Bathroom Cabintets as well

I used a leftover piece of countertop for the bathroom.

Seems to have tied in pretty well.

Kitchen Nearly done

Got the cabinets up and now finally the countertop in.

Looks like a real kitchen. Still need to add the OTR microwave/vent.

Still debating putting doors on the upper cabinets.

Snow in May

This winter was a lot more snow than expected. We were here in January and got hit by a snow storm. Only lasted the morning and the snow seems to clear by midday.

Last time was enough to knock the power out.

Luckily, the power was only out for a few hours, we've had three snow storms and two power outages. I guess that's part of living in a forested area.

So back here in May, I didn't expect snow.

I woke up toasty in bed, then noticed the skylight was completely white.

Some picts of the yurt and the trees while the snow kept coming down.

Tiling

While Coretta was painting the interior, I was tiling the bathroom. I went back a week later and put down some sealer and the toilet. All we need now is a sink and we have a full bathroom. Seems like good progress.

Painting

We had someone install the sheetrock while we were away. It's great to leave and come back to a finished task without having done a single thing. Well we did pay him. We tried several shades of white, most seemed too dark, but ended up with a middle shade. Probably a good slate for the amount of wood in the place. Here are some pictures, the place is already crowded again, but it shows off the windows and the angles the guy had to deal with.

 

 

Interior Sheathing

These pictures don't do justice to the room but it does show the progress we're making. Was able to get the insulation and paneling up before I left on vacation. Have someone putting the sheet rock up now. Should have more pictures when I get back from New Orleans.

These are pictures of the kitchen area, the tape on the second picture is where the cabinets will be layed out.

And this is a picture of the windows from the bed, which I guess is the living room.

Passed Rough Inspections

Well Kind of. Got passed rough electrical and plumbing inspections. Had to redo a title 24 energy audit because I wasn't using a furnace or air conditioning. Codes are so strict nowadays that even if you switch to something more efficient you need an engineer to re-quantify your entire energy audit. But after some changes to the vent pipe, I've gotten sign off. Turns out I also need an inspection for the insulation. Not just that it's there, but that's installed correctly. Another strict California code check. No gaps around outlets and what not. Hope to have that done over the fourth and get the walls started.

Finished Electrical and Plumbing

Finishing up the drain lines and adding a bathroom vent. A neighbor came up (thanks Steve) to help out and we finally got started taking down the remainder of the old cabin. Not sure when I'll finish up. We got the roof off, but there was another tarred roof underneath it. The inspector on my initial plumbing inspection had me redo several vent pipes because they were using the drain line. Not sure this isn't code, or just the inspector. The changes didn't take too long, but I did have to replace about 50 bucks worth of piping. And the scrap is pretty much unusable. Hoping that's enough to finish the inspection.

Taking Showers

Was able to take a hot shower at the cabin for the first time. Our water heater died on the cabin in the first week. The pilot light got clogged and is so rusted no way to fix it other than replacing the entire box. No chance for that with all the other work. So cold showers or no showers. Now I have the water heater and shower installed. The water heater is an electric tankless. Not the most efficient, but it works damn well. Nearly scalded myself on the initial shower. I was able to turn down the thermostat on the water heater to 120. Much more comfortable.

The shower itself was a four piece swanstone. Was a simple install which is now my highest priority in working on the cabin.

Pex

Pex is a plastic piping for potable water delivery. It is also used in radiant heating systems and has been around for about 40 years. It just last year became legal in California after a long battle with the plumbers union. It took all of an hour to run both a hot and cold water line through five walls, which was about 20feet. With the nature of the round walls, this would have been an enormous undertaking using copper. I ended up plumbing the entire house in about a day.
The picture below shows the whole house water filter and the pex manifold. The manifolds are the key to the pex delivery system.


This is a picture from the kitchen sink. It's also where the on demand hot water tank is located.
The tank is pretty amazing, though I haven't put it through a real test yest. It is rated to provide enough water to the entire house, and since it's electric, there's no need for venting.


