It's looking goooood!

The exterior is coming along beautifully now. With all the styrofoam and strapping in place, the next step is soffit and fascia!

The soffit and fascia are white vinyl.  We were tempted to go with black trim, to keep the theme of our old cottage, but decided a black steel roof would be the only nod to that.

 The doors and windows are installed, and the cottage is now fully protected from the rain and snow.

 

We're looking forward to hearing the rain on the steel roof.  Mind you, there will be lots of insulation, so it may not be very loud (probably a good thing, when you think of it).

The pre-stained board and batten siding is next.  We went with wood, even though it requires more upkeep, because we prefer the look of it as compared to vinyl (more cottage-ey) or stucco (Iain just doesn't like it).  White, because that's just what our cottage buildings look like :)

We ordered a nice little woodstove from McCrea's in Renfrew.  Ross Keatley from the cottage area will do the install.  Myles and Dodie helped Iain take it to its new home.  The crate was just narrow enough to fit through the doorway.

The outside is now essentially complete, with the installation of the windows and doors.  There is still the chimney, outside lighting, ice barriers and eavestrough to be installed, but doesn't it look pretty?

The back and entrance to the cottage.

 The high windows in the living room are still on order; coming soon!

Everyone says this is crying for a deck; we'll see how much energy we have left for that, next year!

Inside the insulation is piled up, waiting to be installed.  Lots of cushy pink stuff to keep us cozy warm.  With the approval of the electrical rough-in, Dan can start putting it in!

Adieu

We had the honour, this afternoon, of attending the wake for Myles' mom, Bernadette Bailey, who passed away this week.  I believe she was 92.

We'd only met a few times, and one of those times was at Dodie and Myles' wedding, so I won't say I knew her well.  Today, though, looking at the pictures and drawings of her, from her childhood through to recent times, I was made aware that this was a special woman.  One beautiful photograph captured everyone's attention:  in it, she is wearing traditional native leathers and is playing a guitar.  In other photos, she is surrounded by friends and family, smiling and looking lovely.  Her bearing is that of a confidant, intelligent woman.  A series of pictures taken in a photo-booth captured her sense of humour.

She looked beautiful today, too, though I know she wasn't really there; but her spirit filled the place.

The Boathouse Becomes a Storage Shed

If you remember our "moving the boathouse" project in July, Myles has resurrected the building!    He brought in some gravel for the base and made a low foundation for the walls to sit on.

With the aid of Bob's tractor and the muscles of a young employee, he had the walls up and roof on in short order.  This picture shows the building partly completed.

Myles started to set it up in late October, and was finished by mid-November!

Doesn't it look wonderful?  Nice work!

All trussed up!

The roof trusses arrived on the 9th.  It was pretty cool that the crane truck set them right up top where they were needed.  That saved a lot of work on the part of the builders.  I've heard this doesn't always happen; a friend of mine related how the trusses were left at the bottom of their driveway, when their house was being built!  The guys who supply these Beaver homes have things worked out pretty well.

Dan got right to work on the roof.

By day's end it was mostly closed in.

I love this shot.  I don't know if it was Dodie who took it, or Myles, but kudos to whoever!

On the 12th and 13th, Iain installed phone line and ethernet wire, while the electricians  were there.  Brett and Todd Crozier did the install.  I was there on the 12th - a cold day, but I was some help to Iain.  I wouldn't go back on the Sunday, but he went up and worked with them.


Brett and Iain discuss light and outlet placements.

A look at a week of building.

We are, unfortunately, only able to see the work in person on the weekend.  It would be nice to be around when the work is happening, to see the place taking shape.

We took a drive up on Nov.5, excited to see the progress.  Amazing to see walls, where for so long there was just a big cement pad!  The weather has been great, co-operating with our building schedule.  Some years, there would be snow long before the beginning of November.

Iain and I took a walk around the interior.  With walls, the space seems very small, but I keep reminding myself that it is actually larger than the old cottage, and we will have enough room!

