We closed on the property 2 Friday's ago. Due to my daughters graduation from college we weren't able to make it out to the cabin until that Sunday. I took Monday off work so we were able to spend our first night in the cabin.
My wife, 19 year old son and I spent the whole time, mowing and burning a HUGE brush pile the former owners had left. My wife was able to get the main living area of the cabin cleaned up and ready for use.
There are SO many details, i'm not sure how much to share. I don't want to bore people with needless stuff, but I'm not sure what is trivial and what isn't?
We went back out this past weekend, my son wasn't able to come, but my Daughter and her husband (2nd Lt. US Army) came with us. Our goals for this past weekend were:
1) Build a sawdust toilet. Using plans I've found online, I decided that was the best short term option for us until we can afford to put in a septic system. The first quote I got for septic and plumbing the bathroom was $13.5k
2) Build a set of stairs onto the back porch. The current set of stairs consists of several large rocks flat that are stacked to form stairs. They look good, but the rise of each step is nearly 12". My wife had Achilles tendon surgery a year ago and has trouble negotiating them.
3) Clean out the workshop and get it ready for supporting our future efforts.
4) Clean out the back room of the cabin (which we call the closet). The back room of the cabin also has a small room partitioned off in it that is the "bathroom". At some point in the cabin's history, someone tried to put a bathroom in it. There are some remains of old plumbing.
This is a picture I drew in Visio of the general layout of the property around the cabin. This isn't to scale but it will give you a good idea of the locations of various things I discuss in my posts.
What we accomplished:
Got the sawdust toilet built. Wife and daughter got the closet and bathroom all cleaned up. Workshop cleaned out and ready to go. Pump house cleaned out. It was full of animal droppings, old insulation, and other assorted general filth. Wife and Daughter got almost all the grass mowed. The mowing is pretty easy, the weed eating is going to be a BIG deal.
What we learned:
1) We have snakes. I shot one copperhead laying on a trail down by the pond. We saw 3 different LARGE black snakes around the cabin. My wife killed one of them, the other two managed to escape her. I tried to tell her those were good snakes and to leave them alone; however, to her the only good snake is a dead snake.
2) LOTS of ticks. I'm going to spread seven dust around the cabin this coming weekend. Is there something better to use?
3) The whole place looked like it hadn't been clean up in years. I suspect that it's cleaner now than it's been in 30 years.
4) The walls and floors in the closet area are solid; however, there are large gaps between the wall boards (think board and batten construction, without the battens). At some point in the past, someone lined the walls with cardboard. Not sure if it was meant to be insulation or a barrier. A lot of that cardboard has come off. There are several places in the flooring where you can look down and see the ground. I think that i'm going to put in a layer of 3/4" decking on the floor and panel the walls in barn siding. This isn't a long term solution because it won't be very authentic; however, it will close off the super highway the critters and crawlies are using to gain entrance. I'm going to use barn siding on the walls since it at least is a bit rustic looking.
5) I found several old maul heads and an ax head while I was cleaning out the workshop. It was fun going through it and pealing away the layers. I found an old bicycle tire repair kit from the 40's.
Here is a photo gallery of pictures I took while we were looking at purchasing the property. I haven't taken any since we closed. I'll try to remember to do so for you all.
http://chromdome.smugmug.com/Other/B...8838221_M8C6KZ
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