Old and lazy

I must be getting old and lazy. Had intended to go up to cabin to work there saturday and sunday as Julia was in Athens, and the kids with their other respective parents. But waking up to heavy snowfall saturday morning, with a christmas decorated tree in the living room and tons of leftovers in the fridge I chickened out and ended up satying home not doing much more than reading magazines and renting a movie. Very nice indeed but not much progress is being made that way. Drove up on sunday to empty the car of more cement (avrettingsmasse) and got at least all the materials in the living room area re-stacked (again!!) so most of the floor surface is free to put down the floor boards next time going up.

Taking a week off work from January 8th and will have some company the first weekend. Thats very good because I need to get all the cement I have carried up there on the floors that now has gotten the heating cables installed by the electrician. Hopefully we will get that done and a soldid portion of the floor in the living room done AND a day in the slopes on our snowboards on sunday at Gaustablikk. Kitchen is due to arrive sometime the week I am up there so need to get the floor in the living room done so it can be put on top of that. The following week I will hopefully make some good progress in the living room and the bedrooms that now have first priority to make it has "livable" as possible. I will probably buy and bring the slate tiles for the hallways up to and might spend a day putting those down.

Until later, Happy New Year to everyone!

Two short trips for man, big steps for cabin builders....

Had a short trip up last weekend with my oldest offspring and spent most of the time then cutting the panel that will eventually be used in the living room. By cutting it all I could fit it into one of the bedrooms and free up floor space in the living room area.

Also had a trip up this weekend and the electrician was done with all the concealed installation so during saturday afternoon I managed to panel the second bedroom and both hallways. Fun and gratifying work as progress is fast and the results are so evident! Also primed the floors in the hallways and one of the bathrooms, so the electrician will put down the heating cables there this week. Have a total of 600 kgs of "avrettingsmasse" (cement) up there now to pour on top of it next time going up. Need to find nice slate tiles on sale soon too to finish off the floor in the hallways.

The plumber will do his preparations too before christmas so I can put up plates on the walls in the bathrooms soon.

AND today I put in a large IKEA order for delivery second week of January with kitchen and all the appliances, 4 beds, 8 mattresses, 4 chest of drawers and some interior for one of the bathrooms. Needless to say it was a lot of money running out of the account, but still feel we got good value for money...

Plan now is to put the floor in in the living room so it is ready for the kitchen when it arrives. Will be very nice to get a fridge in to keep the beer cold as minus 15 is a bit too much for both my beer and the milk.

Fulltidsprosjekt...

Jeg tenkte kjekt når vi satte i gang med hytta at fordelen med hytte fremfor bygging av hus er ihvertfall at man tross alt har fri mellom hver gang man er der....noe naivt kanskje...? I går var det ut å kjøpe første lass med avrettingsmasse, omtrent det bilen kunne klare å bære, totalt 300 kg som omtrent er bare 1/3 av det totale behovet. Tar det over flere turer inne i bilen så jeg slipper å kjøre med henger på særdeles glatte veier.

I tillegg ble det innkjøp av mere 23X48mm lekter. Vi har valgt stående villmarkspanel i stua og hvis jeg forstod bruksansvisningern til Familiehytta rett så har de levert materialer til å kubbe ut mellom reisverket for å lage spikerfeste, dette syntes jeg ble noe tungvint samtidig som det er en god løsning med å lekte ut veggen istedenfor. Da bruker elektriker lektene som feste for tomrør og det blir færre gjennomføringer i diffusjonssperren (denne ligger på innsiden av lektene). Uansett, poenget var at jeg brukte opp alle lektene som egentlig skulle brukes til å lekte gulvet for furugolvet.

I tillegg måtte jeg gå til innkjøp av mer 48x73 mm for innvendige vegger. Mulig jeg har brukt litt for mye til stendere, uansett var det ikke nok til alle delevegger.
1000 furugulvskruer ble også kjøpt inn sammen med diverse maling og pensler.

I kveld må jeg sammenfatte endelig bestilling til IKEA så jeg forhåpentligvis kan få det levert den uken jeg planlegger å ta fri i Januar... Til helgen blir det en kort tur opp sammen med ungene for å prime gulvet i gangen og på badet så elektriker kan legge varmekabler.... Har jeg glemt noe da? Hm...

Now we are talking!

Except for the lame attempt, being-over-tired-after-saturday-night-party-still-trying-to-go-to-cabin-sunday, 2 weeks ago it has been 4 weeks since the last visit, luckily there won't be that long before the next trip up.

Luckily because now things are really starting to move. After this 3 day effort all the inner walls (frames) are completed, one bedroom is almost complete (The better half came on a surprise visit on saturday, so we even got the walls stained), and the other bedroom got the floor finished. Electrician is finishing off the hidden installation next week, so when I go back up 14 days from now I will be able to put panel up on all the walls! That is a very fun, fairly fast and rewarding task. Then we really see the layout of the cabin. It will be very nice to get the bedrooms done too, so we can put in a proper bed and sleep in an almost saw dust free atmosphere...

I was a bit anxious as to how it would be to put the floor on the concrete but it proved to be fast to fasten the "lekter" to the floor with expanding nails you just hammer into pre-drilled holes. I see that some recommend having cc 100 cm between the nails but to be safe from squeking floors I used cc 60 cm... better safe than sorry I guess...

Learned  a lesson this time too:
Always have candles and/or a flashlight within reach. A power failure first night turnes out to be a rather dark experience, and eventually I just tucked in as there was nothing to do in the darkness. Luckily power came back on during the night.

We are really excited about the progress now, and I will take a week off in January to work on the cabin, and with that and the upcoming weekends the winter break might be in reach after all... At least 70% :-)

Super optimist...

Annual grouse dinner with hunting friends and spouses on saturday night....and still being optimistic about going to cabin on sunday to put in some work is nothing more but naive... Home 4 a.m. in the morning lead to not getting up there before 2 p.m. and returning only a few hours later. Not much more than a few details here and there, some remaining insulation, a nap and a few nice pictures driving up there is the result...

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!!