Finishing”The Other House”
The past few visits have been focused on finishing up the outhouse otherwise known as “The Other House”. I surprised Ryan with having a metal plaque made for it that is now hanging over the door. We painted the vent pipe black which is supposed to help vent it, but I think it looks better as well. I painted the door in my teal paint and Ryan created an antler handle for the door. We hung the sign and I applied a spray coating of a product called “Eco Wood” treatment which will weather to a gray over the next six months. It was really easy to use with a pump sprayer. We still have some minor touchups like trims, making the roof wider and a few details inside but it is fine to use now and does not have any odor whatsoever.
We have spent the nights in the cabin both times and are still sleeping in the tent as there are lots of critters living in there with us. We have had a barn swallow and wren make nests in the cabin and a chickadee in the outhouse. We also have a family of mice living inside one small area that we can’t reach. Our next order of business is to covered the exposed opening with mesh to at least keep the birds out. That is something I can be working on while Ryan starts on the next project.
Next projects…
While we did not expect to work on the next project so soon, Ryan had the idea that if we had the front porch built it would then be easier to reach the eves and perform other jobs on the front of the cabin. It’s also a project we can do by ourselves, especially since Ryan has already built one deck before. So today Liam and I drove to a man’s farm and picked up a carload of 6×6 posts for the beginning of a front porch/deck. This man has a barn full of cast off building supplies and is selling them for half the price of retail. He was so accommodating, and I vowed to return with Ryan for more supplies.
I made a quick mock-up of the front porch using a clunky Lowe’s deck builder. We plan on utilizing the cattle wire method. We saw this used at an AirBnB last year called Cabin at Morris Orchard. We loved the fact that you could see through the railing while still acting as a barrier around the porch. We have a view from the porch that we don’t want to impede. If you need a great getaway near Lynchburg, Virginia go stay there. It was lovingly restored.
We also plan on adding a screen-in porch on the right side of the cabin, so the porch will wrap around one side.
Lighting
https://amzn.to/3S3rm9g. I plan to purchase some solar lighting to begin lighting our way at night. The other night at 3am I needed to visit the outhouse but truthfully I was too lazy to walk the distance in the dark so I squared outside the cabin. There were so many stars in the sky and I was happy I took the moment to enjoy the view.
Saying goodbye
In addition to all these things we said goodbye to our aging diabetic cat this past week. I won’t belabor how much we miss Alfred, but I bought a large, showy hydrangea for his grave and have planted some ferns from our property on both his and Romeo the cat’s graves. We plan to bring more home and plant them in our shady backyard. The property has been good for our well being and served as a quick getaway after Alfie’s death.