Some pictures from our visit to the cabin over the weekend. View overlooking the cave from the side deck:
View looking up at the rock wall from the back deck (approximately what the view from in the hot tub will be):
View looking down the 'holler from the front deck:
Front deck with mostly completed railing:
Looking up at the cabin from the road, roughly in front of the cave:
That is gorgeous. I love Red River Gorge, are you rock climbers? I used to visit there each year. Looks like you have some great climbing right in your yard!
In reply to Shavarsh :
It is an absolutely beautiful piece of land, which is why we jumped at buying it when we had the chance.
We're really not rock climbers, but we love hiking in the area. We fully expect that the cabin will be popular with climbers, and the company building the treehouses on the surrounding lots was founded by and largely staffed by rock climbers so they will likely be pushing that aspect as well.
So, as noted above we went out to check things out at the cabin over the weekend, and we really like how it looks with the outside stained. It's also really nice to have the windows and doors installed, it really changes how it feels inside now that it's sealed up.
The disappointing thing was that not very much appeared to have been done over the last week. I had gotten the new contractor the materials needed to move forward a week ago, but it didn't look like many of them had been put to us, in particular regarding the ones for the steps up to the loft on the inside. He'd needed the wood to put a center support on the stairs because of how wide they were, but only one side of the stair supports was nailed up to the walls and there was no sign of the center support (the other side support was just leaned against the wall). I was able to get up to the loft more easily than before using the one existing support (and had to resist the urge to yell, "Parkour! Parkour! Parkour!" as I climbed up the support), but we were expecting at least a few of the steps to be installed. We knew they wouldn't all be installed as we had decided that we wanted the biulder to get live-edge stair treads from the local lumbermill to use on the loft stairs, but had picked up a few boards to installed as temporary steps to provide access to the loft while those were being made.
We're really hoping that they pick things back up again this week- our families will be in town for the show this weekend and obviously want to see the progress on the cabin, so it being even further along would be really nice (and our older parents not having to parkour their way up to the loft to see what it's like up there).
So, we've been busy with the show and trying to recover after it, but have been out to the cabin a few times in the last few weeks. The outside doesn't look much different other than the railing almost reaching the screened porch and the exterior of the porch being half-covered in siding, but inside the plumbing rough-in is mostly done and hopefully by the end of this week it will be finished and the electrical rough-in will be finished and inspected so they can move on to the next steps on the interior.
We ended up deciding to go a somewhat more expensive but much nicer route with the shower which hopefully we won't regret when we get the bill for it.
Latest word is that the electrical rough-in should be done later today, and hopefully inspected tomorrow. Plumbing rough-in is hopefully done as well and will be inspected Thursday, meaning that the main contractor can get to work in earnest on the interior of the cabin- insulating the walls and putting up the interior wood paneling before putting down the floors. I imagine one of the crew will be getting started on the tiling in the bathroom as well, and we ordered the tile for the floor over the weekend. With some luck we should see a lot of change by this weekend!
We may be heading out there this evening or tomorrow evening to confirm that the electrical is correct before it gets inspected (and to bring out materials if they're ready for them).
Well, the window for the back of the cabin should get in at the supply shop tomorrow (though we can't get out to pick it up until Saturday morning) and the electrician just told us he's finishing up the rough-in today and has the inspector coming out tomorrow morning for it. Hopefully the plumber has finished things up and they'll also be inspecting that tomorrow morning- if so, and all goes well, that means that all of the initial inspections will be done by the end of tomorrow and the main contractor can move forward with things on the inside of the cabin.
Progress!
In reply to AngryCorvair :
Yes, though it's been happening in spurts so far because the main contractor has another job that was supposed to be finished up but the client (large private college) keeps adding things on to the job or there keep being delays- like them not being able to paint because the sprinkler system keeps failing its integrity checks. The Dancer is starting to get pretty annoyed at the delays. I'm a bit more laid back about it because I understand that realistically things can't move ahead that far without the plumbing and electric being done, but with that getting finished up by the end of this week we'd better start seeing them there a lot more and it finished up right fast.
