The Cabin in the Woods

Today it started.  The actual, physical labor attached to the list in our last blog entry, that is.  In all fairness  Neta has been organizing and boxing up stuff in the main house since Thanksgiving, but today things got real.  Neta continued her work on the main house while Robert and I started the clean up/out of the Cabin.

The Cabin hasn't been lived in for years.  The only use it's gotten in recent years was for storage or the foraging of various critters.  The inside is still in relatively good shape.  There's been minor disrepair from weather and animals, but it is in otherwise decent shape, structurally.  It was built on a block foundation with a concrete floor, so it's only the wooden structure, interior and exterior that needs work.   Here are a series of "before" pictures for your reference.

Front of the Cabin with shed in the background.  Rustic, huh?
In the far right corner you can see the green dumpster waiting to do its job.
In front of the cabin is where a trailer once sat.  Some clean-up and grading will be needed.

Entry from the side door.
This will be the main door
when renovations are done.

Looking from the main room
into the current closet

Looking from the bedroom
into current closet

Main room, looking into the
closet (left) and bathroom (right).

Main room looking out the back window.

Bedroom looking out the back window.

Main room looking out the side window.

Robert started on the clean up, while I ran back to the main house and removed the weather vane from the roof.  It's nothing special really, but we want to keep it and use it for something...somewhere as we move forward with the farm.

I gathered my tools, climbed the ladder and had just cleared the peak of the roof when I see the "tractor guy" coming down the lane in his flatbed tow truck to get the two tractors.  He was coming to get the two tractors on the farm.  I'll detail this part of the story in another blog entry.

Back to the clean up of the Cabin...  I went back to help Robert finish the clean up.  I think we got off to a pretty good start.  We hauled out all of the "stuff" that was in there along with pulling up all of the carpeting.

A clean (mostly) entryway.

A clean main room.

A clean closet.

More clean views.

A clean bedroom.

Next up for the cabin is taking down all of the trim, paneling and pulling out things like the bathroom cabinets, shower and toilet.  Also taking up all of the carpet tack strips as well.  That ought to be a fun chore.  There are a few things in the attic to clean up as well.  The attic stairs are only partially attached, so we'll need to take those off and improvise with a ladder, all while making another mess that we'll have to clean up.

Prior to our builder getting started on it, we'll also take out the windows, doors and take down a few of the walls (non-loading bearing) that won't be needed in the new layout.

If you're keeping score at home, this means that we're making really good progress on #2 on our list.  We've also started moving forward on #7, but that's for another blog entry.  Hopefully the next one.  Keep an eye out in the coming days.  Now that we have some larger progress, we want to be able to provide you more news on a more consistent basis, at least once a week as we'll be doing regular work on the weekends leading up to starting the build.