Decorating and Closing Up

With all the little wrap-up projects done, they only thing I had left to do was to clean up and the do a little decorating!  Above is pictured the kitchen area. The crock will be our drinking water storage until I eventually install a water system in the shabin. I plan to install a high efficiency chest style refrigerator underneath the counter in place of the cooler you see there now.



I laid out a rug in the living area.



And another one up in the loft.



I hung a rack for hanging jackets and other things, like our hiking equipment.



I hung some prints over the door.



What really makes the place are these five paintings, hung on both sides of the living area. They were all painted by my paternal grandmother, and they depict scenes from the summer vacation spots during my dad's child hood. My parents were very kind to give them to me last year, with the intention that they be hung in cabin. I am very grateful to have them, and I think they look fantastic and fit the place perfectly.



And with that, I closed up all the shutters, locked the place up, and said good bye. We will return later in the year, once things have warmed up. There will always be more projects to improve the place, but for now we have a great start on something to enjoy for many years.

Deck

I wanted to create a nice outside area where we can set up some chairs to relax and enjoy the outside. I came upon a new product at Lowe's and decided to put it to use. It is a patio tile that is made out of recycled rubber. While durable for outside use, it is very soft and forgiving as well as porous for draining any rain. With limited time, I wanted to do something very quick and easy. So I stopped at Lowe's and picked up a truckload of sand bags, the rubber tiles, and some pressure treated lumber on my way up. The first thing I did, shown above, was to nail together four pressure treated boards to make an 8' x 8' box. The area in front of the shabin is already pretty level, and there is no topsoil to speak of. The soil is mainly rock and sand with some clay.



Next, I unloaded the bags of play sand. Above, you see the 900 lbs of sand in place.



Then, I cut and removed the bags.



And, using an 8' board, I spread out and leveled the sand.



Finally, I laid down the rubber tiles on top of the sand. Instant patio! It looks like bricks, but is oh-so-soft. In the summer, I plan to erect a shade sail over it to provide protection from the noon day sun, and just take down the shade when we leave.

Composting Toilet

One really important addition to the shabin is a composting toilet. After extensive research, I decided on a Nature's Head Dry Composting Toilet. It was designed for mainly for usage on boats, and so it is compact, low power, and sturdy. It is quite simple in design and operation, and there are mainly people who testify to its effectiveness. I found it very easy and quick to install. First, I placed the base of the toilet where I wanted it and marked the location. I made sure to leave enough space at the back and side to raise and remove the top section of the toilet, which is necessary for emptying it.



I then moved the base out of the way and installed the mounting brackets to the floor. Above you see my one goof. I have them turned the wrong way. Unless one uses screws that can fit into the recessed of the brackets, the brackets must be turned to they are outboard of the toilet base. Otherwise, as I found, the base will rock back and forth on top of them. This was not a big deal to fix, and I simply turned them around.



After the brackets are in place, the base is simply slipped between them and fastened with these large thumb screws. This means it is very easy to pull out the entire toilet and move it outside, which I think is what I will do whenever I need to empty it.



Here you see the assembled toilet with the integrated seat mounted on top. The toilet has a fan that must be run at all times, and you can see its power adapter plugged in to the outlet I placed in the toilet room. The fan draws very little power, about 0.1 amps at 12V.  This is about a tenth of the output of my single solar panel. While the panel does not operate at peak efficiency throughout the day, and does not work at all when the sun goes down, I an hopeful it can keep up to provide constant operation of the fan. The battery bank alone should be able to run the fan for at least a month, so that should provide plenty of margin for error once we put it into operation.



The purpose of the fan is to draw air in from the cabin and vent it to the outside, so I needed to cut a hole in the back wall. I ran a short piece of tubing, provided with the toilet, from the inside of the wall to the outside.



Along with the toilet, I purchased a mushroom vent, the same used for boats. Pictured above is the main body the vent installed in the hole. You can see the integrated screen that will keep bugs out. The vent is fixed to the exterior siding with brass screws and sealed with silicone.



The bell shaped cap is screwed into the main body of the vent, providing a rain proof cover.



On the inside, I affixed the white hose adapter plate to the short piece of tubing in the wall, and then screwed the plate to the wall over the hole. After that, it was just a matter of cutting the remaining vent tubing to the right length and slipping it over the neck on the side of the toilet and the neck of the hose adapter plate.

And that is it, ready for us when we come back in the summer!

Cabinets

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am re-using the IKEA cabinets from my (now demolished) mud room to outfit the shabin with storage. I already installed some for the kitchen. This day, I finished hanging the rest in the living area. The ones pictured are in the open area, and their tops are a little higher than the loft floor, which you can see on the right. A matching pair is hung on the opposite wall. The handle on the wood faced cabinet is still in its original position. I do plan to move it to the bottom.



