Stairs to heaven

It is dangerous to say too much positive about a vendor before the actual delivery, but after just ordered stairs from Nor-Trapp I have to say I am very pleased with the service so far. We had agreed that I would make the final measurements and take some photos when I was up there last week and e-mail over when I got home. I did on tuesday, and 2 hours later everything had been drawn in 3D, delivery date agreed and order confirmation sent. It actutally got a little cheaper than their first initial offer too. And the prizes are very reasonable I think, considering we are getting it delivered all painted in white with brown stained steps.

The original stairs that are delivered with the cabin (or actually Familiehytta never delivered ours, maybe I mentioned to them at one point that I would find another solution?) is a straight and very steep thing, not very friendly for small kids playing and forgetting all about the laws of gravity. We moved the entrance door all the way to the left in the hallway, moved the "knevegg" at the opening for the stairs further out and got room for stairs that have a 90 degree bend, resulting in 4-5 more steps than the original one. The stairs will still be fairly steep, but at least there will be a sharp bend to slow down anyone falling down:) It will be better looking too, and we didn't have to move any walls to improve the solution.

Another week?

Every weekend I have been up at cabin I have been thinking in the car on my way home; if I only had two more days, I would have gotten "this and that" done.... After just spent a week at cabin I am thinking; if I just had one more week... Guess the cabin would have been more or less done if that was the case. So the status after one week of more or less hard work is:

- Put 640 kg of grout/avrettingsmasse on the heating cables is the two hallways
- Laid the floor in the living room
- Floor in the second bedroom downstairs
- Gotten all the panel in living room up (except where the chimney is going up)
- Recieved and mounted the kitchen cabinets, countertop, most of the doors and some of the drawers/interior
- Put panel all over the sauna
- Installed door to the guest bedroom and the small bathroom
- Stained the floor in guest bedroom
- Completed most of the trimmings in guest bedroom
- Picked up sofa and dinner table with chairs and assembled them

Had some company this time two, the first weekend with friend Karl who helped out with the grout and half of the living room floor. And during the later part of the week my dad came for a couple of days and got the place tidied up and organised a bit again, as well as helping out with kitchen.

The IKEA kitchen arrived the they as they promised and I was a bit worried if they would make it up there as rumours have it that they had some trouble with delivering in same area just before christmas. Luckily they made it all the way up but the driver insisted on trying to back up the driveway which was a bit optimistic on the hilly road, and he ended up just sliding more and more down the road on his attempts before he finally gave up and decided just to carry it the 20 meters up the road and leave everything in the driveway. Convinced them to at least carry the dishwasher and the fridge inside the cabin before they left, still leaving me with the rest of the kitchen, bathroom interior, 4 beds, 8 chest of drawers to carry inside on my own.... My back is still complaining! But really I am just glad the got it as far as they did, and I am very pleased with the (almost) end result after putting it all together.

The only thing I didn't get done as planned was the tiles in the hallways as all the elements for the chimney got delivered and put on the floor on tuesday, while the whole assembly got delayed to this week, really didn't feel like lifting and moving that much more so the tiles will be done on next trip up instead.

Beside the tiles, main focus will now be on th bathrooms as that is really the only thing missing to give the cabin all the qualities we need for all of us to spend time there. And I hope electrician will come and install electricity in all the rooms that are done now, including the kitchen as that will make life a lot easier:)

SALE!

Normally I am not too excited about the January sale, as I am generally not too excited about sales or shopping in general...but now, a sale is a great thing. The cabin needs furniture for obvious reasons! So this weekend a dinner table, 8 chairs, sofa and 2 mattresses were secured and, with the exception of the sofa which will arrive later, all transported home to the garage awaiting further shipment. Not really a whole lot more we need now as we have some leftover furniture after joining our households in 2009. But I have started to look for a stuffed grouse to have on the living room wall, so if anyone has one to sell let me know. Guess it should be one that I have shot myself, but with the last years outcome after the hunting season I am not taking the chance of waiting…

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% :-)