Since we spend so much time working on the cabin instead of the car, I figured it wouldn't hurt (with a little urging from some friends) to chronicle our adventures in the off topic section.

We didn't work on the cabin last weekend since we were in HB so I'll just give you some highlights of what we've been up to.

When we first purchased the cabin, it had been vacant for about 4 years. The woman that owned it lost her husband. It was too difficult emotionally for her to visit the cabin - too many memories. Understandably, she let it fall into disrepair. Varmints made a home in the kitchen cabinets, in the beds, and pretty much everywhere else. The last update/remodel was apparently late 60's or early 70's as evidenced by the groovy orange shag carpeting. Even in a normal house this would be an eyesore, but in a cabin overrun by messy little furry creatures, you can imagine the dirt and smell and overall mustiness. Wall after wall of wood paneling wasn't terribly appealing either, but the icing on the cake was the ceiling. I don't know the official name for it and "thingies" just won't suffice here. I want to call it acoustic tile, but that may not be correct. Let's just say it was not attractive and definitely give you a woodsy mountain cabin feel.

Step 1: GET RID OF THE CARPET!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, that was actually step 3. Step one was to go through and get rid of all the things on the walls and odd furnishings that we didn't intend to keep. That was my job and it was pretty easy. Essentially everything was going. Step 2 was getting the beds out. This was not fun because there were dead mice, poo, pee and odd nesting materials under, over and throughout. Mike's strong, but even he couldn't move an entire queen size mattress by himself. I was forced to don some gloves and squeal while hefting my portion all the way out into the sun. Don't worry. We wore masks too. The mice in this part of the state can carry the Hantavirus. No thanks.

The carpet was nasty. I may have alluded to that. At first we tried vacuuming. Turns out her vacuum was malfunctioning and it actually blew years of pent up dirt out ONTO the carpet with quite an unusual extra odor. We brought up the carpet cleaner and thought we'd "wash" the carpet. That created mud and the realization that the thickness of the carpeting did not allow for actual cleaning. The carpet itself was not terribly difficult to remove (said the person watching rather than helping). The jute (I think that's what it's called) underneath was the big issue. Bleck. I cringe even now thinking back.

It took several weeks and several full trailer loads to the dump before we were able to actually spend the night inside. Prior to that we were either sleeping in the motorhome or staying with Dan (super awesome fellow FF owner that happens to have a cabin right across the street). Even with all that work, we couldn't use the kitchen. There wasn't enough bleach in the universe to make the piles of mouse poo in the cabinet disappear from my memory. We ended up pulling out the entire kitchen and redoing half of it. Half? Yes, half. The other half needs some attention to the foundation. If you put a marble in the kitchen, it would speed rapidly in a downward direction towards the back closet. I'm not sure if it would make it or if it would veer off in another direction. None of the cabin is level. It's a cabin, so I guess it isn't supposed to be. Anyway, we replaced the cabinets with hickory and the countertop is one of those cheap laminate ones from Lowe's, but it looks a little like granite (if you are nearly blind or squint enough). We replaced the refrigerator and put in an adorable little stove (20" wide). It's hard to cook without cabinets or countertops surrounding the stove and I managed to knock a hot pain of ground beef onto the kitchen floor once, but at least I'm not grossed out by mounds of mouse excrement.

We pulled up the carpeting in the drop down living room (where the excellent view is) and put in laminate flooring. Mike swore he would never do it after he put down our kitchen floor at our real home. That meant I had to do this room. He was forced to help with cutting, measuring and some brute strength here and there, but I mostly did it myself. Yay me! It was hard and painful and I'd never do it again, but it's rewarding to see it.

A couple weeks ago we decided it was time to open beam the ceiling so we pulled down all those nasty tiles which were apparently supporting 90 years of mouse nest/poo/urine. I didn't think the floor would ever recover, but it was surprisingly easy to get it all out. I mean, it was a ton of work and I was sore for days, but it wasn't permanently damaged. In the process, Mike discovered the wall dividing the living room and the bedroom wasn't really all that supportive and not terribly well built so he ripped it down with the intention of rebuilding a stronger wall. Turns out we really like not having the wall so our bed is now in the living room and I don't think we are going to change that. Some of the "studs" in the original wall didn't even touch...well anything. A plank of wood would come down until about an inch above the floor and just stop. It was hanging. It's something you'd have to see to believe, but none of the wood is consistent. There's an odd shaped plank of redwood here and some pine there and something that looks like it fell out of a tree nailed in over there. Nothing makes sense.

That's about where we stand now. The ceiling is open and it's so much nicer. We are going to insulate it and put redwood over. The center beam things will be strengthened and metal plates attached to hold everything together. See how technical that sounded? I should be a contractor. Last time we were up, we worked on creating a loft above the kitchen. It's hot up there. I hate climbing up and climbing down, but being up there working is fun. Mike actually trusted me to measure and install planks of redwood that he was cutting. Steve was transporting and communicating between us. It was really neat. I'm not as good at it as him, but not too shabby. Things were going really well at first, but then the diagonal cuts weren't quite right. I realized the pieces of wood weren't consistently 12" wide and that's what was making the gaps. I forced Steve to con Mike into measuring the width of each so I could measure more accurately. That helped.

I'm not sure what the plan is this weekend, but I think it involves electrical (and a trip to the library since they are having a book sale and I truly can't resist). The original electrical was knob and tube. We left some of it up for decoration, but Mike rewired the kitchen with "real" wire. Currently we only have power in the kitchen. Everything from there back is dead. We actually use a lantern in the bathroom at night and oil lamps and candles everywhere else. Ambiance. It gives the cabin a romantic feel. Yeah, that's it.