I hung the remaining two glass front cabinets behind the couch on the divider wall for the (future) shower. There is a gap between the couch and the wall, and I plan to use that area for a narrow cart or folding table that can be pulled out to increase the work surface in the kitchen area when needed.

Outlet Covers

One thing I got pretty wrong was the outlets. I installed the electrical boxes at a time when I thought I would be using thin paneling, 1/4" or 3/8" thick. Later, I decided on using 3/4" flooring for the walls. Electrical boxes should be installed flush with finished wall. Mine, therefore, ended up 1/2" too deep.



Luckily, this is a fairly common problem, and there is hardware for that! Seen above, the white piece of plastic is an extension made for just this purpose. I installed such an extension for every outlet and switch. in the place.



The other thing I got wrong was being too sloppy in the holes I cut for the outlets in the paneling. I figured the outlet covers would cover up the ugliness. I was wrong.  It turns out that standard outlet covers are not much larger than the electrical boxes they cover. Luckily, I found these over sized covers. And, even better, they are made out of real, raw wood!

Wrapping Things Up

At the end of January, I went up to the shabin for one last trip this winter. This was just a (long) day trip, but I finished off a number of small projects. My goal was to get things in a state where they are ready for us to start enjoying the place come warmer weather. I am happy to report I managed to get everything done that I hoped to. One project you see above is the sign for our camp, posted to a tree at the entrance to our lot. I had the letters made a couple years ago, but now I thought it was appropriate to use them and unofficially christen the camp. I made the sign  from a few scraps of pine paneling, to which I nailed the letters, and sprayed the entire thing with outdoor polyurethane.

There were so many little projects to cover that, instead of one long post, I will shortly make a small posting for each one separately.

Electric Power System

I made it up to the land again this weekend for a day trip. I completed the power system while I was there. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wired the shabin so that I can simply plug in AC power from where ever I can get it. So far, that has been exclusively from running my trusty generator. Of course, I want to be more green as well as enjoy some peace and quiet, so I am dipping my toe into solar power. You can see our newly installed PV solar panel above the glass door in the above picture.



The solar panel feeds DC current around to the back of the shabin, where I have set up a low storage shed.  In that shed, I have installed a pair of batteries to store the power. In the picture above you can see the batteries, lots of heavy duty battery cabling, and the small blue and black charger that regulates power from the panel to the batteries.The batteries are inexpensive, sealed deep cycle models from Wal-Mart. They each store 125 amp-hours of power, and are wired in parallel to provide a total of 250 amp-hours of power at 12V. I estimated that amount of power could conservatively power the lights and ceiling fan for about 12 hours of continuous use. It should also be able to power the small fan in the composting toilet for about a month.



I do not use 12V power, though, so on the other side of the mounting panel is an Tripp Lite inverter/charger. This is really the heart of the operation. The battery cables connect to it, as does an extension cord that plugs into the shabin. The inverter itself plugs into the generator, which I have also installed in the storage shed. When I turn on a light inside, the inverter draws DC power from the batteries, and supplies the AC power. If I have the generator on, it pass that power straight through to the shabin and charge the batteries at the same time. My system is really a hybrid. The solar panel, at 15W, is really only enough to keep up with the drain from the composting toilet fan that must run 24 hours. So, primary power is supplied by the gas generator. It is still more efficient than running only from the generator, because i can fully charge the batteries by running the generator for a couple of hours. I can then enjoy many hours of intermittent usage and silent power from the batteries, rather than running the generator all of that time. It also allows me to run the generator while running the air conditioner, which would otherwise deplete the batteries in a short amount of time. If the solar seems to be doing well, I will probably invest in more panels. A reasonably small solar system should be able to recoup our power usage (minus the A/C) during the summer when we are absent for one, two, or more weeks at a time.



I had time for some miscellaneous tasks after finishing the power system. One was covering over the exposed insulation in the shower area. I plan to eventually install a shower in that location, but it now looks like it will be a while before I install the water system. So, I used up some leftover flooring to cover up that wall. Above you see it half done, and the last anyone will see of insulation in the shabin for a long time. I have a few small remaining tasks to complete, and I plan to go up for one more day trip before closing up the place for a few months.

Paneling Complete

I have been up to the land for three days of work so far this month, and that was enough time to finish paneling the inside. Above is a shot of the finished loft.



This shot shows the trim around the doors. In keeping with the rustic appearance, I went pretty basic with any trim. I simply cut down pieces of paneling, as I did for the trim around the windows.



I used some scrap panels to make shelves in the bathroom. The divider wall to the kitchen is only paneled on the kitchen side, leaving the bathroom side with the studs exposed. I installed the scrap pieces in the space between two studs. This should provide plenty of storage space for toilet paper and the composting medium for the composting toilet.



