Porch Construction... PICS!!!

We changed the orginal porch design from 4' deep to 6' deep with a center bay 8' deep (forming a 2' stoop at the top of the stairs). Because of the integrated roofline, we had to get the porches on before we could FINALLY paper and shingle the cabin roof. Since it rained all summer, construction and subsequent roofing was delayed... so it got to rain INSIDE the cabin as well. Seriously! I had rain chains attached to the ceiling joints in the living room/kitchen to divert the leaks into buckets.

Anyway, I, um, "misplaced" the camera during the construction of the western (front) porch, but managed to take pics of the eastern (back) porch when it wasn't rainingl and they're identical, so no harm done. Again, we're using surface pads and piers for the foundation. This time the pads are a sandwich of pressure treated 2x4 and plywood with precast concrete piers instead of reinforced concrete pads and poured piers like we used on the cabin since the porches are much lighter. The cabin's surface foundation has proven quite stable and effective with barely any shift despite a rainy summer, a fast freeze-up, an unusually cold and snowy winter, an extremely wet and slow break-up, and another rainy summer... so we're confident that the porches won't go anywhere either.

Since we didn't want to waste a lot of time and effort leveling the pads and pier jacks after building the deck, we opted to build the deck first in 3 independent square frames, attach each frame to the cabin's sill beam since it was already level side-to-side, use temporary braces to level the deck frames front-to-back, and then drop the posts into the pier blocks through their corresponding slots in each of the deck frames and plumb them up before nailing them to the already-leveled frames. Then we came back and shored the posts up with cross ties and angle braces.

This method worked out pretty well for our two-man team without a flat surface to start with, and certainly went faster and smoother (and more level, plumb and square) than erecting the posts and beams first and dropping in the joists second like we did with the cabin floor. Just one of the many benefits to designing and building on a modular grid!

Floor frames built first and then attached to the sill beam.

Pads, piers and posts placed after the frames were attached.
Ripley, sneaking into the shot again!

We added cross-ties in front and back of the posts under the joists as extra insurance, and angle braces to prevent racking.
We attached the stairs to the stoop with an extra riser nailed through the rim and joists on the inside of the floor frame.
Then angle-braced the nose of the cantilever back to the posts just to make sure everything was solid.

AND we put the decking down FIRST this time, so I wouldn't be able to fall through like I did on the western porch! 

Double-checked that the posts were plumb side-to-side and tied them together with a header plate on the inside and outside.
Then checked plumb back-to-front and tied the porch posts to the cabin posts -- yay for the modular grid again!

Trimmed off the tops of the post and added the rafters, with an angle brace as extra support on the flying rafters.
The roof overhangs the deck nearly 2' on all sides, except right over the stoop where the deck sticks out a little;
and that little bit won't be exposed too much after we get the gutters on.

Then it was just a matter of adding sheathing, drip edge, tarpaper, shingles and flashing to finish up the whole roof.
Technically, we didn't need metal flashing on the valley and pitch break since shingles on gambrels are usually just bent;
but since the lower rafters are nearly vertical, we opted to flash it like a roof-wall connection rather than an adjoining roof.

So here's the front (south) dead-on with both completed porches.

LOL - kinda has an Amityville Horror thing going on from this angle!
Now, if I could just get James Brolin or Ryan Reynolds to come split that mound of wood for me!!

And oblique angle from the SW corner, which shows the roof better.
Yes, our cabin is really that small and our truck is really that big ROFL!!

And the back porch with the siding installed (hmmm, to paint or stain, that is the question).
Remarkably, we managed a halfway decent job keeping the shingles even, straight and smooth!

We'll be adding the siding on all faces eventually, but might not make it before the snow flies this year. With winter coming, the worst of the rainy season should be over, so we're not panicking to get the gutters up either; but we'll have straight gutters with a downspout into collection barrels on the south end for watering the garden with sun-warmed rainwater, rather than the near-frozen hard water that would come up from a well.

Clearing Brush ... more PICS!

Clearing brush for access, construction and fire safety has been our constant occupation, especially since we've had such a rainy summer.

In order to preserve the critical vegetation mat, we're clearing the home acre by chainsaw instead of with heavy equipment. As you'll see by the mountains of brush, it's a LOT of cutting and hauling... and we still have the eastern half-acre left to do!!  Eventually we'll be sorting all the brush into separate piles since we plan to use most of it to weave a wattle fence around the home acre and veggie garden. Good thing that the spruce right here is smaller diameter, very straight, and very supple! The few bigger trees (4+ inches) will become firewood (or go onto a bonfire if it's punky) and all the random little bits and slash from limbing out the fencing will get mulched to fill in low spots along the driveway (no mulch near the cabin, it's a red carpet invitation for carpenter ants and cabin fires!!)

