12/9-11/08 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was snowing in the pass when I went over, but the road only had a little slush on it. I arrived at 12:50. Bert and Ernie spotted me as I passed their place and they raced me down the road to get their treats when I stopped at the gate. They seemed very excited to see me. I guess they missed me last week.

I started a fire in the stove right away so the cabin could warm up while I had lunch. I was eager to install the five new chimneys that I had bought for the living room light fixture so I got started on that right after lunch. To my dismay, two of the five were too small to fit over the light bulbs. I tried those two on every light bulb I could find up there, thinking that maybe not all light bulbs were the same size, but I discovered that those two chimneys were just too small. I remember the saleslady at Harold's telling me that the diameters of the bottoms of the chimneys were not exactly all the same size. I also remember replying that it's no problem as long as they fit over the light bulbs. Now I'm not sure whether I will be able to exchange them or not. I'll just have to try.

Brian Kemly had told me that the way I had wired up the switches at Box C for the dining room and loft stairs lights would work, but that it did not meet the electrical code. The problem was that I had no white neutral wires going to that box. The code says that a white wire has to accompany all hot wire runs and all traveler runs.

To fix the problem, I not only had to replace the two 14/2 cables with 14/3 cables, but since that would introduce two more wires in the box, the box itself had to be enlarged. I went right to work on it. I dismantled and removed the box and pulled the wires out of the log from down in the crawl space. I enlarged the box by bolting on an extension and I enlarged the hole in the log to accommodate the bigger box. Then, after a lot of trouble, I succeeded in fishing a pair of 14/3 w/Gnd cables back up through the log. Next, I re-wired the switches back into the box and closed it up.

On Wednesday, I got a fire going right away and got started wiring up the dining room light using the new cable.

I had bought what I thought was six feet more of that 14/3 cable than I needed and I had fished the two ends up to Box C from the crawl space. The idea was that I would cut the loop of cable to the right lengths when I strung them. I cut the one that goes to Box A and had the sinking feeling that the other one wasn't going to be long enough. I completed the run to Box A and then checked the remaining wire that needed to go to Box D. It was clear that the wire was too short by about five feet. I didn't know how that could have happened until I looked at the calculations I had done for the lengths of the cables. I had worked from a plan drawing of the cabin and I forgot to include the riser between floors. The wire is mostly under the main floor and Box D is in the loft. I was off by the ten feet of difference between floors. I had included the vertical rise of 44 inches for the switch in the loft, but not the floor to floor separation. Bummer.

I decided that I didn't want to take Box C apart again and string new wires through that log again. Instead, I decided to install a junction box, M, in the crawl space ceiling, as part of Circuit 02, and run a new cable from there up to the loft. My consolation prize was that the dining room light and switch were working again and the wiring was now up to code.

Next, I installed one box of receptacles in the loft, installed circuit breaker number 12 in the panel, and energized the receptacles in the loft. For the first time, I now have some permanent power in the loft. I'll wire up the rest of the receptacles up there when I get around to it.

When I went in for lunch, Bert and Ernie were waiting for me on the front porch. We went down to the trailer together to get all three of us something to eat. I was starting to get a headache after lunch so I took a little nap.

I went back to work and installed flashing under the back door threshold. I had noticed some water stains in the subfloor from snow that blows up against the bottom of the door, and I had asked Bill and Jim what to do about it when they were up helping me. They told me I needed to flash it.

I had some aluminum that I decided to use, and I had brought my home-made brake up sometime earlier. I used the brake to bend the flashing to fit with the parts of the threshold and to bend down over the edge of the subfloor. It was fun to make and install the flashing, although once again, I measured wrong in the vertical direction. I forgot to include the thickness of the door frame threshold. My intent was that the flashing would extend down below the 2x10 at the bottom of the rough door frame, which is under the subfloor. Instead, it reached just below the top of the 2x10. I rationalized that that was good enough and I left it the way it is. Any water running off the flashing will run onto the vertical edge of the 2x10. That is no more vulnerable than any of the other parts of the rough door and window frames, or the logs in the walls for that matter. At least the water won't get on the end-grain of the subfloor, and that is what I was trying to prevent.

On Thursday morning, I decided that I would stain the ends of the back porch deck planks. I had cut those planks to length on 11/5/08, and the cut ends hadn't been stained yet. I wanted to get that done before they discolored from UV damage. Since I was going to have the stain out, I decided to scrape and stain some spots on the porch deck where the packrats had made a mess. I got the scraper out and went to work on the deck. It was still early in the morning and the light was not too good. After I had scraped the spots pretty well, I decided to wait until full daylight to finish the scraping and then do the staining.

I went back into the cabin and proceeded to have great fun installing electrical boxes and wires. I had bought a bunch of metal boxes with brackets for fastening the box to wood studs. I had never used these before and I was delighted with how easy they are to install. The bracket has little feelers on it to align it properly on the stud. It has little prongs built in that you whack with a hammer to temporarily hold it in place on the stud. And it has four holes that you just drive screws through to fasten it. That's all there is to it.

I pulled out the plastic box I had installed at K and replaced it with a metal box. Then I installed boxes F, J, 22, 23, 24, 25, 32, 33, G, and a newly designated box, N, which will house switches for exterior flood lights and an exterior motion sensing light, both at the suggestion of Ross.

Next I decided to sort out and organize a huge bunch of electrical cable I had accumulated from various garage sales, etc. I discovered that I had a lot of 12/3 cable. Even though it is oversized, it will work fine for the riser in Circuit 02 that will correct my error in measurement, and I can also use it for the travelers between the hall three-way switches. I also found enough 14/2 and 12/2 cable that I think will be enough for my entire wiring job. Good thing, with the price of copper what it is now.

I spent the rest of the morning having great fun, knocking out plugs in the ceiling joists, drilling holes, stringing wires, preparing them in the boxes, and sticking ID labels on the wires. I ended up getting all the wires installed that appear in Box L. I want to get enough of Circuit 04 installed so that the living room fixture can be controlled by the switch in Box K. I was having so much fun that I completely forgot about staining the back deck planks and the front porch. That will have to wait until next week.

Bert and Ernie were waiting for me on the porch again when I went in for lunch. I packed up and left for home at 1:45.