Category Archives: Michigan

Leelanau, Michigan

A Huge Sense of Accomplishment

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Leelanau Peninsula – October 16, 2022, Written by Jim

In the middle of August of 2019, we set foot on what was to become our property on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. Having visited this area throughout our marriage and, more recently, having worked and volunteered here, we knew where this is where we wanted to be. Our friends Lane and Patti even predicted it in 2016: “Go have fun and see the country. You’ll be back”. They were right. Diana and I sat in a couple of lawn chairs in the clearing…approximately where our living room now is…and listened in silence. Save the rare vehicle on the road far below, we heard goats, sheep, Guinea fowl, cows, birds and the wind in the towering maple trees. Neither of us said a word for what seemed like an hour. Finally, I looked at Diana and said “What are your thoughts?” Her reply? “It sings to me”. That sealed it. I told her that I had one house left in me, as far as my ability to build a retirement home for us on this little slice of paradise.

And so it began.

Once we signed the papers, we located a John Deere tractor to help with our upcoming projects. Our friends Rod and Mary used theirs extensively to build their place, and Rod assured me it was the most valued tool in his arsenal. That turned out to be a spot-on recommendation. We also bought a shed to temporarily store it in, as we were about to fly off to Britain and Ireland for a month! When we got back, we returned to a blaze of autumn maple leaves. We spent some time planning, then headed off to Florida.

And then came Covid-19.

Would we be able to pull a construction project off in the middle of a pandemic? Well, we had secured our subcontractors ahead of time, as they were the ones Rod and Mary had used and had good luck with. All of them were on board and ready to go, as soon as the restrictions were lifted in Michigan. The county was being strict on outsiders, in regards to quarantining, so we opted to boondock on our land with our fifth wheel. That first year…2020…we put in all the utilities and built our barn.

With that done, we spent our Florida winter planning the cabin. We still had all of our original subcontractors onboard, along with a few new ones. We were ready to hit the ground running when we arrived in the spring of 2021. We broke ground in May and had the exterior enclosed and sided, and the interior drywalled and painted by October.

We still had decks to complete outside and pretty much everything else inside. 2022 was going to be “all Diana and Jim”, save the shower door installers. We spent the next winter in Florida planning. I continued our Excel construction timeline that I had created the year before, which ended up keeping us focused this year.

Our last few posts have detailed our progress this year, all working towards the goal of our certificate of occupancy. When we last wrote, we were just finishing the flooring and trim painting. Once that was done, there were a few interior details to finish, and then the entry deck. Lane came over and helped me hang the barn doors leading to our den.

Quick! Close the barn doors before the horses get out!!!

I also finished the shelving in the den closet:

It was right about this time that we had long awaited visitors!

Eric and Laurel from Raven and Chickadee stopped by to finally meet us in person! Fellow full time RVers turning part timers, these two have long been on our radar. We were sooooo fortunate to finally be able to meet up! I highly recommend checking out their blog from the link above, as they are super folks. We gave them a tour of our place then we headed off to HopLot…our favorite local beer garden.

With the inside of the cabin complete, we had one final piece of the puzzle to complete: the entry deck. Mind you, it was late September in northern Michigan, and the weather was not going to be conducive for outdoor construction for much longer.

I popped off the temporary deck boards and went at it.

On went the decking, fascia and posts…

…followed by railing and cement board base for the column masonry.

I followed that up with the stone veneer. It was about then that the weather turned on us. We had FOUR solid days of cold rain. I still needed to grout the stone, finish the stairs, wrap the posts and establish a landing below the stairs…all required for occupancy. I had a medical appointment in Detroit that I was going to do a one day down-and-back and I said “time out”. We needed a break. So we made a trip of it and saw our new great nephew!

Oh, yeah….it doesn’t get much better than that! Say hello to Drew!

His Grandpa Doug sure thinks he’s the bee’s knees!

Once we got back from the Motor City, we were fresh and ready to go!

