Construction Continues

Well as a bit of an update from us, things are overall really great. Kristy continues to grow like crazy, I was just away for a weekend and I swear her belly is bigger than 3 days ago! It's pretty cool and becoming more and more real for me.

As an update from me I unfortunately hit a deadline I wasn't tracking, the 6-year point in a PhD where one is automatically de-registered until they submit a "proposal for an extension". Talk about kicking a guy when he's down...but anyways my days haven't changed, analyzing data, writing about it, submitting to some person/beuracracy, waiting for revision comments, rinse, repeat...Truth be told though while I find it really hard at times, it's getting more fun for me because I'm actually writing about the core of my project now, rather than all the preamble it took to get to the testing point (I designed and built my own experimental apparatus).

The design & construction work continues in 2 other places as well. For the Labour Day weekend Kristy and I took a few extra days off and spent 5 days at our cabin at Mt. Cain. We absolutely love it up there and so does Loca. Good people, beautiful scenery and wonderfully ...(in most ways)...no tv, internet, cell reception, etc. You really do unwind. Kristy made friends with the Whiskyjacks, there are 100's of tame birds that will land in your hand for a piece of bread crumb.

Our visit up there was 100% work related although we had some time at the start to walk around and enjoy the mountain. We are building a new front access to our cabin. The previous owner built this cabin himself and had put up a "temporary" construction access that is shown in the snowy cabin photo with Kristy. It ended up lasting over 15 years but was rotting and needed replacement. Our cabin is named "Timbers" and is a proper post/beam timber frame cabin constructed of huge old growth Douglas Fir. The previous owners were instrumental in the success of the Mt. Cain Alpine Park Society. Everybody on the mountain refers to our cabin as "Barry and Donna's" and we'll need at least one generation for that to change. Out of respect to them, and to be consistent with the build quality, we wanted to build a front entrance of our own that accentuates the cabin.

As you can see in the photos our front door is actually about 12 feet off the ground. The record snow year apparently saw snow half way up the door and you had to dig out the deck. That much snow eventually gets rained on and creates huge loading. We used 100% Western Red Cedar, the most rot-resistant wood on the planet (as far as I know) and 6x6 rough cut posts, 4x6 beams, 2x10 joists. Here are some pictures showing what we got accomplished the Labour Day weekend with Lee and Janice.

And here are some shots showing the fruits of this last weekend when I returned, this time with our other partners, Glen and Trish. Glen and I damn-near finished it.

In total this project took one weekend to dig/pour the post supports, the Labour Day weekend, then this last one, and as you can see we aren't quite done yet. While we're able to now leave through the front door, we still have to finish the decking in front of the door, the railing, and most notably build a stair case down from the walkway. I keep joking that our deck will hold our cabin up in event of an earthquake. It is definitely overbuilt.

At home we have new countertops coming for the kitchen and both bathrooms next week so this weekend is getting the old countertops off gingerly and repairing part of the old cabinet that suffered some water damage. And then that opens up a whole can of worms.

So yeah while it may not seem that smart, over the same time that I will making the final push to get the thesis submitted, I will also be doing tons of renovations at home as it seems like the future will require relocation and so in my eyes, both the thesis and the house have to get finished before we can move on.

Until next time...