A seperate manifold system for the bathroom.
Normally you would run a single hot and cold manifold to the entire house, but I found locating one set in the bath and one in the kitchen was a bit easier, especially with the extra materials I had on hand.

Fire

Part of the winter was spent trying to get all of the trees cleared and the branches and debris burned. Coretta thought I should be burning down the old cabin, but it's much too close to the house. Also burning plywood and painted wood is nasty.

Lights up

Got some exterior lights on as well now. First I put up some motion detector spot lights to get to the trailer at night. With the short winter days, I end up trudging back to the trailer in the dark, now I've got my path lit.

Also put some deck lights up, we decided on fixtures that kind of resemble the roundness of the yurt. I like the style, even if they are a bit nautical. I guess nothing wrong with that.

Winter slowdown and Electric starts

It's been two months of winter here. I've slowed down showing up, as the rain, snow and cold have prevented me from wanting to work. I'm mostly indoors working on the electrical, planning and set up have taken longer than expected, but now that I'm laying lines, it shouldn't be too difficult.

The water heater is a bit ridiculous, takes 2 220 lines with 50amp breakers, that's a lot of juice running so close to the water line.

Deck Railing Up

I've gotten the railing up on the deck, Was a bit of a process as extra posts were involved instead of using the main support posts for the deck. Since this is from a kit I went with the layed out plan, but am not sure the necessity for extra posts. Was a lot of work as most of the center posts ended up butting into the center joist spacing of the deck itself. Still need to put a rail cap on, but will wait till the weather clears up, then I can stain the entire railing at once.
Here are a few pictures of the railing finished.




We also placed a deck stove for the winter, it's getting a bit chilly, not the best implementation, but it keeps the smoke off the deck.

Starting on interior lighting

I'm finally getting to work on the inside of the building. Now that it's cold and dark outside seems like good timing. First off I wanted to set up some interior ambient light to fill the room. I hate canned lighting and I didn't want to set up those cheap looking string lights. I was also thinking that LED lighting is almost ready for prime time. I've been using the flashlights for years, so I was happy to give it a try.
The other thing I've read about is that they are dimmable, wether this is true or not seemed questionable, but after putting them up, the dimmer did work great. Much like Fluorescent lighting, it can only dim to a certain point and then goes dead. Unlike the CFLs though, the lite doesn't flicker beforehand. Here's a picture of the install, lights up the room quite nicely, even when dimmed to half strength. Unfortunately, the image doesn't quite show it off as well as it could.

A couple pictures of the Soffit Trim I put up

More Trim Work and FInally the Deck

Finally got the deck done. Well mostly, the decking is in, need to get the last of the trim and the railing up. Hopefully finish with the exterior next time. Took two full days, and by full I mean into the dark. Of course it get's dark at 5 now, so that's not saying much. The pitcures don't look so good as they were all with a flash right before I left. More When I get back up there.

More Trim work

Work is moving forward, I'm down to once every two weeks or so. Spent a couple of days working on trim and getting the front door in. I've got wiring started, but it's all tempted in. Needed to focus directly on the electricity one of these weekends. Here are some pictures of the skylight trim. It's a couple small details, but much like the outside, I had to move the ladder around about twenty times to get it all installed.



And a couple pictures with the front door on. Looks like I still need to clean the place up a bit before the storms really hit.

Final photos of the weekend

Here's the last photos I took , the roofer was still finishing up the ridge pieces and the final flashing on the skylight. Plus it's starting to look a bit messy even after we did a couple rounds of cleaning.
Next time a couple more dump runs.

Roof on just in time for the storm.

I also got the roof on this weekend. The roofer had put the ice shield up earlier in the week, but he got the shingles up and the flashing set for the skylight. Now that we have the skylight set in place eveything's starting to look like a real house.




Here's a couple pictures of the skylight from the inside. Hard to tell it's there, it's actually a shadded double pane glass with an electric lift. Hard to get a good photo with or without the flash, so I kept both.




I tried taking a picture looking into the cabin from above the skylight, but it created this artsy mirror image instead.