In my hand, I hold the last screw…the Golden Spike on our personal transcontinental railroad!

A few days later, we were ready for our inspection! He showed up and gave it a good once over. He walked out on the big deck and said “This is the best room in the house!”, all the while tugging on the rock-solid railing to see if it moved. It did not budge. He signed off on the final inspection and our three year journey was complete!

A huge sense of accomplishment!

We, of course, still have a lot to do next year. Landscaping, moving our stuff up from our storage room in Grand Rapids and many other little odds and ends. All of it can be done at our pace, with plenty of play time interspersed between our chores. Time to enjoy the fruits of our labor!

Afterwards, Patti and Lane had us over for dinner to celebrate 🙂

Two wonderful friends right there! Yep, guys…we came back!

With that, let us formally introduce you to our home:

MapleVistas!

We will continue to travel and blog in our shoulder seasons, so we hope you follow along on exploRVistas with us. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

Accidental Accidents and Accidentals on Purpose

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September 8, 2022 – Leelanau County, MI – Written by Jim

Sorry if that title is so confusing. There’s a lot to unpack here.

Back when we put up the barn, I had three levels of scaffolding erected while I was siding the back of it. Our friend George visited during that phase and looked me square in the eyes and said, “Be very careful. If you get hurt, this all comes to a grinding halt.” Rarely a day has gone by where I haven’t thought of him saying that. And I have heeded those words.

Most accidents are a result of being tired. I had been pushing hard to get our flooring done, all the while multitasking and putting baseboards in the closets as I went. It was nearing the end of the day and I was really dragging, so I decided to wind up the air hose and put it in the barn for the night. I laid it over the compressor and turned to walk out the door and hooked my foot around a loop in the hose. I was so focused on the concrete I was about to meet up with that I didn’t notice that I had attempted to grab the upper part of Diana’s china hutch that was standing by itself near me. BAM. I hit the ground hard on my left hip. To add insult to injury, the hutch came down on my shoulder and head a split second later. Thank goodness the glass doors and shelf did not break.

At first, I thought I broke my hip. It took me a bit to get myself up and realize that I was probably just going to be really sore. I decided to take it easy the next day and see what the following day brought. I did a little work that day before stepping wrong and pain shot up my leg. Now I was really sure something bad was going on in there! Off to the med center for X-rays. Luckily, I didn’t have anything broken, but I had pulled some muscles and bruised the heck out of my hip. I took the next three days off.

Once I got back to work, I somehow managed to get the flooring done!

With that behind me, I started installing and spray painting the doors.

Once the pre-hung doors were installed, I took the doors off the hinges and painted them in the spray booth I had set up in the barn. Between the 6 doors and the 30 bifold panels, the sprayer got a workout!

I even managed to NOT trip over the air hose! As those were drying each day, we installed the closet shelving and any other baseboard or door trim we could. As of now, we just have to trim out the closet door openings and any adjoining baseboard, plus a few other minor odds and ends. We are getting close to having the inside of the cabin done. After that, we only need to do the entryway deck and we will be finished.

One other thing that I want to mention: the reason this project has moved along as well as it has and stayed on track is because of Diana keeping the wheels on our train! Not only has she helped with the project itself, she has done nearly everything we both normally do on a daily basis. I’m a lucky guy, indeed!

Our other new addition:

Asphalt! We have had several heavy rains that washed out the steep portion of our gravel driveway, so we decided to pave it to the top of the hill. I’ve been adding the white drain stone along the sides to help with drainage and to add support if a wheel goes off the edge.

So you might be wondering what the “Accidentals on purpose” was all about. Many of you know that we follow the band The Accidentals, as many folks from around here do. We jumped at the chance to see them when they played locally at Fountain Point Resort along with Kaboom Collective, a student orchestra based near Cleveland, Ohio. It was our 40th anniversary gift to each other.

Kaboom had ‘reimagined’ many of the bands older favorites. Sav and Katie had met in orchestra class in high school, so hearing their songs performed by an orchestra blew them away.

