I'm replacing the center boat seat. Old seat on the left - new seat (under construction) on the right.
Stained to look like the other seats and 5 or 6 coats of varnish.
As long as I've got it out I think I'll put a swivel seat on this one just like the other two seats.
But since it usually won't be needed I've installed these nylon screws to fill in the holes when it's not there.
Arrived at the cabin for another summer. No running water yet but everything else looks fine.
This was a section of pipe at the bottom of the well pit which froze and split last winter. After replacing it the water is flowing again.
As far as I can see this little guy is the only tree that came down anywhere near the house. I have lots of trees.
Forget Stravinsky - for me this is The Rite Of Spring.
I got everything set up to pressure wash the dock and the pressure washer didn't work. It's the motor that's shot. There's two hours of my life I'll never get back.
The ducks are back again this year.
I at least have the dock frame out. I am determined to clean and apply waterproofing to the wood before I put it out.
I got a fuchsia for the deck this year. It's been a few years since I got one of these.
The car port is up. I might make some changes to this later. (It seems to me that it's taking me a bit longer to get stuff done this year.)
I found the first one of these crawling on me today. That didn't take long.
I have a new pressure washer. I sprayed the dock (along with everything else in sight).
It's been cold and rainy for a week. A fire and a book (or a crossword puzzle) - I'll just wait it out.
A new toy. Alexa, hello.
The first hummingbird showed up a couple of days ago - a few days later than last year. Good luck guys, it's going to get cold tonight.
This is the northeast corner of the living room. (That's the bookcase Geoff and I build.)
North wall of the living room. Take a last look.
East wall of living room. This is all going to be pulled apart.
This is what we call the point of no return. This had better work out now.
Lots of molding to remove: 4 windows and 3 door casings (8 if I do the hallway).
I need to pull the finishing nails out from the back to keep from splintering the face.
There are 3 of these long baseboard heaters which have to be disconnected and removed.
I think I'm a bit over halfway done tearing the paneling out. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of this paneling being installed.
Just the southwest corner left to do in the living room. Boy, I sure hope I know what I'm doing.
At last a couple of dry days so I can spraying water repellant on the dock boards. It's long past time for the boat to be in the water.
This is the leading contender for the new carpet: 862 Desert Scene.
The dock is finally in the water. This seemed late to me but checking back to prior years it's really right on time.
Before I put the boat in the water (and since I have the pressure washer right here) I'll clear off the grime. The bottom took a long time.
Here we have the new boat seat installed. This proved to be deceptively tricky.
At last the boat is in the water. Coincidentally, today is the bass season opener.
The paneling and trim are gone from the hall. I can now declare the demolition finished.
The motor is on! This gets easier every year. I forgot to put the battery charger on so I'll need to wait a few hours before I can try it out.
While I wait for the 1/4" drywall to be delivered and put up I'm filling my time cleaning, repairing and re-staining the door and window trim.
Home Depot made a delivery this morning: 18 sheets of 1/4" drywall plus 8 8'x4"x6" PT timbers and rebar (for a different project). The delivery guy left his big truck at the mailboxes and brought this stuff in with a forklift.
Two guys showed up at 9:00 this morning to put up the drywall.
By 2:00 all the drywall was installed.
That's Kelly on the right with a banjo and Doc using the knife.
By 5:00 they're pretty much done for the day. Doc will be back on Saturday for a little sanding and touch up work.
Doc came back this morning to finish sanding the drywall. After a lot of vacuuming I put on the primer coat.
It rained for most of the day so I was able to say a final goodbye to the old paneling.
The walls are finally painted: 1 primer coat and 2 finish coats (that's TWO finish coats - don't even get me started).
No Chris! He's buying a condo in Venice Florida and the closing isn't until the end on the month so probably not until early July. I think congratulations are in order.
The new drywall is thicker than the old paneling. I didn't like the way the casement molding fit so I'm trimming 3/16" off the outer edge.
The molding is installed on all the windows. It looks much better.
