Decorating

Ok, it is a bit premature to use decorating as a heading as most walls are just showing the insulation. There is one advantage about building a cabin; you don't have access to do work whenever you can and will avoid exhaustion. The downside of building a cabin is that you don't have access to work whenever you can... So the days in between needs to be filled with some other activity. Like thinking about the decorating... Thinking some nice pics from the surrounding nature will be nice on the walls, I have started picking out appropriate pictures...like the one below. This picture was taken in April, skiing on the last remaining snow above the tree level. A perfect day with a clear blue sky. Unfortunatly a perfect day with a clear blue sky makes somewhat dull pictures, so a little bit of Photoshoping might be needed....

A new sky was needed...and that was found on a picture taken at a vinyard in New Zealand last winter...so now the pictures will remind me of two, very different, but great trips the last year:) To test the quality provided I have ordered the picture on canvas in size 90X60 cm and if succesfull more pictures will be prepared for decorating the walls inside the cabin sometime in 2010.

Blackcock, throne and aching muscles…

I took Friday off and had another 3 day session at the cabin, this time fully stocked with beer. But this time I actually forgot to drink the stuff with the exception of 2 the first night. What an amateur! Don’t know if it was the abstinence or not but felt I got quite a lot done this weekend (too). After just 4 weekends the attic is completed, the entire ceiling downstairs is panelled and most of the framework for the inner walls are completed. If I just had one more day I could have called the electrician and asked him to finish off the hidden installation…
After spending all Friday and half of Saturday putting up the remaining panel in the ceiling I hereby make an oath; I solemnly swear never to put up ceilings alone in any kind of construction ever again! At least not with a masseur on watch and ready at my convenience!! Muscles I didn’t realize I have in possession is now screaming for peace. Worst thing is that I have earlier booked an appointment with a personal trainer at Elixia tonight, just to make things even worse. What was I thinking??

About 1100 meters of panel have now found its place where it belongs, appx. 4500 nails have been shot into the wall (the nail gun is starting to lose its entertainment value…), still the pile of remaining materials seems quite big…and I spent the second half of Saturday reorganising all the remaining materials to make room for the inner walls. Since I needed to turn the pile 90 degrees where it was situated I had to move the lot twice as it was kind of hard to do in one operation. That and getting the last pile outside safely inside did not help on my muscles either…

A more positive contribution to wellbeing is the newly installed throne! The cabin is as of now classified as high standard with electricity, heating, water and a toilet!! From the picture you can see the ingenious flushing device (red bucket, and water hose right next to it). A lot more sturdy construction than what you will find in any normal home. And you can’t really find the same view either from toilets in any other houses or cabins. Spectacular! A downside is that the view from the road to the throne is also spectacular so the daily visit demands some careful scouting and planning or a kind of exhibitionist mentality. For this reason I guess I better build some walls around it. Also note the strategically placed beer…

It was unusually quiet up there this weekend and the majority of the other cabins seemed desolated. Maybe the wildlife felt it too, Sunday morning I woke up at sunrise and noticed I had company of a blackcock (orrhane) that was lurking around the cabin. He was more of a poser than an anxious bird so when I silently opened the window and started shooting (pictures this time) he found the perfect podium and posed willingly. Unfortunately fog/snow and scarce daylight didn’t provide the optimal conditions for photographing. To show my gratitude for letting me photograph him I waited a while before I let my Gordon Setter out, at least to give him a good head start…

Unfortunately there will a full 4 weeks before I can go back up, but then I hope my better half can tag along so she can see the progress being made. Really think Norway should implement the 6th week of paid vacation now!!

Lessons learned....

1: It is a lot easier to stop a bleeding tumb with toilet paper, than to stop a leaking nail gun hose.
2: Never, and I repeat never, underestimate the need for beer. Always stock up!
3: Size matters! Putting up ceiling panel having that last centimeter of height makes all the difference when working alone.
4: The professional can be wrong, and the bathroom window was supposed to be further to the left. And the professional will also admit the error with a smile and fix it right away (keeping the customer smiling too...)
5: An insulation knife double nicely as a bread knife.

Just when finishing off the attic I got a nail in my tumb which started bleeding quite bad, so to avoid too much spill on the floor I stressed down the ladder, and in the heat of the moment I dropped the hose for the nail gun on the working lamp. Bad idea!! Now I had two leaks to deal with, the tumb was easy enough, the hose was a different matter. And the gas stations never sell hoses for nail guns on a sunday anymore..... BUT they do sell repair kits for bicycle tyres and tape - plenty of tape! And after using about all of it, and then some, I finally was back in business and the hose happily dealt with 8 bar of air pushing through...