Katie shredded her electric guitar and belted out Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One” at one point, which was totally unexpected. We loved every minute of the show!

So the next time we write, we should be wrapping up our building project. I will be sure to keep an eye out for my nemesis, the air hose. Be sure to stay tuned for that post. Until then, safe and happy travels to all!

Friends, Leelanau, Michigan

August Cabin Update

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August 2, 2022 – Leelanau County, MI – Written by Jim

It’s been over a month since we last wrote; it’s time for an update! You may recall that Jodee and Bill had come for a visit on their tour of Michigan. At the time, we were in the process of finishing the large deck. Their fluffy dog Tessa took one look at our project and had her say:

“All this work makes me dog tired!”

After they departed, we finished the deck.

Two decks done, one to go! We are saving our entryway for last. Once we were at this point, we went to our storage room and picked up our deck furniture, our TV and any kitchen boxes we could identify.

It sure is nice to have this furniture back with us!

The next project on the list was the master bathroom. We started this year with painted walls and cement board in the shower area.

We did manage to waterproof the cement board and put down the sheet vinyl flooring this spring, but that was about it.

This was my third tile job in the cabin and easily my most challenging. We were happy with how it came out. A week and a half after I started, the bathroom was nearly complete:

All we need to do is have the shower door installed, put up the towel bars, install the entry and closet doors and the trim. On to the next project: the fireplace!

We started by installing the mantle. We then laid out the stones on a cardboard template:

The handmade tiles are a nod to my grandparent’s home in Detroit, which my grandpa had covered with Pewabic tile. These tiles are made not too far from us in Alden, Michigan by a man who worked for Pewabic. The pink one is a robin, the green one is a maple leaf (both of which we have on our property) and the large blue one in a vineyard with the words “Leelanau Peninsula” on it. Once again, masonry work is something I had never tried, so a lot of YouTube videos were watched, along with some helpful consultations with Jim Nelson…who recently tackled this type of work himself with his wife Barb and friend Kevin.

Less than a week later, it was done. We were glad to see that we measured the TV niche correctly to accept our TV! Time to move on to the next project: flooring.

We are using vinyl plank, which is really nice to work with.

I saw this rolling knee pad being used on HGTV’s Hometown. It sure made this job a lot easier! While I was doing this room…

…Diana was sanding and painting the door trim in the master bedroom. She will be painting the 16 foot baseboard trim next, which she will do in the barn. It’s amazing how much trim goes into a structure of this size!

I am currently halfway through the flooring. I finished the entry closets and the laundry area yesterday.

This is the hatch to our crawl space in the closed position…

…and in the open position. A special thanks to Rod and Mary for the idea of the wall latch to hold the lid up, along with the recommendation of the SmartCore Ultra flooring from Lowe’s. To complete this hatch, we are going to add a grab bar on the left wall, a gas strut on the right and (eventually) a more permanent ladder to the space below. A note on the white baseboard: Our windows were ordered with jambs wide enough for our 2 x 6 walls, but the manufacturer mistakenly made them with jambs for 2 x 4 walls. Rather than send the windows back last year, I had them send me the correct jambs along with compensation for my time installing them. I salvaged the old jambs, turning them into closet baseboard. That kept them out of the landfill and saved us a few bucks in the process!

While it seems like our summer has been all work, we have played a bit too! We’ve had visits from Lane & Patti, John & Julie and our neighbors Gary & Linda, who brought us some cherries from their orchard! We also have made it to Music in the Park in Northport each Friday evening.

This past Friday was The Fabulous Horndogs, a band that got back together after a 12 year hiatus. We knew we were in for a treat when we saw the crowd size. They were indeed fabulous!

