Frigid Framing

We were supposed to go with friends overnight near Yakima, but that was rudely interrupted by a daughter with an ear infection. So we left her home, dropped Joshua at Stevens Pass to snowboard, and headed to the cabin.

Knarrow Haus on 21 February 2018

Several feet of snow have fallen since my last visit. Notice that the garage door is not visible from the road!

Our main task was to reframe the upstairs bathroom. We can't imagine why we had it frame the way it was, but it was CLEARLY wrong and ineffecient. (So we're blaming Norm.)

For those whove not personally experienced it, unheated house shells feel A LOT colder inside than the temperature outside.  We took the edge off with a propane heater that we hauled upstairs and pointed directly at us. (For those wondering, No it will not work to just heat the whole place while it is not insulated. Any heat disappears immediately out the roof and walls.)

We made all our cuts on the main floor. (I also discovered that somehow the fence on my miter saw has cracked and is no longer square. Glad it's just framing...)

Too much trouble to drag up an air compressor and nail gun. I just used some construction screws in place of nails. Not quite as fast but plenty strong for interior, non-load bearing walls.

View of the newly framed bathroom door from the top of the staircase in the hallway.

View of the newly framed bathroom door from the master bedroom doorway.

We moved the doors and just framed the old ones back in with the removed studs. Luckily we had some left-over 2x4 studs in the basement.

Two weeks ago, the snow had just reached the level of the front porch, now it's a couple feet above.

The garage door doesn't unlock from the outside, so we had to slowly make our way to the staircase with several of the lowest steps covered by snow.

The snow continues to creep down against the garage door.

Notice the animal tracks out the back door. Our guess, based on shape, spacing, and depth is that they're from a bunny...?

Of course, we forgot out key to the snowmobile, so we had to walk in. The snow was well packed by snowmobiles and snowcats... until we got to our driveway.

On our way out we noted many of the cabins' roofs really struggle to adequately shed the snow. This cabin belongs to some long-time, original residents. 

As we headed toward the car, we noted that our road heads straight toward the Skyline lift at Stevens Pass.  If you look closely and carefully, you can see some lift lights just above the trees at the end of the road.

Bluebird day and only door handles to show for it.

Finally, a Saturday where I was (a) in the country, (b) in town, (c) not sick, and (d) not otherwise committed to be somewhere.  Spoiler alter: All I got done was mounting  door handles in the deck door and basement door.

Door handled mounted on the deck door reflecting Liechtenberg.

Door handle mounted on the basement door with a mountain of snow outside.

The day started out with the obligatory pitstop at Lowes for some provisional plumbing fittings -- some 90 degree, 45 degree and 22.5 degree street elbows.

Drive up was dry, and the clouds parted on the final climb to Stevens Pass.

The snowmobile hasn't been dug out in a couple weeks. There have been a few major snow falls, but also a little rain and warming recently so there was a thick crust on top of the snow. Took about 15 minutes to dig it out. The tread was frozen to the snow below, but I was able to break free with a little persuasion (rocking and throttle).

The snowmobile prior to digging out after 2 weeks of inactivity.

Note to Katie: Spend a little more on the next snowshovel.

My only regret on our snowmobile is that is it so big and heavy, that it's really not at home in soft snow.  Good for ferrying people and supplies. Good on the packed stuff.

I spent about 30 minutes turning the snowmobile around after getting it stuck in our neighbor's driveway.

Normally, there's a nice pathway cut using our neighbors driveway through to our driveway, which makes it easy to loop around without having to reverse. I clearly have not fully learned that our snowmobile does not do well in untracked snow. Got stuck here in the neighbor's untracked driveway. The snowmobile is so heavy, that I basically had to slowly pull the back of the track around 180 degrees. Accomplishing that was occassionally set back by postholing to my thigh on unpredictable steps in to the snow, which had been softened by the sun.

Having now fully learned my lesson about the beastly snowmobile, I opted to park along side our driveway on the road.

Note the rock at the left corner of our driveway.  

Flashback: Here's that same rock in June...

I continue to be very pleased with how the cabin is shedding snow. Notice that there is no snow on the roof, despite it's 3/12 pitch.

The garage door is starting to get some snow against it due to snow shedding off the roof to that side.

Note the vantage point of this photo (looking down on to the steps).

The snow shedding off the low side of the roof is now higher than our porch deck.

This is taken from the front porch looking alon side the cabin where the roof sheds its snow.  The roof's drip line is apparent. Glad I went with as much overhand as I did.

This is the view from the back deck looking directly down. It's doing its job of keeping snow away from the back door in the basement.

And here's the view looking directly out the basement door.

A slightly nicer view as I pan the camera up.

This is taken out the basement door looking to the corner of the house with the low side of the roof.

Underside of the entry steps from the garage door.

Here's the view of the snow that has crept down against the garage door due to snow shedding off the roof. I'll either put some more rocks or gabions on the rocks in the spring to prevent this from happening next season.

So...why didn't I get some plumbing done. The fates are against me. I borrowed a right-angle drill from a friend in the trades, and previous times I had been using his pilot bit for the hole saws. Well this time the drill did not have his pilot bit so I pulled mine out -- it was too short for the hole saws.

Lessons learned:

• Buy your pilot bit AND hole saws from the same manufacturer.
• Check the hole saws against every plumbing fitting you have to make sure you've got the right ones.
• Next time, save up enough money to have a *real* plumber save me the headache and aggravation.

At first I was going to just call it a day, but I remembered I had not yet mounted some of the exterior door handles. So at least I got that accomplished. 

I haven't done a walkthrough of the cabin in a while, so here are couple of videos from today showing the enterior.

Basement walkthrough

First & second floor walkthrough

Neighborhood from the front yard.