Dinner at the Bolders in Walker. That's Barbara Houston (Dunn) on the left and Anne Richardson (Bacheldor) on the right. There were seven of us altogether.
The outlets and cover plates are an eclectic mix of colors. Generally, whatever was available.
All the window and door trim is installed (just the fireplace left to do).
In the hallway the crown molding took many trips down to the miter saw in the garage to get the correct lengths. Remember the drywall is thicker than the old paneling so the crown molding was a bit too long.
I wanted to get some stuff up on the walls so it doesn't look so bare. Blinds for the windows are next week.
Most of the stuff will probably go back in the same place. I'm still working on the fireplace mantel.
The mantel just gets pounded down onto these spikes mortared into the top row of bricks.
I had no idea that it was built that way - but it works. There is also an angle bracket screwed into the underside and the wall on each end.
The short horizontal bits of crown molding had to be shortened.
Except for the base molding that's pretty much it. I'm still a few days out for carpet and blinds but it's nice to clean up all the clutter.
I went to Bemidji today and bought some base molding.
New lucky bass T-shirts from Dorothy. Since Chris is MIA does that mean I get the blue one and the brown one?
The new T-shirt works - 4.8 pounds!
New carpet today. I need to get the furniture out of the way. Some in the kitchen ...
... some in the bathroom ...
... some in the hallway and bedroom ...
... and the last of it is out on the desk.
Here is the new carpet installed.
The blinds were installed too. Here's a view of the southwest corner.
And a look at the northeast corner.
And one final look toward the kitchen.
The fuchsia seems to be particularly happy this year.
I need to re-connect the three baseboard heaters before I can attach the base molding.
I don't know why this was so hard but it took me FOREVER to find a stain match to the existing casements that I liked for the base molding.
The base molding is installed. It's now actually nailed in yet but I'll drag the compressor up later and nail it down.
Tom Barta's 80th birthday party. Lot's of mantrap lake people.
Chris arrived today. Fishing tomorrow.
Because of last years drought and the lack of snow cover over the winter there are LOTS of dead trees - at least a dozen around the houses. (I think I'll save one of them for Rob and the boys.)
And just like that three trees are gone forever.
These are the current steps from the log cabin to the hill house. They're make from railroad ties which unfortunately get slippery when wet.
I want to replace the railroad ties with PT 4x6's. These are the old steps and railings.
I need to cut each of the 8' 4x6's in half giving me 16 4'x4"x6". (This is when I noticed that last year I used 5x6's for the steps to the boathouse. Ah well.)
We also need to cut up 4 20' pieces of 1/2" rebar into 30" lengths. These will hold the steps in place.
I'm drilling 1/2" holes in the ends of the steps. The drill press only has a 4" throw so I cannot drill all the way through.
We needed to finish up with a hand drill.
This harkens back to high school trigonometry. A string level and a steel surveyors rule to get the horizontal run. That and the vertical drop lets me calculate the rise (5.5") and run (18") of each step.
That all important first step.
Three steps is enough for today. I'm going to need a lot more dirt to fill in these low spots.
And three more. This is going to take a while. Also, I think I'm going to need 4 more steps than I originally thought.
We had to cut a huge root on this tree in order to plant the lower step. I think we'll need to take this tree down because it will probably die now.
So that's 12 steps. I have 4 more in the garage but I think I need an additional 5 so three more 8 footers next time I go to Bemidji.
That tree at the bottom might as well come down now rather than later.
It came down right on target.
I need more 4x6s.
That's enough steps - I'm stopping at 20.
We pried out one of the bunk beds - not an easy job. There was 65 years of accumulated dirt under and behind it. At least no dead mice.
The other bunk bed was built a little differently and it came away from the wall without too much trouble. Still lots of dirt though. Carpet coming out of the hall and bathroom too.
We started on the handrails today. We should be able to finish up tomorrow.
Kelly started on the new log cabin flooring today. He'll finish the kitchen, hall and bathroom tomorrow.