Stay tuned as we work to finish up the doors and trim, along with our entry deck. That one involves stone pillars, so my masonry tools aren’t quite done yet. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Fulltime RVing, Leelanau, Michigan

June Cabin Update

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Leelanau County, MI – June 25, 2022 – Written by Jim

What a busy month it has been! When we last wrote, we had just taken a well-deserved day off for Diana’s birthday. We spent that day checking out our favorite Sleeping Bear Dunes spots, followed by a visit to Shady Lane Winery with Lane and Patti!

We followed that up with dinner at Nittolo’s in the town of Lake Leelanau. It was a fun day indeed!

The next day, it was back to work. Diana painted the carsiding that was going around the sides of the island, while I finished the tile.

We are really happy the way it came out! Next up was the top, which we decided to build in place. Our neighbor Jeff helped us bring the L-shaped top in from the barn (thanks Jeff!) and I knew this one was more than we could handle.

Once I cut out and assembled the top pieces, I attached 1/4” x 2” steel to the underside to support the overhang.

I then sandwiched it into the cleating and painted the underside white before Diana and I flipped it over.

Once it was flipped, we screwed it down and spread on the contact adhesive. You can see the laminate all glued up beyond the top.

We then put in the prep sink and we were done!

Time to head outside and work on those two decks! First up was our 12 x 12 deck off the kitchen.

The first project was to spread the gravel under the deck. There is weed block underneath that.

After all the posts were in place, I skirted it with white PVC and put the decking on. I put a single picture frame on this deck on three sides, so as to conceal the edges of the grooved Trex boards. I then stained the posts and built and stained the railing.

A huge thank you to our friends Fred and Bonnie for giving us their leftover railing parts from their deck project last year in New York!

One week after I started, we had a completed deck! Next up was our big 18 x 30 deck on the other side. We are going for the same look, with one difference:

This one is triple picture framed. The reason for that? The boards are running the 18 foot direction, and a 20 foot piece of Trex is over $100 each! A 16 footer is around $40 each. Plus, the picture frame looks kinda cool!

Once I had the main field of 16 foot boards on, I trimmed off the other ends of them, which I left long.

I snapped a chalk line on the path I wanted to cut.

I measured from the edge of the saw to the blade, which was 1-1/4”. I snapped a second chalk line that distance off the other line.

Using one of my aluminum scaffold platforms as a straight edge on that second line, I was able to cut a true line across the entire 30 foot deck.

And just like that, it was done.

Next, I’ll get the posts trimmed to the correct height and stain them. I’ll then put the outer triple picture frame on. After that is the railing and stairs before we can call it complete.

But first we are going to take a few afternoons off, because our friends Jodee and Bill are here for a few days!

We went to Music in the Park in Northport and also to a few spots in Traverse City so far.

No pictures of the four of us yet, but I did manage to get one of Tessa and me!

After the deck gets finished, we concentrate on finishing the inside of the cabin. Stay tuned for that. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

Back to Work on the Cabin

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May 30, 2022 – Leelanau County, MI – Written by Jim

After a great winter in Florida, we made the trip north to Michigan, arriving in mid-April. Our goal is to get the cabin finished this year so we can get our occupancy permit. We wasted no time in getting started!

First order of business was to get a working bathroom. When we had contractors onsite last year, the terms of our building permit required us to have a porta-potty. Now that we are working by ourselves, there is no need for that…as we have the RV close by. When we left last year, the main bathroom looked like this:

I am fairly proficient in most areas of home construction, but tile work is new to me. Not only was I going to try tackling a tub surround, I was also throwing a niche and a window frame and sill into the mix. Oh, and the tile has a wavy pattern to it.

Before too long, we had a tub surround! Not long after that, we had the flooring, vanity, mirror, toilet and towel bars installed.

We put up a shower curtain for now, as we want to finish the other bathroom before having the shower doors installed. We also put paper on the floor to protect the new flooring while we work in other areas of the house.

In order to get the plumbing running, we had to bring the water softener in from the barn, where it had been installed with the washing machine.

We will scoot that out of the way when we put in the vinyl plank flooring later this summer. Once the softener was moved, we also brought in the washer and dryer.

