller IKEA hacking projects I have done since this, which I will perhaps post eventually.

Carleigh's First Swim

2009-02-13T22:11:00.001-05:00

We started Carleigh on swim lessons at the local high school pool. This is in anticipation of our trip to Orlando next month, where we expect most days will involve a trip to the resort's pool.

More Home Movie Editing Goodness

2008-12-14T11:47:00.001-05:00