A date!

And not the romantic kind, thats just for Julia, but a delivery date! First load of cabin will be delivered 17th of august if all goes according to plan! Yay! But now I can't write anymore, have to get back to the moving business, Julia moving in tomorrow! Doing everything at once? Yes that is our trademark....

A man and his chainsaw

This time we actually have some real progress to report, and photos to document it thanks to Julia. I suspect her eagerness to take photos was somewhat motivated by getting off "clearing branches duty", but I was holding a warm chainsaw in my hands, with the combined scent of sawdust and oil so no complaints:)

We went up to the land yesterday to meet our man Lurås and agree on placement of cabin on the plot. Unfortunatly I didn't have any red paint at home to color the stakes, but why settle for red when we can use gold paint spray! Impossible to see on the pictures, but 4 gold painted stakes are now marking the corners of the cabin, let's hope the guy digging have an eye for gold.... Speaking of, according to Lurås the guy doing the digging just had an heart attack, but is appearantly back in the saddle, so hopefully they will start the digging soon...

We also got the area where cabin will be placed cleared for trees, and wood for a couple of months at least secured. The good thing about wood, is that it really gets you warm....many times....phew. Even though her master feels nothing but joy with a chainsaw in his hands, Hera didn't really share the same excitement, and spent most of the time hiding behind Julia or posing for photographs.

The land owner has actually sold 6 plots since Easter so no sign of the financial crisis there. One other Familiehytta cabin is also on order for the same area so that will be nice.

Well, now making ready for Julia and kids moving in awaits...all these properties :-)

"Lies, damned lies and statistics" (M. Twain)

Contract with Familiehytta in the mailbox today, phone call from the coordinator of the building process last night, confirming that things are moving forward:)

While we wait I found some interesting facts about norwegians and their habit of having a second home:
- There are 418.000 cabins in Norway
- 55% of all Norwegians have access to a second home
- 6000 cabins are built a year (prob a little less now.....)
- Average use is 36 days a year
And finally average price/value is 1.4 mill NOK. Which is pretty much our budget so I guess we'll end up with a average cabin:) Although I guess all the palaces and castles that have been built around the major ski resorts the last 10-15 years ruin the statistics somewhat...

It would be interesting to know what the main motivation for having a cabin is. Pretty sure the majority buy one to get away, and closer to nature, but pretty sure many do it because "every one else got one". But few would probably confess that...

Anyway, soon there will be 418.001 cabins in Norway and I hope we will be able to keep the average number of days usage up!!

Things are moving....

Waiting for contract in the mail from Familiehytta. Lurås who owns the area will be coordinating all the work are working on the application to the local authorities. We still hope that work will start mid July, beginning of August.
Had a day trip up there last saturday to keep the dream alive and go for a last cross country skiing trip in the great spring weather. Had to take skiis off at some points due to lack of snow, but once on top and well above tree level it was truly magnificent!!

Party guests...

There are some people you just don’t want to invite to your party...like the people working at www.dinside.no ... On their economy pages you can find a calculator that estimates how much the cabin costs you every day you use it (http://www.dinside.no/13110/hva-koster-hytta-deg) Curious as a cat I had to punch in the numbers and get the verdict. Value of cabin, running expenses and such, divided by number of days you actually use it. I put in 35 days of use annually and that might be on the ambitious side even though it doesn’t sound much. Anyway, according to their killjoy calculator, each day of use will cost us 3000,- kr! Now why would I want to know that?? Hello people!
For those 3000,- multiplied with 35 days we could, with all 4 kids and maybe even the dog, have 20 days in a 5 star hotel in Thailand, including the flights, every year!! Umbrella drinks, snorkeling, lazy day on the beach and cheap massages. But on the other hand:
• skiing conditions there are terrible
• the fishing is a matter of catching the fish before the fish eats you
• I have yet to see a grouse or even moose down there
And:
• We wouldn’t have the pleasure of on more place to shovel snow at in winter
• We wouldn’t get the pleasure of worrying about how the cabin copes through that awful snowstorm
• And shouldn’t the cabin really be painted one more stroke before the fall?
• And when are we ever going to get time for using that sauna?

You can’t put a price on those things! You have to do a whole lot better to discourage us DinSide!! Party killers…

Essential planning...

I asked my dad the other day if he wanted to come along and help out when we get that far. Told him I would buy a case of beer in hope to boost his motivation. His reply was very positive but then he added; "But I suggest you buy more than a case of beer as I guess we will be working more than one day..." Even though this was a joke from him it raised an essential question... After building 2 houses and a garage I feel safe I can pinpoint the building budget fairly accurate (and I still have fresh in memory that everything always gets more expencive than what I plan...) But I have left out this one very important thing: The Beer!!

After building my current house I, just for fun, tried to calculate how many hours I had put into it (I knew I lost 10 kg, that was easy to measure). I think I calculated close to 2000 hours, now the cabin is a lot smaller and I really have no idea how many hours it will take, but let's just say 1000 as it is a nice a number as any other. If not nicer (depending on context of course). And how much beer do I, and any so called volunteer workers need. 4 for every 8 hours of work? 6? More than that might result in too creative solutions and we do not want a cabin that could be displayed at World Expo or anything. Better say 4. 1000 hours divided by 8 = 125 times 4 = 500
Thats more than 20 cases of beer and I really don't have any idea what a case of beer costs these days? Anyone? 400?

Ok, out with the fire place and in with 8000 NOK worth of beer in the budget...
99 bottles of beer on the wall...

Choice of cabin

As everyone else, we have been looking around for the right cabin. As we both have two kids, size matters! But so does the price... All in all with dog and cat we'll be a familiy of 8 (would have been 9 but "Doffen har daua":) and we hope to be able to invite friends and familiy too so we need a lot of beds... We first looked at cabins that would accomodate all needs, but have decided to rather build something smaller and cheaper now, and leave room for an anneks later. So as several other cabin builders blogging these days (www.vibyggerhytte.no) we have ended up with Familiehytta. Although they don't know it yet, so we are probably losing the upper hand now that the news is out there... Anyway, we are going for their model called Rondane with some adjustments here and there. We plan to get the guy who sold us the land to arrange everything with putting it up, plumbers, electrician etc. All of the interior I will do myself. As my mum said; "yes it is only 2 years since you worked your a** off to build your house, so it is about time you start building something again." Truth is I enjoy doing it. Building something is very satisfying, use my hands (and head), and the results are very visible and lasting. Therapy for a guy that is normally stuck in an office...
So this is what we will end up with (but don't tell the people at Familiehytta before we have signed the contract :-)