It’s nice to have those both installed and running! The laundry tub will be installed after the flooring goes in.

While I was doing this, Diana was busy painting trim.

We have 17 windows that require trim, along with 3 outside doors, 6 interior doors and 9 closets…along with all of the baseboard. The window jambs also needed painting, and the entire casing needed to be caulked.

We finished all of the windows! We will get the rest after the flooring is in.

Diana also tackled the mountain of leaves that were dumped on us last fall.

That took a few days, as they were so many! One neat thing about getting here so early was to go to the places we are able to see in the distance and look back at our little slice of Leelanau.

This one is from one mile away.

This one is from 2-1/2 miles away. You can see our place and our neighbors in the distance. The houses in the foreground are on our friends Lane and Patti’s street. Once the leaves popped, we aren’t able to see much of our cabin from these places.

Next project was finishing the kitchen.

Once I had the base cabinets secured and level, I proceeded to make our countertops. This is something I did frequently during my career.

How’s that for Carrera Marble? A special thank you to my friend Jim (a hardware specialist) for helping us secure the cabinet pulls. They actually mirror the handles on the appliances.

Once that was done, we were able to install the tile backsplash.

I finished grouting that today. The rest of this week will be spent on finishing the kitchen, before moving outside to finish up two of our three decks. We’d like to get those done before it gets too hot.

Stay tuned for our next post to see how far we get. Until then, safe and happy travels to all!

Friends, Leelanau, Michigan

A Friendly Push

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October 8, 2021 – Leelanau County, MI – Written by Jim

“Pushhhhh.”

That was Diana’s dad’s response back in the 1980’s when she asked him how he was able to find the energy to totally renovate a house in the evening, all while working during the day as a superintendent for a commercial construction firm.

At the time, he was overseeing the renovation of the concrete topping at Buick City, working twelve hours a day and being on call the other twelve. That job was a monumental task in its own right, let alone throwing a home remodel into the mix. Diana and I have thought of Bud’s statement many times this summer, as we’ve had to push ourselves a bit to get our cabin building project to where it needed to be by season’s end. As the days slipped by on the calendar, it seemed at times that we had a bit more on our plate than we could chew.

Enter the friendly push.

Every one of our friends who has stopped by this summer has added to our project in some way, whether it be through moral support or by picking up a tool and digging in. These past few weeks have been a flurry of activity, fueled by the “pushhhhh” of our friends.

One of the deadlines we had to meet was finishing up the mechanical work this year. That involved all heating and venting work, including the ductwork from the microwave oven to the outside. In order to complete that, the microwave had to be installed above the range. I called my friend John who was there in a flash to help me with that project. Of course, I failed to get a photo. But…

…John’s wife Julie was able to photobomb her own photo when she shot this image of our friends Cindy and Jessica, who had stopped by to check out our progress. Julie is in the reflection in the door glass. Cindy and Jessica are neighbors in Kalamazoo, and John, Cindy, Diana and I all lived in the same dorm in college.

A week or so later, our friends Jim and Barb went way out of their way to lend a hand with our build. You may recall that we had stopped at their place in South Dakota to help them with their barndominium in 2019. Details of that project can be seen HERE. This trip, the two of them had been fishing and hunting north of Lake Superior and drove several hundred miles out of their way to lend us a hand.

We started out our long weekend by showing them the local sights. From there, we plotted our course to complete some key projects. First up was emptying the contents of our local storage room, as we had stashed many of our supplies there over the summer. We filled our 16 foot cargo trailer twice, so this was no small feat.

Next up was digging a trench across our driveway for a service conduit.

While I had loosened the soil with a metal tube chained to my tractor, Jim did the lion’s share of the digging. No better way to get to know Leelanau than to dig into it’s rocky soil! Once that was complete, Jim helped me add a support beam to the deck in the above photo that has the tools leaning against it.