We were lucky that G's folks helped us out with some of the clearing on the NW corner during their visit... but it's just not right to force houseguests into slave labor even if they are family :D   Now we'll need to haul "Mount Wardle" from the NW corner to the "Wall o' Brush" long the southern border so we can put our storage and wood sheds in the NW corner easily accessible from the front porch.

The end of the driveway, as far as we got last year other than the immediate cabin construction site.

The southern border, extending east from the driveway, and the tail end of the Wall o' Brush.

The Wall o' Brush extending 100' from the driveway, 4' high and 8' wide.
And that's just HALF of what we've cleared, which is only half of what we need to clear.

The western border, extending north from the driveway up to Mount Wardle.
And Ripley, sneaking into shot again!!

Mount Wardle -- all the brush from the NW corner.
Don't be fooled by scale, this pile is nearly 8' tall and 20' in diameter!
That blue tarp right in front of it is covering a *full pallet* of sheathing.

Alas, we've only made it to the corner of the back porch... we still have nearly all of the eastern half-acre to go!

But at least we have a little more of an opening outside the front porch now instead of being claustrophobic in the trees!

And for some perspective and scale... this shot was taken from the back porch roof and shows the entire SW corner (nearly 1/4 acre) with Sonja (our full-size Dodge pickup) in the foreground. It was all just as dense as the surrounding area.
Phew, just looking at it makes me tired all over again!!

Winter's Coming - landscape PICS!!!

As Ned Stark is fond of saying "Winter is Coming."  (Game of Thrones is such an awesome show!)

The leaves on the birch and aspen only turned a couple weeks ago, but they've already dropped. No Termination Dust (first snow) yet on the lower hills you can see from the cabin, but we have seen some on a few of the higher hills on the way into Fairbanks. We are getting nightly frosts already, and it's definitely jacket weather. We weren't affected by the Nenana & upper Tanana River flooding, but we're happy for the recent respite from all the rain anyway! Of course, now we're already seeing "chance of snow" in the forecast.

Now that we're past the Autumn Equinox, we're losing daylight fast. Just shy of  7 minutes a day... over an HOUR every week! It's nice to have sunset and night again, but it won't be long until we're down to only a few hours of daylight again.

Adapter Found - finally PICS again!!!!

Yay! While preparing for G's parents visiting, I finally found the camera's card reader so I can finally post pics again :D

I'll start with a few random shots of indoor stuff from previous posts:

Our 200 gallon water tank up in the loft so we finally have running water (gravity-fed, not pressurized).

The pantry shelves. Eventually I'll get these painted and better organized!!

Adjustable spice shelves I built to fit between the wall studs in the pantry. No space goes to waste in a small cabin!

Our tiny bathroom under the stairs. Two-seater bench holds the poo bucket and urinal.
Note the narrow sink we made out of a fish-steamer, which still needs some work to drain properly.

Honey Bucket, not to be confused with....

... bucket of honey :D

The perfect pee-tainer, a 3-gallon outboard fuel tank.
Complete with sturdy handle, fill gauge and threaded liquid-tight cap!!

View from the "throne" - very untidy understairs storage at the moment.
BTW - I highly recommend the 'Gourmet Liquid' ant bait for Carpenter Ants!!

Obligatory picture of Ripley, she's such a camera whore!!

More posts and pics soon!

West side -- Done!

In spite of all the rain delays, we've finally finished the western porch and have the western roof felted and shingled up to the ridge. Today, we're starting on the eastern porch. With any luck (and continued clear weather!), that one will go up much faster than the first one and we'll have the whole roof felted and shingled by the end of the month.

My back is mostly fine now, just have to be careful not to twist while carrying something heavy or to sit down too hard since my tailbone is still a bit bruised. True to form, I've gone on to damage myself on other projects... like slamming my right index finger in the truck door while we were in Fairbanks picking up more lumber and our new range (thanks, Mam!!). It's a lovely shade of indigo and I'll likely lose the nail, but I can still bend it and just have to be careful not to jam it on anything. Thank goodness I'm ambidextrous!  (whether I'm ambi by nature or because I'm constantly smashing my hands is another question altogether!)

Our new range is awesome... or would be if we'd known, while we were still in Fairbanks near a hardware store, that it had an odd-size gas fitting and that we needed to get an adapter for our LPG line to hook it up. Ah well, we'll get that next time we're in town; but in the meantime, the range looks gorgeous in our kitchen :)

We also got a visit from some of our followers, Jeff & Betty, who are vacationing in Alaska.It was nice meeting them and talking about our adventures. Unfortunately, we got stuck in Fairbanks with a busted catalytic converter and couldn't make it back down here to hook up with them again. We cut out the cats and installed straight-pipes (no emmissions regulation in our neck of the woods!) so the truck is running again at full power, but one of the new joins worked loose on the exceptionally bumpy way back home due to all the road work, and we need to fix that again before we head into the village again. Hopefully, Jeff & Betty aren't still sitting at the Roadhouse waiting on us :(

Balance & Coordination -- >> EPIC FAIL

Ah, another glorious Aspergers moment during construction. Today while we were sheathing the porch roof, I fell through the joists, pulling the ladder and some of the scaffolding with me -- TWICE. Poor G was stuck up on the roof freaking because I took out the ladder, so he couldn't get down to check on me.