We're using a half-lap joint to make the long top hand rail. Cut down 7" along both sides because the blade won't go high enough to do it in one pass.
Then finish off the horizontal and vertical cut with the reciprocating saw.
That pretty much finishes up construction on the stairs. I just need to plant the low voltage lights.
Here's a look into the cabin kitchen with the new floor.
A here's a view from the hallway with the furniture back in place.
As Chris and I were sitting on the deck having a beer this cute little gal wondered by.
I'm replacing the aluminum screen and refinishing the rails and stiles on the screen door in the log cabin.
Chris hits the road back to Florida. We got a lot done this summer: fishing, trees, rebuilt stairs, new cabin floor, a clean boat house, screen door, fishing - thanks Chris.
Rob (in the cabin), Terri, Andrew, Brandon and Kait arrive.
So ... Rob's been here a few hours and, just fishing off the dock, he's already caught a 3.5 pound bass and this 4.2 pound monster.
Rob and the boys are taking some old mattresses from the loft to the dump. What can go wrong here?
This is the Fischer's 4th annual pot luck lake party. I brought Trish's black bean salad - big hit.
This tree (the one on the right) has been attacked by ants. If it fell on the house that would be a disaster.
Rob deciding where to start the cut. This is important - we would like to avoid any structures.
Success! Nothing destroyed. Now just a lot of stuff to haul away.
It's almost gone.
Just the stump left. You can kind of see here what the ants had done to it. This tree was 72' tall and 62 years old. I'm sorry to see it go.
Today I'm rebuilding the router table base that goes on the end of my table saw. (That's the old base in the back.) Currently waiting for the contact cement to tack up.
This is just after I used the router plate template and a pattern bit to route out an opening the exact size of the metal router plate.
Here we have the clever little clips that get screwed to the underside. Two set screws in each corner adjust the plate to be flush with the top. Dorothy sent me these - thank you.
So this tree will not be completely wasted Brandon is going to try to make a bench.
Since the center treads used to hold down the router plate are not lined up with my plate I needed to make a modification. A little 1/2" plywood and a T-nut did the trick.
This Rube Goldberg mess is to align the top of the table saw with the top of the router table.
It looks pretty good to me. That's the fence I made last year. Maybe I could use a T-track on the table.
Brandon finished the bench. It turned out great.
Andrew, Brandon and Kait posing for their goodbye photo. They are driving down to MSP to catch flights back to Texas today.
Routing a dado in the router table for a T-track.
Rob and Terri ready to head back to Denver. I always enjoy it when they and the kids are here.
The ceiling light in the log cabin kitchen got to the point where it was impossible to safely unscrew old light bulbs. The original fixture is over 65 years old.
This new one uses LED lights. It's suppose to last for 50,000 hours. Given the average use of the log cabin, hours of darkness, etc. I calculate that this should be good for a bit over 150 years. I'll let you know.
And here we have it.
We had a little thunder, lightening, rain, hail and wind. Another balsam bites the dust. This one in front of the log cabin. No great loss.
I'm putting a some spar varnish on the screen door we repaired a few weeks back.
As long as I'm varnishing things it wouldn't hurt to give Brandon's new bench a coat.
I cut up that tree that blew down (and a couple others). I decided to see if I could pull the stump out.
Success! Like a dentist yanking a bad tooth. Now I need to haul 150# of chains and stuff back up to the shed. There is no good reason why I did this.
It feels like the middle of October instead of the middle of August. I'm not going to see 60° today.
Dorothy arrived.
Wind and rain last night. Tree across the road today. Thank God for chain saws.
Dorothy loves splitting wood. Really, she does.
Here's Dorothy heading back to Detroit. I enjoyed having her here.
I haven't walked the path for over a month. There are half a dozen dead trees blocking the way.
At least one of them was close to the house. A couple hours with the chain saw took care of everything.
This damn motor is still not right. I'm looking at the fuel pump now.
Old and new fuel pumps - the new one is on the right. It is now water cooled so I need to splice into the water exhaust line (known as the tell-tail). I'll let you know if this makes a difference.