Well, got a text this morning that the plumber was delayed and won't be finishing things up until today... which means that they can't get it inspected this morning as planned. He is hoping he can get the inspector to come by Monday when he'll be around inspecting the neighboring county, but no guarantees of that. Thankfully the plumbing is less critical than the electrical- but the plumber is the one with the scaffolding under the cabin in the way of where the platform for the water tank needs to go.
That is quite the Eyrie you have built.
Pete
Just got word that the electrical rough-in inspection passed earlier today, so the contractor should be out there working on insulating and putting up the interior wall boards soon...
Congrats! Sounds like progress.
So, the Dancer and I got out to look over the progress on the cabin on Saturday, and the good is that the electrical rough-in is finished and inspected and that the plumbing looked to be done as well and will hopefully be inspected today.
The bad is that the laundry was put in on the wrong side of the upstairs bathroom, and that we didn't realize that the general contractor had not yet moved the wall to shrink the upstairs bathroom- and the electrician ran the wiring and switches for that bathroom into and through that wall. Frankly this is all on the GC as he said they would move the wall and didn't, and if we'd realized it hadn't been moved would either have made sure he did or that the electrician knew where the wall would be moved to and would have wired to there. Regardless, it's on the GC to fix it- he said they can easily move the wall even with the electrical but he also hasn't seen it yet to understand what that would involve. We're not going to pay the electrician to move the wiring to the new wall- if that needs to happen, it will be on the contractor since he dropped the ball.
The laundry location isn't great, but ultimately we can make it work- it just means when you're sitting on the can in the upstairs bath you'll be looking at the washer & dryer and not linen shelving.
The GC is supposed to be back out there tomorrow getting cracking on insulating and putting up the tongue-and-groove boards for the interior walls. We are pushing for him to have the place habitable by the end of the month, which should be doable. It will likely take us a few more weeks at least to have it ready to rent- but at least we'll be able to enjoy it ourselves and finish the last few things at a bit more leisurely (and less-expensive) pace.
Overall that's a nice cabin. The only thing that I see that might be off is the support for the back deck. Looking at the two support beams coming up at a angle. Are those just to support the vertical beams that support the deck of the room above the deck? Or is all the support coming from the joist cantilevered out over the walls and floor?
In reply to brad131a4 :
That's technically the front deck- and there isn't a room above the deck, those supports that come off at an angle only support the weight of the (narrow) front deck and the roof over that deck. It's kind of difficult to see from that angle unfortunately. But, the support for that deck was something of a concern when the new builder took over, and we may be putting in a few actual posts to the ground under the front of that deck as well.
Well then that's a nice front deck you have there. It looks like it could use a few more for the span it's supporting. It's not to bad having a uncle as a structural engineer checking on bearing loads. He's saved me plenty of headaches sizing beams on a few projects I've done over the years. Good to know the new GC has your safety in mind. Hate to loose a fellow GRMer to a fall like that.
In reply to brad131a4 :
I'd normally blame our E36 M3ty original builder, but I can't wholly place the blame on him as the front deck was not in the original design plan for the cabin. Admittedly, I don't know if that would have changed things or not if it had been, since all of the decks are added on to the base 24-foot-square platform of the cabin, though the front of the side deck has posts to the ground supporting it. The front deck is only 4-5 feet wide so it's not terribly bad- but at some point we will likely be adding a few more (stupidly long- the front of the main cabin platform is 25 feet off the ground...) posts to shore things up.
Please post the VRBO link when this sucker is done, I want to sit on that deck and check out that cave.
In reply to pinchvalve :
Will do! It will probably be listed via a local cabin rental company vs. VRBO since the company will handle all the booking, cleaning and restocking, and other things that we can't easily do from an hour away, but I'll definitely post about it when it's available. Some of the cabin companies have also started listing things on VRBO I've noticed too, but the most likely one we'll go with doesn't do that yet (they're big enough to not likely need the extra exposure).
So, it's been a long and both exciting and frustrating weekend for things with the cabin.