The rest of the story is less exciting (not that the first part is really that exciting either...), but the attic is finished. Half of the ceiling downstairs is done. I have, after pulling a 90 meter long heating cable through the outside water pipe (I now understand why the plumber was so eager to do it together with me....) gotten a water tap inside. The heating cable is inside the water pipe and can be turned on in case the water freezes up, just as a security measure really. Nice to not have to bring canisters with water up every time. I have one oven on, and directed on the tap however to avoid a disaster when the real cold weather sets in..... The plumber has also promised me to put a toilet in one of these days and I made a nice little elevated floor around the toilet outlet that will support it. Of course it will need to be flushed using a bucket of water, but I will feel like a king sitting there and looking out on 86 sqm of building site;)

The electrician also turned up on monday and completed everything that needed to be put in the ceiling area, and it was nice to have some company for a few hours! And the guy who put the cabin up came by to look at a window that seemed to be about 50 centimeters too far to the right and would make it hard to fit the sauna. He admitted a little measuring error and would fix it before I will get back up there (and I really didn't expect anything else either as he has been very nice and professional all the way).

No cabin building next weekend, but weekend after that I will have 3 days and hope to complete all the panels on the ceiling and get most of the inner walls up! Then we are talking cabin!!!

PS: And next time I will remember to bring enough beer!!

The tide of noon is upon the hills.

Amid leagues of purple heather, of pale amethyst ling, stand isled great yellow-lichened granite boulders, fringed with tawny bracken.

In the vast dome of blue there is nought visible save a speck of white, a gannet that drifts above the invisible sea. And through the hot tide of noon goes a breath as of the heart of flame.

Far off, far off, I know dim hills of dream, and there my heart suspends as a white bird longing for home: and there, oh there, is a heart of flame, and the breath of it is as the tide of noon upon these hills of dream.

Fiona Macleod

Winter dream

Finally I was back in business after a couple of weeks off the building process. Didn't end up getting quite as much time as I was planning on but still feel some nice progress was made. Main objective now is really to try to decimate the amount of materials that are blocking the first floor area, and that means getting it up on walls and ceilings. Got all the remaining insulation in, and in high time... It was minus 8 degrees celsius outside the first night and not much above zero inside... But as soon as everything was covered the temperature rose to around 15 degrees (Have to small 2 kw heaters) The electrician wasn't quite done with the ceiling on the main floor yet so started up on the attic. Let me tell you; I pity the fool who doesn't have a nail gun! Why on earth didn't I buy one earlier when I built the houses and garages..... Not only is it fun, but work is at least 3 times faster! Did get about 75% done on the upstairs area and quite a lot of materials out of the way from the main floor. Next weekend will be to finish the upstairs and to cover ceiling downstairs with panel. Hopefully this will reduce the pile of materials sufficiently so I can build up some motivation to move it around and make some desperatly needed room for the inner walls. Seeing the attic take shape as it does is really motivating too....actually starting to look like an area you would want to lounge and sleep in:)

Kitchen

As most other cabin bloggers out there, we too have chosen IKEA for the kitchen. I know that there are other competitive suppliers out there now, but as long as we found what we wanted at IKEA we didn't really bother looking around at the other "low cost" options available. I am pretty sure that we will add quite a lot of other stuff to the IKEA list too before we put in the final order and have it all delivered at the cabin...
Either way, it will still take quite some time before the cabin is ready for the kitchen, but the electrician naturally needed to know how it would be before starting his work.

Ny runde

Snart er det klart for en ny runde, grunnet høstferie m.m. ble det noen uker opphold men til helgen er det bare å brette opp ermene igjen. Skal legge inn siste rest av isolasjon. Elektrikeren skal opp dit i løpet av denne uken og legge inn tomrør for lamper og spoter i taket slik at jeg kan legge på diffusjonssperren og legge panelet i taket. Må få unna så mye som mulig av materialer da det ligger en 2 meter høy stabel på langs i hele hytta nå, men legger jeg panelet i himlingen i første etasje og på hemsen så får jeg vel nesten halvert haugen så det blir noe lettere å flytte rundt.

Snekkeren var imponert over byggesettet fra Familiehytta (sett mot prisen) men et par småting har det vært. Det var 4 meter for mye med takrenne...men manglet ca en meter med beslag. Vindsperre var det også noe snaut med, men snekkeren hadde en rest liggende så det løste seg. Jeg kommer også til å kjøpe inn mer vindsperre og legge på utsiden av kneveggen da det ikke er beregnet med i byggesettet. Kommer nok også til å legge 50 mm til med isolasjon i den delen av himlingen som ligger utenfor kneveggen på hemsen (kun 150 mm som følger med til dette). Furugulvet hadde litt varierende kvalitet (av det jeg har åpnet så langt) men ikke verre enn at det aller meste kunne brukes. Utover det var det både rikelig og riktig med materialer. Og servicen har vært veldig god, så alt i alt er vi godt fornøyd med Familiehytta.

Så langt har også rørlegger, snekker, og elektriker bare vært en fornøyelse også og til helgen skal rørlegger og undertegnende strekke en 80 meter lang varmekabel i vannrøret da han var litt bekymret for om det ble liggende dypt nok grunnet mye fjell der de gravde ned.

Rapport etter kommende helgs fremskritt kommer:)