(Oct 20) Calm and easy weekend

Came out to the property on Saturday night. Absolutely one of my favorite times of year. The weather was cool and sunny and the mosquitoes where no where to be found! :) We sat out at a table in front of the house, lit some Tiki torches and opened a bottle of wine. It's so nice to relax after a hectic week! Kim had an asthma attack in the house due to the gas coming off of batteries we were charging. When the eves of the roof were open, we had lots of ventilation as well as heat, cold, bugs, birds, etc. But now that we've sheet rocked most of that off, I will have to move the batteries outside.  Sunday found us sleeping in late (8:00) taking a trip into town for some "city" breakfast. Upon returning we decided to spread out more road base that we had delivered earlier in the month. I think we finally have enough on the drive to keep the culvert from scraping the bottom of the car. :) We also inspected and talked about the proposed placement of a power pole and transformer. Kim had a great idea, putting the service pole next to the transformer pole, thus eliminating the need to clear (and keep cleared) the trees leading down the drive. I will get online today and look at the requirements for the service pole. We should be able to get it done for a minimal amount. Farmer's Electric revised their quote to move the transformer to the pole on our property (100' closer to the house) to help with the voltage drop. It will be about $200 more but I haven't talked to them about eliminating the 75' run to the service pole. Maybe that will make up for some of the cost difference from the 1st quote. After we rested for a bit, we finished installing the insulation we'd been storing for some time. It was good to get it out of the way. :) We also tossed our beloved tent. It has served us for about 5 years and done really well. We camped in it for several years at a number of State Park sites before we bought the property and camped in it here until earlier this year when we got the house enclosed. Then it became our "storage unit." It was fairly weatherproof and bug proof. Sitting in the sun for the past 2 years though weakened it and the storm last month fell several branches on it, one leaving a 4 foot gaping hole at one end. So much for being weatherproof. We rolled it up and unceremoniously tossed it in the trash. We also cleared out he "Starlight Lounge", our first latrine. A canopy with 4 walls and no top. In our early days of camping in the tent, we were sure that keeping the toilet bucket in the tent would be a bad thing so we erected the canopy from the remains of what had been a larger canopy in Arlington before a storm ripped through it one evening. It kept tools and building materials out of sight but now we are considering removing it too as it clutters the site and blocks our view. I can still remember how happy we were just to have the property, and how the "Lounge" got it's name, from our sitting and watching the stars as we did our business in the middle of the night. We just need to rearrange where we will store some items that are OK with being outdoors. We strolled down a small road in the center of the property visualizing where the shop will go.  There was a dead tree of considerable size which had fallen across the road. It'll take an afternoon or more to clear. Not up to it right now but soon. We found several more Brown Recluse spiders in the house today. I'm really looking forward to getting all of the interior finished. I feel then, and not until then, we'll have all of the cracks and openings closed up and sealed off and banishing most if not all unwelcome tiny crawly creatures. Time will tell.

(Oct 14) Revised Electric Plan

Came out for a quick trip this morning to meet the engineer with Farmer's Electric, Dianna. I just can't stomach the $8500+ that we were quoted before to bury the line to the house so I'm looking at having them drop a pole at the front corner of the property and I will work on bringing the line to the house. The sites I've researched show I should be able to get by with a 1/0 wire set and still have plenty of power for up to a 60 amp draw 600' away. Andrea and I loaded and spread 4 carts full of road base on the driveway. We also cleared a dead tree and a couple of small cedars from the drive that would be in the way of the service line. I have to remember when felling trees - ALWAYS Have an Escape Route Planned. Andrea had been sitting on a log about 20' away from where I was cutting one of the cedars down. I was planning for it to fall towards the open drive, away from her. I suggested she might move as you just never know how trees are going to behave as they fall. She did and it was a good thing! As I cut through the base, it slipped to the ground and fell at a 90° angle to where I had planned, right on top of where Andrea had been sitting. Now to be fair, the part that fell where she had been sitting was small but none the less it would have scratched her up if she had been there. She might have hurt herself more from trying to scramble away from it than actually being slapped by some light limbs. I think she understands now, it is much better to stay clear of the area completely. We rested at the camp for a little bit after laying the road base. It was for the most part quiet and peaceful, except for the dove that flew into a window and died. :( Still not sure how to keep this from happening. We hung plastic tarp pieces in front of the glass several months ago to discourage head collisions. It worked for a long time.  Maybe we will try hanging a net a few feet away from windows this fall. We had lunch at Robertson's BBQ on the way back to Arlington. She had quite the appetite as she ate a large sandwich and a full order or onion rings. It was good to spend time with her!

