Construction Journal Entry Week of 5/22/11

5/24-26/11 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped at Haight Carpet in Monroe and talked with Judy Haight about flooring. I got a lot of good information and ended up taking a book of samples with me so that Ellen and I can decide on the material for the bathroom, entry, and utility rooms. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:55 and was promptly greeted by Bert and Ernie.

I had my lunch and then went into the woods and watered all 12 sequoia trees. I gave Bill a dose of Superthrive. Next, I boxed up and loaded a wheelbarrow full of stuff from the trailer and stored it up in the cabin loft.

Just when I was ready to quit for the day, Ron Scollard showed up and scoped out the drywall job. He also had a look at the bronze Mt. Rainier model. He pointed out a few more things I needed to fix and then he figured the material we would need for the drywall job. We talked quite a bit about how to get the drywall boards into the cabin. He wants to use 12-footers which makes the handling a little more difficult. He suggested that Marson's boom truck just might be able to set the material down on the porch from down below. If not, he said Mike Dickinson could pick it up from down below and drive it up to the porch with one of his machines and we could slide it onto the porch from there. That sounded like a reasonable strategy to me. He told me to let him know when I had the material on hand and then he would come up and do the job. I took a picture of him before he left.

On Wednesday I started by undoing and lowering the guard ropes at the end of the front porch to provide open access for the drywall material. I also moved the big sawhorses to the other end of the porch and measured to make sure there was room to receive the bundles of drywall boards and to stack them prior to carrying them inside. There was plenty of room in spite of half of the porch being taken up by the stack of ceiling boards.

While I was working on the porch, I fed peanuts to a chipmunk who was either obese or very pregnant.

Next I set up a scaffold on the outside of the Grid A wall to provide access to where I need to install the kitchen hood vent pipe. I used two hanging scaffold brackets with two planks and a handrail. I can get up onto it from a stepladder on the back porch deck. While I was up on the scaffold I discovered that I will be able to reach the entire Grid A eave in order to install ceiling boards there. That was a relief because erecting steel scaffold towers on that side of the building is very difficult because of the steepness.

Next I began clearing furniture out of the kitchen. It had to go before the drywall job, but since I was going to start working on the soffit and making the hole for the vent pipe, I decided to move it now. That also meant that I would begin preparing and eating my meals up in the loft from now on. I took one microwave oven up there and the hotplate and toaster. I took quite a few chairs up too, and I moved the refrigerator to the Grid E3 corner of the living room.

When the kitchen was completely empty, I measured three or four times to mark the exact spot, and started cutting the hole in the Grid A wall log just under the kitchen ceiling for the vent pipe. I used a 6-inch hole saw but as I proceeded into the log, I bored a circular pattern of half-inch holes around the hole saw kerf. I did this for two reasons. One is that it made the hole saw cut faster with some of the wood already removed. But more importantly, the six-inch ducting is very snug in the hole made by the hole saw so I wanted to enlarge the hole somewhat as I went. This turned out to be a pretty successful strategy.

The best news, though, is that I didn't hit a rebar pin in the process. With the pins being 20 inches apart, the odds of hitting one when cutting a six-inch hole are about 60%, so serendipity struck again. It wouldn't have helped me to know in advance where the pins actually are because that hole had to go exactly where it was, rebar or no rebar. If I had hit one, I would have had to cut through it. I was very happy I didn't.

Before I went up to the loft and had my lunch, I called Mike Dickinson and talked with him about him and a couple of his guys helping me get the drywall boards into the cabin. He said he would be available all next week and just to give him a call. That was good news. Mike also told me that he had the event counter that I ordered for my septic pump control box. He said he could bring it right over, but I told him to bring it the next time I see him. I'm in no particular hurry.

After lunch and a nap, Ron Sideritz stopped by and paid me for the trailer. We went down to the trailer. He asked me a few questions and I explained a few more of the trailer's idiosyncrasies. He seemed eager to take possession of the trailer so I decided to crank up the priority of getting it ready to move.

I called Marson and Marson to order the drywall material but was told to call in the morning so I could talk with Jerry. He is the guy who would know whether their boom truck could reach the porch.

I finished cutting the vent pipe hole and getting the pipe and cap seated in it. I wasn't sure exactly how to install the pipe and I couldn't find my caulking and caulk gun, so I just left it unfinished.

On Thursday morning, I called Jerry and he told me his boom truck can reach 51 feet. We hung up so I could go outside and measure the distance from the porch down to the lower roadway. It is 62 feet down to the roadway, but it is 51 feet down to a gentle slope just above an 18-inch rise. Jerry couldn't be sure whether his truck could get up over that rise, so we decided that we would be prepared to unload the board on stickers in the parking area and then have Mike ferry them up with one of his tractors just in case. I placed the order for the material to be delivered on Wednesday, June 1.

I spent the rest of the morning getting the trailer ready to move. I started by removing a full sheet of 3/4" plywood that formed an awning over the propane tanks on the tongue of the trailer. The plywood was attached to the crossbar of the first A-frame by a lot of nails. I remember nailing it on securely to make sure it wouldn't come off under a snow load. The crossbar is 8 feet off the ground so I knew it was going to be a little tricky to get it loose and get it safely down to the ground.

Another problem was that the front window cover on the trailer was stuck open and it had to be lowered to get the plywood down and also in order to pull the trailer on the road. It took a while to work it loose but I finally did get it lowered.

Then using a ladder, I attached a big C-clamp to each upper corner of the plywood sheet and ran a rope from each clamp up over part of the A-frame structure and then down to the ground where I tied the ropes securely. The idea was that when I pried the nails loose, the ropes and clamps would hold the sheet up there so it wouldn't fall and damage the window, or the window cover, or the propane tanks.

I had brought the Skilsaw with me and was prepared to cut the plywood loose if I couldn't pry all those nails out. But as it turned out, I was able to pull out all of the nails using a big crowbar. The ropes held the plywood sheet just as planned, and back down on the ground, I gradually paid the ropes out and gently lowered the plywood to the ground. I had been worried about that job, and I was greatly relieved that I had gotten it done with no trouble.

Next, I moved the plywood sheet out of the way and leaned it up against a tree. Then I went to work cutting tree limbs out of the way so the trailer could be moved out. The branches on the trees near the trailer had grown pretty big in the 19 years since the trailer was parked. Some were an inch and a half in diameter. I piled all the cut limbs on the compost pile.

When the overhanging branches were cleared from the lower roadway, I packed up another load of stuff from the trailer and wheelbarrowed it up to the cabin. Bert and Ernie came to visit and get their usual hugs and biscuits during the work. I had my lunch and left for home at 2:00.



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