Sunday Reflections

Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Light - view from McLain State Park

All is well in the Keweenaw.

A Big Job

It's almost October, so the push is on to get the house closed in before the snow starts to fly. Menards made another important delivery to us today. They brought all our roofing and siding materials. The truck dropped the trailer down by our barn.

The driver then used the forklift on the truck to pick the items off the trailer and carry them up to the house site.

Steve loves seeing his name on the materials. This is the sticker on one of the bundles of siding.

We had a crew of 7 there today. It's a big job to sheet a roof this large and this steep!

I cropped the above photo to show you the position of the guy in the lime green shirt and the other guy holding the sheet of OSB. It's hard work, but they're both in their 20's.

I'll update the "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" with more photos from today's work within the next hour. 

All is well in the Keweenaw.

A Personal Relationship

My husband is definitely a wood man - not a woodsman - a wood man. Actually, I suppose he qualifies as a woodsman, too. He loves wood - the look of it - the smell of it - and he loves working with it. That's OK by me, as I'm pretty fond of wood myself. There's no place we would rather live than in a house surrounded by trees. If you look at a satellite image of Keweenaw County, you'll see that it's almost entirely wooded. Our property is no exception. At the time of our purchase, it was wall-to-wall trees - mostly pine, maple and birch. There wasn't a 2-track or even a footpath into the property. Thus, in order to have a driveway and a home site, lots of trees had to be felled. Steve has had so much practice that he could probably operate a chainsaw in his sleep. It would have been a shame to sacrifice all those trees and get nothing but firewood. The interior of our home will be wood - not a sheet of drywall anywhere - and it will be our wood.

Some of our biggest trees were taken to a local mill and cut into boards. Steve helped them do that. Our boards were carefully stacked and stored in our barn at that time. All the boards were later flipped and restacked to make sure they dried well and stayed straight. The majority of the boards were moved to a storage unit last year in order to make room in our barn for Steve's workshop and other items. 

It was finally time to take our wood down to Rapid River this week to make it into flooring and T&G for our ceilings and walls.

We sent most of it down on a big truck yesterday, and Steve pulled a trailer with the rest of it.

Steve and our buddy/helper, Josh, moved the wood out of the storage unit on Tuesday. It had to be moved outside in order for it to be loaded onto the trailer on Wednesday morning. Here's a shot when about half of it was out of the unit.

The wood had been stacked almost to the ceiling. This is Josh.

This was the pile outside the unit at the same time that day.

Three hours later, all the wood was out of the unit and restacked in front.

Can you believe we left it there all night - unattended? It was still there the next morning! Not a stick missing! Only in the Keweenaw!

Our framing contractor offered his large trailer to help us with the job. What a blessing! Steve and the crew helped Steve load all the wood left in our barn onto that trailer on Tuesday night. 

Because of the type of trailer and hitch, Steve and our contractor had to trade trucks for the day. That's why you see a green truck in this photo instead of our red one.

Unfortunately, Steve didn't get any photos of the other load. He was a little busy yesterday. Long story short, all the wood made it to Rapid River safely. Steve spent some time talking to the mill owner fir a but befire he had to turn around and make the drive back to Calumet. He said that he was impressed with the quality of our wood - how expertly it had been cut - how straight it was - and how well it had dried. Steve told him the full story behind the wood - how it came from our property, how he helped mill it, how he stacked it, restacked it, moved it, etc. The man remarked, "Oh, so you have a personal relationship with this wood." He said there would be no better feeling than to sit in our completed house and look around at all that wood - our wood. You betcha!

I have more house photos for you tonight, but it's getting late. I'll try to update the construction page tomorrow night.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

UPDATE:  Photo log updated - Friday, Sept. 27 - 6:10 p.m. and again at 9:40 p.m.

No Rain?

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the TV weatherman say we won't have any rain until at least Saturday! Can that possibly be true? We had a perfectly gorgeous day today, and the crew made good progress on the trusses again.

I just updated the "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" page with more photos for you.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Sunday Reflections

Lake Superior Shore - near Haven Falls

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Trusses

Some of the trusses were going up on the house today (in the rain). I'm waiting for Steve to get home for dinner right now, so I hope to have more photos for you later. Meanwhile, I updated the "CONSTRUCTION - PHOTO LOG" this afternoon. Check it out!

All is well in the Keweenaw. 

P.S. I added the photos from today's construction progress tonight. (Julie - 9:20 p.m.)

Sunday Reflections

Bridge at Fort Wilkins - Copper Harbor

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Tent City

Julie to Steve: "Why did you keep that old pool cover?"

Steve to Julie: "I might need it someday."

Someday arrived this week. 

We've been getting some rain (again), so Steve used the old pool cover and his seemingly endless supply of tarps to create a "tent city" on the property. 

We received our third delivery from Menards on Wednesday, so the tarps definitely came in handy.

Our trusses are scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, so there's not a lot happening on the house this week. The men did work on the garage, so I'll update the "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" with those photos next.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

GRRREAT!

Cocoa says the Great Room is just GRRREAT! That's her Tony the Tiger imitation.

Steve took Cocoa to the property on Saturday, and she really enjoyed sniffing around the house site. She ran up the steps to the first floor of the house, but she wouldn't go down the steps into the basement. Basement steps freak her out for some reason. Enjoy the Great Room now, Cocoa. You won't be in it when it's finished. You're an outdoor dog.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Sunday Reflections

Quincy Mine site - Hancock

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Photo Log is Current

As of this moment, the "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" page is current! Thank you, thank you. No applause is necessary.

I still have lots of work to do to get the regular blog posts up-to-date, but I'll try my best to keep the construction details as current as possible - especially during the next couple of months of rapid progress.

Goodnight. All is well in the Keweenaw.

Belated Updates

Time sure flies when you're having fun! July and August were extremely busy months for us. Things are progressing rapidly with the framing on our construction project. I spent a bit of time tonight updating the "CONSTRUCTION - Photo Log" page on this blog. Remember, just click on that heading in the left column. I've made it through August 15, and I will sincerely try to get that page fully current by Saturday evening.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Sunday Reflections

All is well in the Keweenaw!