(Oct 10) Thoughts on the Tiny House lifestyle

It still seems odd. Somewhere over the past year we went from "We're going to build a small storage building to camp out of while we build our real house." to being comfortable with the thought of living in a 240 sf house. There is a part of me that still wants to build the 800 sf house that I designed but the practical side of me (and the side that wakes up tired and sore every Monday) says the smaller house will be just fine. We have lots of land to play on and every dollar we don't spend on the other house could be used in a different manner. We're already planning a building to be used as storage (since we're going to live in our previously designated storage building) and a workshop. It will actually be 480 sf, 2x the size of the cabin. The plan right now is to build it out of used warehouse racks - heavy steel which locks together like and erector set and is cheaper than the steel we're using on the cabin. Think about the racks in the big box stores which hold products and pallets of back stock. I find myself projecting forward 10 years and I like what I see. Paths through the woods. A water feature or 2. A workshop where Kim and I work on furniture projects. A large outdoor BBQ grill for smoking and grilling. I do get sad though when I think about the distance we will be from the kids and Riley. I'm really hoping to find something I can bribe them with to visit us more often. :) Not sure that BBQ by itself will be enough. I need to start a family tradition. Maybe a big get together a couple of times a year for both family and friends. Once in the Fall and once in the Spring. It's so peaceful during either. There's usually a light breeze. Temps are in the 60s or low 70s and the bugs are at a minimum.  Just need to pick the days and make it happen. :) It'll be easier when we've gotten farther along on the cabin and the storage building. Right now the cabin is serving as both.  We need a dog run set up for Steph's four legged babies. We also need to get the brakes fixed on the go-kart. Riley (9 year old grandson) has lots of fun not being able to stop when needed, however it really scares the rest of us.  We need additional outside seating. Nothing we can't overcome, but resources are thin at the moment.

(Oct 5) Ceiling Sheetrocked

Finished the sheetrock on the ceiling and loft this weekend along with the bathroom walls and part of the East and South walls. I will have to redo one panel in the bathroom as we forgot to leave the electric/switch outlet proud of the wall. We had done the same thing on the breaker box but I was able to move it in place and leave the sheetrock installed. No such luck on the outlet as the anchors are not exposed. We also realized that we had not left any room on the outlets for anything other than sheetrock, ½" at that. Kim had played with the idea of putting up some bead board but that's out now unless we go back and re-seat all of the outlets and switch boxes. We could get by with just adjusting the 2 lower outlets for wainscot, if that's what we finally decide to do. We'll see how we feel about it next week.

I've had pretty good luck with cutting the sheetrock with a reciprocal saw after we mark it up. Nice thin blade and it moves through it pretty quickly. Comes out smoother than cutting with a hand saw. I still don't have the art of marking it up and cutting it perfectly before installation, as we've had to widen or adjust holes we cut for outlets. The hole we cut for the service panel was pretty much dead on and I was pretty happy about that one. About the time we get the hang of it, we'll be done! Another skill achieved and left dormant to fade away. :)

Also got stung by my first scorpion on Saturday. He got squashed by his first human! I've had a fear of being stung by them since my childhood. I remember watching our cat battle one in Flower Mound when I was about 8 years old after I discovered it in my bed. This weekend, I was clearing the deck in the loft so I could crawl up and install sheetrock. He was hiding on the back side of a box and got me on the finger as I picked it up. Luckily he stuck around long enough for me to repay the favor. Kim gave me a Benadryl right away and the burning and throbbing had pretty much stopped about 30 min later. It never did swell and I didn't show any allergic reactions so we went back to work. She pulled out the UV flashlight I gave her to see if the scorpion really glowed under UV light. The light was originally more to ease her fears of the critters.  I was amazed how the scorpion lit up like a Christmas tree under the UV light.  Much like a Grinch Christmas bright green. I picked it up and threw it away before she thought to get a picture of it. I'm sure we will get more chances in the future. I keep reminding her this is a "cabin in the woods". Not a house in the city. We have only seen a few scorpions and usually those are found under any dead and rotting tree I can push over. This might have been our 5th or 6th in the near 2 years since we bought the property. I will be glad to start sealing walls however. At least then the majority of them we'll encounter will be out in the woods. :)

We were worried when a large storm with damaging winds hit DFW this past Thursday. It looked as if most of the storm would pass up East Texas. There was a lot of damage and power outages scattered across Tarrant county. We lost our canopy top in the back yard in Arlington. The frame seems OK, it just shredded the canvas. Kudos to Kim. The shaded drapes she made last year were unscathed! Good job, Honey! No roof damage or fence damage. No trees damaged. All in all, we were lucky there. Not so much in Point where we lost the top ⅔ of a very large tree by the cabin and large branch of another near by. The top of a dead tree broke and fell on the tent, tearing away it's north side and leaving several other holes. It's trash now. We were too involved in getting the sheetrock in place so we emptied out the items that were susceptible to more rain and relocated them to the cabin when we left. We'll remove the tent's remains next week. Timing couldn't have been worse as we brought out the table saw and miter saw and had counted on storing them in the tent to save room in the building. The storm also damaged the Starlight Lounge but it is repairable and we will put a tarp cover on it next week and move some of the building materials out there. True to our intent when building with steel, there was no visible damage to the cabin. I was surprised that we didn't lose a little exposed tar paper or anything else but all was in tact when we arrived. We'll also spend a good amount of time next week clearing all of the ground clutter left by the storm. If the weather's cool enough, we might put the chain saw into action and start cutting up some of the downed trees.