We finished up by adding some diagonal braces to the main deck, which took out the sway at the outer reaches of it. When we were all done, Jim pulled out his drone and took some aerial photos for us. Here is one that shows our hideaway really well:

That was a huge weekend. We can’t thank them enough for their help!

The next big events to happen were the electrician and the HVAC tradesmen finishing their work.

It’s exciting to have power and heat! Those were followed by the electrical and mechanical final inspections, both of which were approved.

We also had a visit from our friends Becky and Joe!

They were on a journey from their home in Montana to our park in Florida. We hung out at our place for a bit before going to dinner at one of our favorite places, Hop Lot. It was great to see them!

Now we are on a push to finish a few things before we head south for the winter.

We have been able to complete more of the cabinet work this week. This won’t be totally finished before we leave, but it will be closer than this.

We also moved our appliances inside from the barn. We want to test them out and make sure they work while they are in the same year that we purchased them. That refrigerator was a tight fit!

We have a few more things we want to accomplish before we leave for Florida, so be sure to stay tuned for that. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

Prime Time!

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Leelanau County, MI – September 17, 2021 – Written by Jim

September has been a bit of a whirlwind for us. When we last posted, we were about to prep the interior of our cabin for priming. After vacuuming the ceilings and walls, we used dry Swiffer floor dusters to go over all of the walls and ceilings. What a dusty job that ended up being!

Once the prepping was done, it was time to prime!

Our goal for this fall was to prime everything and to paint the ceilings. The reason for that was to allow the electrician and HVAC trades to finish their work and get their final inspections. Diana tackled our nine closets while I rolled away at the rooms. It wasn’t long and we had our goal completed. We then decided that I would paint the great room and hallway, as we needed to mount some of the cabinets for the tradesmen to do their work.

Diana then set out on a mission to put the final coats on the closets.

It’s amazing how many square feet of drywall there are in these spaces. We used the same amount of paint to do the closets as we did to do the entire great room and attached hallways!

Once the great room was painted, I started assembling cabinets.

Check out this old cabinet maker…he’s still got it! We purchased our cabinets through a company named Lily Ann Cabinets. There isn’t a bit of particle board in them. They use a dovetail system to put them together. So far, I am pleased with the quality.

Within an hour, I had the first one on the wall!

These are the cabinets needed to mount the under cabinet lighting and the microwave. With that done, we let the electrician and HVAC tradesmen know that we were ready. It turns out that they were backed up a few weeks, so we kept on painting. One room led to another and before we knew it, the entire place was painted!

Prior to starting the priming, we had a nice visit from our friends Michaelena and Bob!

They winter two sites down from us in Florida. While they were here, we hiked and toured Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, visited a few wineries and caught up on what we’ve been doing with our summers. It was great to see them! We also had a visit from our college friends Paul and Sheryl this week. While we failed to get a photo, we had a great evening with them! 😊

The leaves are turning, which is a signal for us to start wrapping up our projects for this year. Stay tuned to see what we manage to get done before we head south for the winter. Who knows…we might even have a few visitors pop in! Until then, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

Wrapping Up the Outside

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Leelanau County, Michigan – August 28, 2021 – Written by Jim

It’s funny how things seem to come together sometimes.

When we initially planned our cabin project last winter, we knew the first priority was to finish the outside, so the building was weathertight. Our portion of the interior work couldn’t begin until the drywall finishers were done anyway, so we devoted all of our attention to getting the siding completed. Amazingly, those two portions of the job wrapped up within hours of each other.

When we last spoke, we were finishing up the siding on the front of the cabin.

That took a day longer than planned, but it is complete nonetheless. I moved around to the window wall on Monday, August 16, the same day the drywall finishers started.

Siding this wall has been similar to an unwritten song that has played in my head repeatedly for nearly a year. I wasn’t quite sure how it was all going to play out until I actually started pounding nails. The wide band between the windows is not in line with the fascia on the front and back of the house, which messed with my symmetrical mind when it came time to locate the dividing board between the shakes and the main siding. At one point, we considered not using shakes on this side at all and siding the entire thing in blue. In the end, it was a non-issue, as we filled the entire space between the windows with white PVC, which made the windows look like one system.

