The Little Things

It is amazing to me all the little details that have to be completed when working on a house that go totally unnoticed, but are necessary and take a long time to accomplish.  We can spend a whole weekend doing these little detailed items and if someone were to come by, they would not be able to tell that we worked at all...unless we pointed it out.

A recent weekend was spent doing a few of these detailed projects. Just working on the windows involved various steps.  First, there was the flashing required around the windows to keep water from getting in.

In this picture, the flashing is the silver material 

surrounding the window.

We ran out of the silver flashing and when we went to purchase more, we got a different material.  The second type of material was much easier to handle, but when we started to add the trim, we discovered that the new flashing was a little too wide and the material had to be cut after the trim was added.  And when you cut the extra flashing, you were left with a black sticky glue that needed to be removed.  With a little help from Goo Gone, the glue came off.

This shows the extra flashing material that needed 

to be cut off and then cleaned up.

We really like the final outcome.  As stated before, the green looks good against the stain on the cabin.  And with the metal roof being green, it all ties together.

The look of a window before the trim was added.

And how the window looks with the trim.

Now, we were not quite done with the windows on the outside yet. Next, we had to apply caulking around the trim to keep water and insects from getting underneath.

You can see the caulking between the log
and the trim in this picture.

Work on the windows on the inside of the cabin was then needed. We sprayed an insulating foam into the crevices around the windows inside to again seal them.  After spraying the foam, it had to be cut back so that the inside window trim would fit flush.  The later is a project for the future.

Two things you can notice in this picture...one, the insulating foam around the window, and two, the future project of sanding down the logs on the inside of the cabin and applying the stain.

The nice thing about these little projects is the fact they are sealing up the cabin and making it more air tight.  Our first electrical inspection is scheduled for tomorrow and we are ever so hopeful that everything passes.  Once the electrical passes, we can then have running water and heat.  And, with the cabin being air tight, the heat will stay in and we can work all year round.

This is one of the room heaters.

As you can see in the above picture, we are waiting for the electrical inspection to pass before we can tie into the electrical system.  This picture also shows how we had to add outlets to solid wood walls.