New house

I had planned on starting a house in the spring however we had a warm week early in December and I was able to get a contractor to come in and build the foundation.

 

Here is the plan. For now we are going to build the main part of the house (the big part on the left) and we can do the addition later.

 

 

1st floor:

There is a window seat/bench under the large window that will contain a TV lift cabinet. The TV would recess down into it when not in use.  (There will have to be a hole in the floor underneath to allow it to go down.) The bench will be large enough to serve as an extra bed too.

 

loft (still needs a little editing):

 

 

 

 

The cold and snow returned as they were pouring the concrete. I rented concrete blankets to protect it while it cured.

Meanwhile, I got to work on the log rafters. The house will be framed conventionally but the ridge and rafters will be log. I milled one side flat and built a jig to make the end cuts.

Dec. 18, 2015 got started on framing the floor system. It was snowy all weekend with temps right around 32. Oreo toughed it out with me but Shadow stayed in the warm cabin all day each day.

 

Shadow got out on Sunday to inspect the progress.

 

 

 

Terry is coming in for Christmas on Thursday!

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Moving day

 

Moving day went well. We had two cabins to move this time. I hired the same guys from last time I moved it. They did a good job.

 

 

 

 

We stopped on the road side of the creek and set up the newer cabin.

 

Then we forded the creek with the crane and the main cabin.

It was a beautiful fall day.

 



You may not believe this but...

So, two years ago we sold our place on Beaver Creek. At the time the surrounding property was for sale too and I had an agreement with that seller that if I found a buyer for both properties then Terry and I would buy 10 acres of that, located at the north end of the meadow. They were agreeable to that and sure enough, our buyer wanted both properties. In the end the other seller ended up selling the 10 acres to a relative instead of us.

About 3 weeks ago I saw the property go on the market and signed a contract on it the same day it was listed. We closed on it Friday which means we are moving back to Beaver Creek!

 

I showed Terry around on Friday. The narrow photos are panoramic.

 

 

 

The plan is to move the little cabin over to the land and live in it while building a house. Hopefully it will be done by the time Terry moves back in about 22 months.

Last weekend I went back down to work on the cabin some more. The weather was beautiful. I carried in 51 boards that are for the roof decking. I made several trips to the truck (0.6 miles away) and carried 7 boards at a time. I put up 28 of them to cover one side of the roof over the floor area. I plan to finish the other half next time. The boards are 1x6 tongue and groove, 8 feet long. Winter is just around the corner in the mountains so I probably won't get too much more done after decking the roof. It will be covered with a tarp over the winter.

 

I took a little time to do some detecting around the cabin. When I first started uncovering this, I thought it might be a gold pan or possibly another shovel...

 

 

 

Elk season started a couple of weeks ago. As I hiked to the truck Friday morning I could hear an elk bugling nearby. I go my bow out of the truck, returned and called the bull in to within about 85 yards. He smelled me and took off before I could get a glimpse of him. 

Emily C Cabin Window and Door

Window cutout:

 

 

Planed the edges of the chainsaw milled boards:

 

 Interior side of door:

 

 

Got some chinking done too.

 

The boulder field behind the cabin has a lot of raspberry bushes. I was a little late to pick them as the frost has gotten them already.

 

Emily C Redo

I wasn't too happy with the roof pitch and low headroom in the cabin so last weekend I rebuilt the gables to steepen the roof. It was a lot of work but I like it a lot better now. It also allowed me to make the doorway taller. I had to take off the door frame lumber and decided to make some new boards with the chainsaw instead of carrying in additional lumber for it. It takes about an hour to saw a short log this way. There are hundreds of dead, dry lodgepole pine trees around so it is easy to get logs.