With the divider in place, I began the shake siding. The window angles and the roof angle are not the same, which added to the job’s complexity.

It was at this point that our friends Rick and Linda showed up. We took a much needed break from construction to tour the Leelanau Peninsula and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We had a great time!

The next morning, Rick was at our place, ready to work. He helped me erect the scaffolding to full height and then we started siding in earnest.

Having him cut pieces and hand them up to me saved me many trips up and down the scaffolding. He helped out for two days and moved the project forward in a big way.

Thank you for the huge jump start, Rick! We then were fortunate to have a visit from our niece Becky, her husband Dan and our great nephew Miles.

It sure was good to see them!

Meanwhile, the drywall finishers were working in earnest inside.

At one point, the dust was rolling out of every window and door in the place! I was quite content to be working on the outside that morning. It was at this stage that I wondered who would finish first…them or me. I also wondered if I would have enough shake siding.

Luckily, I had three pieces left over from the barn project. I ended up only having one full piece at the end.

Here I am with the final piece, which thankfully meant that I was able to remove the top level of scaffolding, Thats a long way up!

I then went about the process of filling in between the windows with white PVC.

Piece by piece, I worked my way across. When we manufactured cabinets in my working days, our saws would cut within a thousandth of an inch. Houses are not built to those exacting standards. The spaces between each window varied a bit, which added to the challenge of filling the voids. Add to that the fact that the PVC didn’t come wide enough to cover the gap. I ended up slotting the sides of the boards and splining them.

Here I am fitting the last piece into place. I used a little silicone caulk to fill in the gaps and …

…that’s a wrap! In the end, I was competing with a weather system that was rolling in the next day (Friday). That was the day the drywall guys were supposed to get done. They ended up finishing on Thursday a few hours before I did. Friday ended up being a bonus day for us, as Diana and I purchased supplies in the morning and I used the shop vac to suck up drywall dust the rest of the day.

I added a PVC extension to reach the ceiling.

I had to repeatedly knock the dust from the filter, as the dust caked on it. A nasty job, indeed. Diana and I are going to Swiffer the entire place today to get it ready to prime. Stay tuned for that in our next post. Until then, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

It’s Starting to Look Like a Cabin!

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Leelanau County, MI – August 14, 2021 – Written by Jim

We’ve had some funny moments with our subcontractors this summer, and one statement in particular has stood out. One very busy day when a myriad of tasks were being completed, our plumber skipped off our porch, proclaining “S**t’s gettin’ done!” It’s been our mantra ever since…especially these past few weeks.

No sooner did I finish the siding on the west end of the cabin, the insulators showed up. Our choice for wall insulation was blown in cellulose, which is basically ground up recycled paper and cardboard. It’s mixed with a binder that allows it to stick between the studs.

That’s all fine and dandy, but it also means that I wasn’t going to be hammering on the outside of the walls to put siding up, as I didn’t want the insulation to fall out! So that meant waiting for the drywall to get hung before I could resume that activity. Within a few days, the drywall supply truck showed up.

A couple of days after that, the drywall hangers began working. While all that was happening, we decided to tackle the porch ceiling.

While Diana was putting the finishing touches on the pine carsiding, I was working on the soffit on the back of the building. Once the boards were dry, I put them up.

Once that was done, I proceeded to wrap the beams with white PVC. Never needs painting!

By the time I completed that project, the drywall was hung on the inside.

Once that was up, we were able to get the insulators back to blow 14” of cellulose into the attic. The cabin is fully insulated! The finishers start next week. And since the wall insulation is held in place by the drywall, I am able to get back at the siding.

It wasn’t long before the back of the cabin was completed. We will wrap the posts and finish the decks next year. And just how was it that I fastened that little top piece of siding in the peak of the porch? Well, here is a short video that explains the process:

Here I am on my new 12 foot ladder, installing the porch fascia.

