Trench Warfare

Last week I spent more time at the cabin than I did at my desk working, making multiple trips each day.  On Tuesday I met Claxton Oil as they were dropping off a propane tank and trenching a new external gas line at the cabin. On Wednesday Georgia Power hooked up the overhead (no trench) power cables.  Later on Wednesday, Pembroke Telephone trenched a new fiber optic cable for the TV and telephone.  We're at two trenches and counting.

Ben Franklin wasn't this happy about electricity.

On Thursday the electricians returned to...dig a trench...for the new power cable from the pump house to the external power panel so we could power up the well pump.  And on Friday the plumber...you guessed it...dug a new trench to run a new water line.  The yard of the cabin looked like the Western Front circa 1914.  The good news is...the Allies won this battle in that no one managed to cut anyone else's cable or pipe.  Victory!

Our yard was "trenchier".  Especially after a hard rain.

In the middle of all the digging, the electricians also put in the final fixtures, installed all of the outlet and switch covers and made sure everything was powered up properly.  The TV/Telephone man got those services up and running.  The gas man fixed a leaky gas hose and connected the heater and kitchen stove.  Last, but not least, the plumber installed all of the plumbing fixtures, except the most important one of all...the toilet.

The new toilet was missing a gasket between the tank and the bowl.  He called around and could not find a replacement gasket or another toilet of the same model.  I ended up going to another plumbing fixture store and found a matching toilet, but by the time I got back with it he'd moved onto another job.  Sh*t!  Oh...not so fast.  There's no toilet.

Aside from some minor painting and a replacement piece of cabinetry, the cabin is ready to go.  We should get our Certificate of Occupancy this week and be on schedule for Terrell to move in this coming weekend.

As for the house...We've come a long way, baby!  Well, since the last time we blogged about the house, anyway.  In "The Tale of the "Husky Rider"", those pictures showed a rather skeletal structure:

Here's the progression since those pictures:

Raise the roof!  Well...some of it.

The carport and porch roof is tied in.

And most recently, we're pretty much all closed in with tar paper on the roof and house wrap around the sides.

It's almost habitable.

Welcome to our house...

Follow me upstairs...

Upstairs bedroom.  Those dormers are awesome!

Another view of an upstairs bedroom.

Stairway and upstairs hallway

Opposite end of hallway looking into upstairs bath

That's as far as we've gotten.  Neta and I will do a walk-through with Tracy sometime next week, if all goes well.  We'll go room by room and plan out how everything will be laid out from appliances to cabinets to plumbing fixtures to wiring to whatever else we can think of.

We already have a plan which Neta has spent countless hours going over, re-drawing and finalizing, only for us to think of something else that would be nice to have or make things smarter.  In other words, the slab and framing were the easy parts.

Now we really start getting involved in finishes, fixtures and so much more.  It's an exciting time!

UPDATE - Ooops!  We spoke too soon! We had no idea just how exciting things could get.  We starting writing this blog entry on Wednesday.  It is now Sunday.  Everything was going along so well...and then chaos ensued on Friday.  More to come when we post our next blog entry.  Keep an eye out in the coming days.