On the exciting side, the hot tub is now up on the deck and in theory beyond a few things in the grand scheme of things the builder should have all of the materials now to essentially finish the cabin.
Unfortunately, there's a lot more to type about on the frustrating side of things.
First off, the GC got absolutely nothing done last week on the cabin despite the fact that the other job that has been getting in the way finishing up on Tuesday. We were expecting he'd be out there with his 'crew of 7 guys' starting Wednesday to get things moving now that both the electrical and plumbing inspections were done. Nope- today is the first day that he will be out there besides his tile guy being out last week pouring the base to the shower. While this would have been annoying under any circimstance given how long this has been taking, it was REALLY pissing us off because that meant that he had nobody there Saturday to help haul all of the aforementioned materials up the 50 stairs to the cabin.
Some background- as part of the contract, we're responsible for buying all of the materials excepting a few specific things (like the insulation). While it means more time we have to spend on things, we didn't totally complain because it meant that we had full accounting and transparency on the costs that we hadn't had with the previous builder. The annoying thing has been that the builder hasn't been the most willing to meet up with his big box truck to get the materials at the stores, so we've had to get them out to an hour away and up a really steep gravel road to the cabin itself. AND THEN, there's the 50 steps to climb to get anything into the cabin itself or up to the deck.
One of the reasons given why they hadn't been out working was because they needed materials, which he only sent us mid-last week. We had arranged with the guys to haul the hot tub up to the cabin to do so Saturday and said that we would bring the materials out then since we'd need a massive trailer for the hot tub anyway, so he had plenty of time to get at least a few guys together to schlep all of the stuff up the stairs. NOPE! Due to various reasons, he said he couldn't get anyone there Saturday to help with things.
So, no only did the Dancer and I have to spend most of Friday afternoon and evening getting and loading up everything into the 6'x12' UHaul trailer and the truck bed- building materials plus a 300lb+ hot tub and a stackable apartment-sized washer and dryer- but we were looking at having to get all of the materials up the stairs to the cabin itself (the hot tub and W/D were going to be hauled up by the guys we had coming specificall for that task).
To clarify the magnitude of this, here's some of the numbers I worked up based on what all we had to get-
All told- roughly 1.5 TONS- literally- of materials that the contractor expected that a dance teacher and an engineer were going to carry up 50 stairs.
Thankfully they guys who were there to move the hot tub and W/D did us a MASSIVE solid and themselves moved the vast majority of the materials (and we left the things that we knew didn't have to go all the way up down at the bottom of the stairs for the contractor & crew to deal with, because berk that E36 M3). It's hard to believe that someone could put a 8-foot 6x6 topping out at 81lbs on their shoulder and carry it, alone, up 54 stairs- but they did so, twice each. They had to have made nearly 20 trips up the stairs carrying a minimum of 40lbs of materials each time. It was pretty humbling to be struggling with carrying a 60lb box of tiles up the stairs while they made over 10x as many trips carrying 25% more weight than I could.
But, it did all get moved, and we bumped up what we had planned to pay them for moving the tub and W/D because of the extra effort. As an interesting note, the main guy doing the tub move is the second contractor who I had come out to give a bid on finishing the cabin but who had ultimately declined to put in a bid. I'm much more seriously than before considering whether to ask if he'll give me an estimate on enclosing the framing under the cabin- it's expressly NOT in the contract with the current builder, and after this weekend I'm far less confident that I'd be able to do it myself given how badly just doing what I did this weekend kicked my ass.