Those two large pieces of white PVC in the peak were pretty tricky to get into place. That material is expensive, so it was a ‘measure twice, cut once’ situation. Or was it ‘measure once, cuss twice’?

I finished wrapping the windows on the front of the cabin this morning and put up most of the siding.

I should easily have that completed tomorrow. From there, it is on to the window wall! I will most likely complete that before the drywall finishers are done, so I am hoping to be able to get topsoil and grass seed on our hill below the big deck before moving inside to work. We’ve had a few gully washers recently and we need to stop the erosion.

On the social side of things, we have been fortunate to get together again with Diana’s cousin Jerry and our friends Lane & Patti and Rob, so it hasn’t been all work. Still we are in need of a break, so we have some visitors showing up this week and also next weekend. Stay tuned for that! Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Leelanau, Michigan

And the Color is…

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Leelanau County – July 26, 2019 – Written by Jim

As we were finishing up the barn last year, we started picking out colors for this year’s cabin project. We had always intended to tie the two buildings together by accenting them both with the Wicker shakes in the gable ends and the wide white PVC trim, but we wanted each to have an independent field color. We had settled on a horizontal taupe, and even painted the shed doors to match.

Well, the pandemic-affected supply chain had other ideas…

It turns out that taupe pigment was not available to make our siding, so we had to come up with a Plan B. Time to get creative! Our supplier actually suggested the Certainteed brand of siding for availability, which Menards just happened to also carry at a much cheaper price. Lop another 11% off of that with their summer-long rebate sale and they practically gave us the siding! So what color did we choose?

Pacific Blue!

We are happy with the way it looks with the barn. One side done, three to go!

This past week has been a mix of working on the siding and other projects that have to be buttoned up before the insulation and drywall crews arrive. Two of the four insulation crews have come and gone, along with the electrician. The electrical inspector approved the rough electrical and the building inspector approved the rough framing. We are good to go!

Down in the crawl space, I was able to put the top 9” of foam board up along with the silver seam tape. Once the HVAC, plumbing and electric finish work is completed in this area, we will put a reinforced white liner on the floor. The foam board, liner and rim joist insulation are what make up a ‘conditioned’ crawl space, which is required by Michigan building code.

As much pre-planning as we did, some things came up that required some quick thinking. Placing backing to mount the vanity lights and mirrors were one thing we hadn’t considered. A rainy day trip to Menards to pick out the mirror and lights gave us the measurements we needed to mount the backing board.

While we were there, we decided on our porch ceiling, as that needs to be done before we can put the siding up on that wall. I’m on the upper level of the wood storage rack getting ready to hand down 32 pieces of wood to Diana in this photo. We chose 1 x 6 pine carsiding that we will finish with a clear spar urethane. Stay tuned to see how that comes out.

We also realized that building a shower niche requires knowing the measurements of the tile that will surround it. After picking out our tile, we decided on the size and placement of the niches in our bathrooms.

Here is the one in our main bathroom. I have to wait until the outside wall is insulated before I can put up the rest of the cement board in this room.

Our master shower cement board is nearly complete, as these are all inside walls. I will trim out the niches in both baths when the drywall behind them is installed.

This past weekend, we bid a Leelanau farewell to our friends Rod and Mary, as they sold their cottage here and will be living full time in their Florida home.

Patti and Lane arranged an evening at The Ridge at Verterra Winery and then dinner at Nittolo’s in Lake Leelanau. From right to left: Mary & Rod, Paul & JoAnn, Lane & Patti and the two of us. We all met at Wild Cherry Resort back in 2015. We sure are going to miss having Rod and Mary here, as well as their dog Gracie. Fortunately, we will catch up with them in Florida!

Our friends Terry and Diane also stopped by with their grandson on their way north to the Upper Peninsula to go fishing. It was good to see them again!

Stay tuned for our next post where we will hopefully have insulation and drywall installed, as well as more siding. Until then, safe and happy travels to all!