The results...

It's a long driveway and lots of snow. This was taken in between 2 storms and we were due to have more snow later that day.

Rick wanted to get a head start just in case we really got hammered by the next storm.

The BEAST...

THE BEAST! That's what we call our snow plow. It's an old (1979) Dodge Ram pickup.

It starts every time and the plow works miracles keeping our driveway plowed. We purchased it from Richard (our builder). It was just sitting unused on his Farm.

It may not look all that pretty anymore, but to us it's a beautiful machine.

We love this thing! Thanks Richard, without "The Beast" we may have spent a great deal of the winter snowed in!

We did it in sections...

Rick laid a section. We feared the dogs paws would mar the wood, so he'd sand that section right away and then I'd put on a gym spar finish. In this pic the section to the left is finished, the right side is still bare wood.

This pic is a pretty good representation of the difference in looks between finished and unfinished. We had to plan things so we'd have a pathway into the room with the computer! Not being able to access the computer was not an option...even for 24 hours!

We wasted no time continuing the floor...

As soon as the finish was dry in the bathroom, Rick continued laying boards into the hallway. It's a very long hallway.

He did a little each day, as this part had lots of cut-outs and corners. Some boards went smoothly, while others seemed to take forever.

Before we built...

We had a signed contract, but hadn't yet purchased the land. The owner was nice enough to let us camp down in the clearing for a week in July 2007.

We hadn't been camping in about 25 years, but spending a week on the land really appealed to us. Here is the tent we put up for the week.

The bathroom tent! The toilet was a port-a-potty like you find on boats. We could take nice hot showers every morning with a propane water heater and shower hose.

Notice the 3 sets of puppy dog eyes watching me take the pics.

It was a large comfy tent with air mattresses and lots of room for the dogs and all our junk. When we camp we don't believe in "roughing" it! The hot water propane pump for the shower might have been overkill, but I don't move well in the morning without a "nice, very hot shower!"

Rick just passed by and saw these pics. When I told him what I was doing his reply was "Oh Wow, that was such fun" and reminded me that I was somewhat skeptical of the idea in the beginning (see above notes about roughing it and that nice hot shower). I have to say that Rick invested time and effort making sure that I did not suffer without modern conveniences that week. And yes, truthfully it was an utterly fantastic week.

The maple plank flooring saga begins...

I say saga because this process is long and involved and going in one board at a time. The furthest portion had already been laid by the builders so we could set the toilet on something solid.

This is the finished bathroom floor. It all went very smoothly considering we are living in the house and have to keep the dogs off the wet finish for about 24 hours.

Our first wall to be decorated...

Our first attempt for the wall...but we weren't happy...
Something was missing...


We added Lee's artwork and the wall was complete...

I sure hope Lee likes the framing and placement of his wild geese.

Just a pic...

We can't believe we actually live here now...but yes we do! We still have lots of work ahead of us, but now we can take our time. It's wonderful to wake up every day in the cabin.

The missing month...

January came and went without a Blog update here. No you didn't miss a posting, I've just been so busy with unpacking, the house, the floor, the wood, and life in general that updates to the blog became non-existent. I also managed a trip back to Connecticut for a week, so as you can tell I have been busy.

It continues to snow. We pretty much get a dusting at some point during each day. Even now, though the sun is out I can see the flurries coming down. Our free time pretty much revolves around the wood stove. We always seem to be:

1. Bringing wood into the house
2. Bringing wood in from the meadow
3. Splitting wood in the driveway
4. Stacking wood on the porch

But the stove is working great and it appears we only burn 2 gallons of oil per day, and that includes our oil fired hot water heater!

Rick has been working on the downstairs floors. I'll be posting some of those pics soon. The dogs are loving all the freedom and we take them for a daily walk along Andy's Creek down to the waterfalls and then back along the St. Regis River to the Gazebo and Dianne's clearing. We look forward to that walk each day because the landscape changes, different parts of the river freeze and things are constantly in motion.

I hope to get the pics up soon....