DON'T WORRY!! I'm banged up with a few bumps and bruises, but reasonably fine. Good thing I was on the deck and only fell 2 feet, instead of on the roof and falling 10 feet. Plus I have TONS of experience falling, so I'm fairly good at doing the kitty-cat mid-air twisty thing to end up with the least amount of critical damage possible.

This is my life. In addition to those social issues and sensory processing issues, probably one of the worst side-effects of having Aspergers syndrome has been my difficulties with balance, motor coordination (kinetic apraxia / dyspraxia), and knowing where my body is in relation to other things around me (proprioception). Running into doors, corners & walls; tripping over ANYTHING and EVERYTHING; stepping off stairs, curbs, ledges; setting things down too hard, or too high, or just shy... it's a thrill a minute, folks :D

And yet... I am still here, and still have all my fingers & toes, and both eyes. Granted, I've broken all my fingers & toes (and hands & feet), sprained nearly everything that can be sprained, chiropractors cringe when they look at my spinal X-rays, and I have more scars than I can count...

But, hey, the show must go on and I haven't given up yet!! I just have to do things weirdly or go slow sometimes ;)

Wherever did June go?

Busy busy is the name of the game this past month.

G & I have spent nearly every non-raining hour outside clearing the trees and brush from the acre around the cabin. Then hauling and stacking the piles far enough away from the cabin not to be a fire hazard. We're planning to use the majority of the spruce to fence in our square, eventually....

I've also been dedicating a big chunk of time to (re)designing the two side porches so we can finally finish the cabin roof. With multiple ways to complete the project, it was just a matter of figuring out the most efficient use of materials, logical completion (i.e. the way BOTH of us agree on - no small feat) and splitting up the project into discrete portions where the necessary materials could all fit in a single pickup load and still have a safe and viable product until we can come back and finish the next stage. In tandem with that, I've also been designing the 16x16 larder we're planning to add onto the back/north side of the cabin to house our DC freezer and long term dry goods. The 7x7 pantry inside is great and holds a bunch, but we just need more room to securely store 6-12 months of food plus all the food preparation and storage paraphernalia... you'd be surprised how much space canning equipment actually takes up!

I've also been slowly working on finishing up the kitchen so we have a more fully-functional cooking area. No easy task since our local home improvement mega mart never seems to have the off-grid LPG range we want in stock. They have the huge model, or the standing pilot model, or the AC glow-bar ignition models... but not the small piezo/electronic ignition model.... grrrrrrr. The model we want is under $400 if we pick it up in the store, but nearly double if we have it ordered and shipped.... grrrrrr. For the extra cash, we could actually buy the really nice model we truly want with the 9v ignition (no AC required at all, not even for the oven). But the kitchen work is a bit of bother since I was recently asked to be a quest writer for one of the blogs I routinely follow (MyFoodStorageCookbook) while the author, Megan, is on maternity leave. It is very difficult cook (and to write cooking articles) without the use of a proper kitchen and all the gadgetry, but that's sort of the whole point to food-storage and related "prepper" blogs isn't it?!!

G & our friend, Paul, pulled Sonja's back axle and replaced the bearings and seals. Upon further inspection during that ordeal, it seems the demise of our rear brakes was greatly exaggerated... lucky for us, it looks like a good cleaning is all that is really needed and the current shoes and springs are perfectly serviceable. We're still looking at permanently welding some of the front suspension and steering systems, and replacing bushings, etc; but the short-term spot welds seem to be holding. Continuous off-road driving in extreme weather conditions is not for the faint of heart or the weak of construction! In any case, G felt that it was safe enough to (finally) head into Fairbanks for a supply run as long as we didn't drive too hard or heavy.


So we had a big run up to town to load up on food (***fresh*** food) and lumber. Lucky for us, our friends Darrel and Linda put us up while we were in town and babysat Ripley while we ran errands. It's awesome to have great friends who let you bathe, feed you real food, and love on your hyper 125lb poochie while you're away. And true to my usual form... I did make a full load of groceries and a full load of lumber ALL fit in the bed of the truck despite anyone's doubts ;)  And Sonja made it home just fine with no mechanical issues; she wasn't even too overly-burdened. The best part... we could also finally drive her right to the cabin for off-loading since most of the trail and driveway has dried out --- HOORAY!


So, we'll be spending all our non-rainy hours the next couple of weeks building the porches, and all the rainy hours inside cooking and food-storage blogging... and hopefully getting more odds & ends completed in the kitchen and electrical system :)