This is the last view of the sky we expect to have from here for a long, long time!  The roof is to go on next week, though there was a hiccup in the delivery of the trusses.  Dan is making hay while the sun shines, and expects that once the trusses arrive he'll get the roof on quickly. 

There's going to be plenty of insulation in this baby.  Styrofoam on the outside, fibreglass in the walls.  R36 in the walls and R40 in the ceiling.  I like to be warm!



The building is going up!

November 1, and building is beginning! Dan and his help show up bright and early (long before this first photo is taken, but that's when the camera has enough light to work).

They get to work right away, setting up a workstation and discussing their work.

In no time at all, the east wall is up!

The second wall is up by day's end.

Day two, and the south facing wall is up by 9:33 a.m.!  Two of the windows are incorrect, but Myles snapped some photos when he was up, working on his shed project, and we were able to get Dan to change them the next day.

Mid-day, and the last wall has been raised already.

By the end of day two, the interior walls are going up.

Day three:  Dan has changed the window in the living room to the large one we had requested, and also the one in the dining room.  Here, the chipboard is starting to go on.

Styrofoam insulation for the exterior; we intend to be warm, in this building!

Applying the strapping.

And the peak above the front living room window is up!

October slips by

October was the month our cottage was supposed to be built.  Sadly, it didn't turn out that way.  Dan the builder man got held up at another job and couldn't get to our place.  So, it was a quiet month.  Here's what happened:

Susan and Mark, our plumbers, finished up connections to the septic.

Iain filled in some holes while I shot pics for the panorama (which I posted on Nov.13 in this blog).

Carl and Iain pulled wire.

The wire-pulling got messy: the conduit had collapsed.  After much digging and making repair efforts, it was decided that a heavy duty cable that doesn't require conduit would do the trick.

And that was pretty much it, for October.   Dan started building on November 1:  that's the next installment.

Something I am so happy to see!

Onyx and Snaps curled up together on the couch.  Snaps has finally weaseled his way into Onyx's affections!

If you want a gander at our view...

Go to this address and open the Quicktime VR movie there.

QTVR from the cement pad

It's a panoramic view I took from the centre of the cottage pad in early October.  It is unfortunately full of watermarks because I used a free version of the software to create it, but you still can get a sense of why we love it there!  I am hoping it will work for you.

My thanks to Jayme for telling me what I needed to do!

And still more septic!

This is what the weeping tile looks at, sitting comfortably on its bed of sand.  I wish I could have been there to watch all of this!

Weeping tile.  It isn't really sad.

Not sure what this is, but it goes into the septic tank.  This is probably the spot where  you are supposed to insert the dead animal (I am not kidding, we were told that's the best way to get the bacteria going in your tank; we aren't doing it).  A skunk was suggested, or perhaps a well-aged groundhog.   Blech!

Once they're done layering sand and stuff, it all gets covered up again, nice and neat.  No heavy vehicles are allowed on it now.  An ATV is okay, though.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Last week of September - septic time :)

Lots more digging and filling in:  first off, the trench for the hydro feed.

Iain is supervising, natch.

Ralph's fine touch with the backhoe.

 Once the trench was dug, we had to constantly remind ourselves it was there, especially when wandering home from Dodie and Myle's place, in the dark.

Iain had to dig some bits by hand, as the area was too delicate for Ralph to attempt with the backhoe.  Here, he is working on the water line trench.  We ended up only going part way with it, as it seemed best to not hook everything up, only to have it freeze.

 Septic systems are necessary, but how many of us get a close look at them?  Well, this is the time, before it gets all nasty and smelly.  Just a few pics to give you the basic idea of what was happening;

The big white box on the upper left is the tank, being craned into place.  Ralph has made a nice deep hole for it.

An area had to be excavated for the weeping tile.

Hard at work to fill things in.

I have a few more pics, and I'm going to post them, too.  That's up next.