We’ve been busy critters. As it turned out, all the materials required to build our house took three loads (Moody Blue towing our herring skiff) to get to our site, rather than the originally estimated two. It’s amazing how much stuff it takes to build a 20′ x 20′ cabin!
Each load of material weighed in close to 10,000 lbs – the maximum capacity of the contractor’s truck and trailer. The first two loads took us 16 hours each to carefully pack into the Moody Blue and the herring skiff. The last load was a bit smaller, and the contractor gave us a hand loading, so it only took about 4 hours to load the boats. Unloading at our site took even longer – two to three days per load, as everything had to be transferred to the herring skiff and offloaded at high tide.
In between picking up loads of material, loading, and unloading, we have made some progress on getting our little cabin built. Before we left for our second load, we were able to get our floor joists up (October 3rd).
Image: Floor joists in place.
We also got most of the floor put up, and the front decking installed. After our second load had been unloaded, we finished the floor (October 22nd), and got ready to put up the walls.
Image: Floor and deck completed.
The weather has been off-and-on rain – usually a day of rain followed by a day of drier weather, but not very much sunny weather anymore. We had hoped to be finished the cabin by now, but things just haven’t worked out quite as we planned. We weren’t able to get very far on the walls before we had to go to Sayward to pick up our third, and thankfully last, load of cabin materials.
Things progressed much faster after we returned – two days of decent weather, and suddenly we had walls, windows, and doors.
Image: Cabin doors are in place.
Image: Cabin windows installed.
However, as I type this, the rain is coming down again. Work is very stop and go this late in the season. We are hoping that a few more days of solid work will get the roof on, but with rain forecast until Sunday, I’m not sure when we will get this work done. Hopefully soon, as we are both eager to get moved in. Living on the Awen has been great, but she is not winterized and the nights are getting cool!