We were reminded how cool 50° is as we only used light bedding. Lots of cuddling helped.  As I often say, "Cold kitties are friendly kitties!" The same goes for my wife. Weather was great. Highs in the 70's and nights in the 50's. Too bad we won't get too many of those. At least any that don't involve rain. We made chicken cacciatore for dinner Saturday night and had oatmeal on Sunday morning. It was so nice, just sitting there in the light breeze, watching the birds. We were surprised to see a hummingbird at the camp on Saturday. We immediately put out fresh necter but didn't see another hummer the rest of the weekend. He must have just been passing thru. I can't imagine what they go through when these major storms hit. All of the animals must take a real beating between the winds and the flooding. Luckily, the water drains quickly here and there's rarely any standing by the 2nd day after a storm. It all either soaks in or runs down to the creek which was surprisingly dry this trip. I really thought after this week's storm the creek would have standing water in it.

Saw a snake hiding out in the large stump in the road on Sunday. He was about as big around as my finger. I couldn't tell how long as he was only hanging out of the stump a little bit. I did manage to catch a shot of his face. He looks harmless enough but has a grumpy brow. I'll take him over the scorpions any day. :)

(Sep 29) Ceiling Almost Done

Came out with Sabrina and Kim this weekend. We finished securing the sheetrock that we threw up last week. Sabrina also helped me with some wiring as we changed out some 2 gang outlets for 4 and added a couple of outlets with USB adapters built in for the living room. We had a great meal of pancakes and fresh strawberries on Sunday morning. Sabrina took a couple of nice long walks and enjoyed sleeping in a bit. She was anxious to get to bed on Saturday night so the she "could fall asleep before we started snoring!" :)  Some of the wiring we worked on Sunday was shorting and we couldn't keep the generator running until we isolated that it was the kitchen that was overloading it. I was really glad that it wasn't the generator itself as it has been flawless so far. We ended up putting the isolation box over it most of the weekend and it made a big difference in the noise pollution. I took the HVAC blower we had and set it right in front of the opening at one side. It was blowing a gale force wind into the box and tons of exhaust air right back out the other side. We decided we would build a bigger box that was completely enclosed and thicker on sound proofing. The trick is getting enough ventilation that it can get fresh air and not overheat. I really liked a video I saw of a nearly silent box that a guy built for his. I'll see if I can find it again and post a link. We headed back at noon on Sunday so that we could get some housework done and rest a bit. Sabrina also hoped to see Triston but that didn't work out. I was very sad to drop her off at her mother's as we hadn't seen her all week but still thankful she spent the time with us.  All in all it was a really good weekend.

Kitchen fixtures in and wired. 

Also got some the rest of the shower walls installed. Great to have a functional shower finally!

(Sep 22) Lift 'em up, boys!

Kim proved to be the smarter member of this team again this week. She STRONGLY suggested that we rent a drywall lift for our task of covering the ceiling with sheetrock. I didn't see a problem with lifting 50 lb sheets over our heads while standing on ladders while trying to load and use a drill to secure them to steel beams 11 feet up over the floor. So, I humored her and we rented the lift from Rental Stop in Arlington and headed out. Wow! Turns out the $31 rental (for the whole weekend) was invaluable. She was dead on. We had enough trouble getting things into place and attached without the burden of trying to hold the sheets up over our heads with one arm. I'm making notes - "Listen to Kim more often!" We got everything except the loft covered in the two days we were out here with it and could not have done this much work in 3 weekends without it. I'm also glad I grabbed a 2nd box of screws while we were at Hooten's on Saturday as we went through the 1st box quickly. The last couple of sheets, we just tacked up into place. There was no time on Sunday to finish placing all of the screws necessary. We can finish those up next trip.

(Aug 16) Electrical Wiring

Got the service box in and started wiring the outlets and switches. Made up a service wire from the generator to the inputs on the service box.

Woo hoo! Have light installed and working in the bathroom. One down, 9 to go! Surprisingly bright LED, recessed. I think it puts out 800 lumens for about 10 watts. Great little light for this sized space.