I found something to put above the desk.
Big wind (and rain) last night. This is the first carport failure this year.
It was just the zip ties that broke so not too bad. Also no trees across the road - I can't complain.
New arrivals for the long weekend: Taylor, Casey, Mark, Aubrey & Jim.
Jim and the kids leaving. They're a fun group - thanks for the s'mores.
Some new pieces of lumber, the possibilities are endless. Is this how Michelangelo felt standing before a new slab of marble?
This is a chance to use some pocket screws.
And here we have ... a box.
Is anything sadder than a hummingbird feeder with no hummingbirds? I haven't seem one in a week. This is the true end of summer.
Plywood gussets on the back corners. Probably not necessary but it was an excuse to use a router, jig saw and nail gun.
Here's one of the day beds with the linens and things removed. It's the top opening lid design that I want to change.
I won't have fully committed to this project until I tear the old bed apart - so here goes.
I'm starting to build the drawers for under the day beds. One sheet of plywood will make the sides and backs. It still takes me forever to dial in the correct dado blade.
One drawer done (glue-up is still hectic). The pieces for the second draw are stacked on top.
Here's the second drawer ready for glue. I'll do that tomorrow.
I'm using a locking dado joint for the drawer fronts - simple and strong. I'm sure you remember that this is what I used on the workbench a few year ago.
Both drawers installed and sliding nicely. I've done quite a few of these now and I'm still pleasantly surprised when it all comes together.
These are some of the side pieces from the old day bed. They splintered pretty badly but I thought I could glue them all back together. Maybe not.
Looking around for some replacement boards with the same bull-nose profile and color I'm drawn to that old closet in the corner of the cabin.
Here are some of the new boards on the front of the drawer. I don't think I really need them to be a full 3/4" thick.
A chance to use the thickness planer.
Much better - 3/8" think.
Getting there. I still have to do the far side. When I finish that I really must clear up the garage. I still need something for the top, pads for the bottom, drawer lines and then installation.
Despite the fact that it has been incredibly warm here fall is coming.
Another trip to Bemidji. I think I now have everything I need to finish this.
I'll glue together 1x8s for the top. Since I don't have a joiner I'm using this trick: nailing a straight strip of plywood to the board and running that along the fence to get a clear edge.
I'm giving myself a break and just gluing one edge at a time.
Top is glued up and cut to size: flush on the ends and a bull-nose on the front with a 3/4" overhang. I'll need to scribe the back to fit the logs in the cabin.
Finally I'm starting the installation. I brought the top down here to measure exactly where the frame goes and then shimmed and screwed it to the wall.
The old bed storage area was lined with 3/4" western cedar siding. I'm going to resaw these into 1/4" planks and use them to line the bottom on the new drawers.
Another chance to use the planer.
The top of the bed has been stained and lacquered. I still need to permanently attached it.
I've got one of the drawers lined with those 1/4" aromatic cedar planks I bought last week.
This is the end of the bed frame next to the wall. I'd like to scribe a board to fit here.
After several trips up and back to the garage I got a reasonably close fit.
And here we are - all done.
I have more sheets and pillow cases than I will ever need. Next year I'm going to make more of these shop rags.
I'll start cleaning up the garage tomorrow. There is red cedar dust everywhere!
The water lines are all blown out and the drains are filled with anti-freeze.
The cabin is ready for another winter. (This will be, I believe, its 68th winter.)
The dock, boat and ducks are stowed away and ready for another winter too.
What a difference a day makes: cold, rainy and WINDY today. 5 trees down across the road this morning.
And this just happened. Can you see - this tree wants to take out the car port and the yard light. It's leaning against the yard light.
I had to completely disassemble the car port but I did save the yard light.
This is the first equipment on site for the rebuild of Companeros and the Dorset House. The new owners, Levi and Beth Durgin, hope to open by May next year. Good luck.
One last soulful look around and I'm out of here. The end of another wonderful summer.