Here is the composting toilet. I have unpacked it, but not installed it yet.

I also has some time to do other little things around the place. I installed the cabinets for the kitchen. Behind the shabin, I set up a small shed to house the electrical systems, which include the generator, inverter, and storage batteries. There will be more on that in my next post. Finishing the electrical system is my next project.

Paneling Begins

I made the trek up to the Shabin again last weekend. This follows a couple of inches of snow we received earlier in the week. I was the first vehicle to travel down our shared private road. The road to our land is 2 miles of ups and downs and hairpin turns. In other words, it was a nail biter.



This was especially true considering the 1500 lbs of wood paneling I was carrying in the back of my truck. At least all that weight kept the rear tires well stuck to the ground. I did not spin the wheels once! For paneling, I am using 5 1/8" wide rustic New England white pine flooring. Flooring for wall? Yes, and I will explain why. The only difference between unfinished pine flooring and unfinished pine paneling is the thickness. Paneling is typically 0.3" and flooring is 0.75" thick. Thicker is better! It feels more substantial when you lean on it, and you can nail a picture right to it. On top of that, flooring costs about the same or less than paneling per square foot.  I believe that is because pine flooring is a widely used product with a decent market, while pine paneling has become a niche product.



The best thing I did to prepare was to buy a pneumatic nailer. This is saving me, because paneling take a huge number of nails and this makes it effortless. I am using this inexpensive Hitachi Brad Nailer and it is has been working great.






The planks are tongue and groove, and I am blind nailing them, meaning that I nail into the tongue part and the groove of the next plank. So, I start at the bottom of the walls and work my way up.



The work is pretty fast for plain walls, but going around obstacles such as outlets and windows slows things down a lot. Much measuring, cutting, and trimming is required. I did luck out on my first outlet. Notice that the top of the lower plank landed just right so that I only had to cut an opening in the one plank above. None of the other outlets were so cooperative.



I am keeping to a rustic look, and I want to avoid putting up much molding. For trimming around the windows, I simply trimmed down some scrap planks and nailed them around the opening.



Here is a finished wall. I had been debating how to finish the wood, and I was leaning towards shellac. However, I recently saw this fantastic cabin featured in Dwell. I think it my the most perfect tiny cabin I have seen.  Its interior is unfinished New England white pine.That settled it for me, and I am leaving the wood unfinished to age as it will. I can get away with things looking rustic here, and it is certainly the cheapest and least effort approach.



This is the frist time I had been to the land in the snow. It is quite pretty and the shabin is very cozy.

After two days and 16 hours of work, I almost finished the downstairs area. I believe the downstairs will end up being harder than upstairs, due to all the windows, outlets, and divider walls. This pace is not has fast as I had hoped for, but not as bad as a feared. I am optimistic that I will finish the paneling during the next two day trip.

Insulation for Fun and Survival

I ventured up to the shabin this past weekend. The weather was crisp and clear, with the temperature ranging from a high of 32F to something in the 20s overnight. One nice thing about this time of year is that the views get better once the leaves have fallen. I arrived Saturday morning and inside the cabin it was about 40F. I fired up the little heater and got to work finishing the insulation. At the end of the last trip I put up some batts in the walls, just the easy ones I did not need to cut, and had not yet insulated the ceiling. The heater was only able to get the temperature up to about 55F.  If I was going to sleep comfortably that night, I needed to get to work!



I wanted to get the ceiling insulated first, so the first thing I did was to install vents within the rafters. These seem to be made out of the same foam material in which Big Macs used to be packaged. They create an space so that air can flow under the roof from the vents in the eaves up to the peak of the roof. Without that air flow, moisture can be trapped in the space, and moisture ruins the insulation.



Once the vents were stapled in place, then I could start insulating. The insulation in the walls is held in by friction, but the insulation in the ceiling must be stapled to the rafters. This was by far the most arduous part of the process, and it was dark outside before I was done.  However, as soon as all the ceiling insulation was in place, the temperature of the shabin began to rise dramatically. I then spent the rest of the evening finishing the wall insulation and stuffing insulation into all the little nooks and funny shaped spaces.



Morning came with ominous dark clouds moving over head, with occasional snow flakes. During the night, there were high winds and some freezing cold misting rain. However, it was warm and quiet inside the shabin. It eventually got so warm, almost 70F downstairs and 75F up in the loft, that I had to strip the blanket off the bed in the middle of the night. I continued working Sunday morning, framing in the walls for the toilet closet and shower area. The kerosene heater ran out of fuel without me noticing, and I worked inside for 3 hours without the inside temperature dropping noticeably. With the insulation and framing work complete, I am now ready to start on paneling the interior. I have ordered 700 square feet of unfinished white pine, so I expect my next post will show some progress on paneling.