Other than the whole issue with not having anyone out there, there was the issue of the contractor having a bit of a meltdown on the phone with the Dancer on Saturday. On Friday after hearing that he wouldn't she told him that we were getting a bit nervous about things because he kept saying that he'd have this 7-man crew out there to knock things out really fast but that never seemed to materialize and we were getting worried about how long it would be until it would finally be finished. When she called to let him know that everything was dropped off he went off about how he hadn't been able to sleep a wink the previous night because she'd said that we were 'nervous' about things and couldn't believe she'd said that and how NOONE had EVER had ANY problems with the work he'd done and how we kept asking him to do things that were not in the original contract (aside: yes- but more than half of those things were suggested BY HIM in the first place...) and that us bringing things like the W/D out was just getting in the way and he wasn't sure he wanted to spray the polyurethane on the inside walls now because he'd have to worry about getting it on the W/D... and on and on. I was sitting next to her in the truck for about half of the 'conversation' since we had stopped to pick up dinner, and it was pretty ridiculous. It was VERY similar to a completely ridiculous call from him back when he was working on putting the bid together. We're more than halfway convinced he has a bit of a mental issue (we have a friend who was bipolar, and this struck both of us as being similar to some incidents with her).
Of course, when we talked to him yesterday about some of the details for the shower that he was concerned about, everything was peachy and fine. Frankly at this point (and this would be the case even without the weird meltdown...) we just want things finished and his work out there done so we can actually enjoy the place. We REALLY wanted him to have it done by Labor Day since we both have it off and could likely get a bunch of friends together to help haul the furniture and such up to the cabin and then have a cabin-warming party with everyone, but he's convinced that won't happen (at least in part since he is apparently going on vacation in a week...). We don't see how things are going to take that long- he's said outright that the insulation will take like 2 hours do put in, and the shower and bathroom tiling isn't supposed to take more than 3 days (and is just one of his crew who will mainly be doing that).
We're planning on making an un-announced visit after work on Wednesday to see how things have gone the first half of this week... hopefully we see LOTS of progress, or we might have to upgrade from 'nervous' to 'frustrated'...
Just got off the phone with the contractor.
In the course of this morning, they've apparently:
They haven't started on the shower/bathroom yet 'because it was too dark inside'. Um... do they not own a single work light? I have two different Halogen work lights (one single that sits essentially on the floor, and a dual-light one on a stand...). Still, they got a ridiculous amount done this morning... but I can't see how if they put nearly this much effort in for the next week or so that they wouldn't be essentially finished...
So, a mix of good news/bad news/frustrating news.
The good: They got a ridiculous amount done yesterday as noted above. They also got the framing for the shower done and all of the cement backer board up for it.
The bad: The window for the front of the cabin that we bought from the builder is not going to work- they were test fitting it up (just holding it up on the outside) and realized that it would look really bad so for once made a good judgement call and decided not to just go forward with installing it. That does however mean we need to get another window, which would normally be both expensive and take some time since it wouldn't be one we could just walk into Lowe's and pull off a shelf.
The frustrating: We spent a LOT of time on Sunday figuring out the sizing of the walls for the front of the shower based on how far the vanity would stick out, how wide the shower space was, how much of an opening/doorway into it we wanted, etc.- and conveyed that to the builder. Since he didn't totally agree with what we decided and worried it would look bad, he checked several times to make sure we really wanted what we said. Almost EXACTLY what we said was, "We want the left wall to be 20", approx 8" on the right to leave a 30" opening"
When he calls me up and goes over everything that was done he says, "On the shower, we couldn't quite do what you said you wanted- so we made the left side 16" and the right 7" so you could keep your 30" opening."
Um... WTF dude!!! You made us CONFIRM exactly what we wanted- why the everloving BERKELEY when you realized that wouldn't work did you not STOP RIGHT THEN AND CALL US to see what we wanted to do?!?! The left-side wall was set to 20" because the current vanity going in is 18" deep and because the contractor wasn't there when the plumber was doing the rough-in the vanity drain was put closer to the shower than we had wanted, so we want the wall to come out enough to not have the vanity obstructing the entry into the shower. NOW the sink will stick out 2" in the way of the opening so you essentially have to go around it.
He said that they put the vanity in place when they were figuring it out and that it 'looked fine', but we're definitely not happy that he went off the reservation and decided this on his own. We gave a LOT of thought to running out there last night (since they only have the concrete board up and will start tiling today) to see if we wanted to make them change it, but ultimately decided for several reasons not to and to see how it works out. I have a potential way to fix things up my sleeve, but want to see just how it looks with the current vanity first.
Finally- we may actually have a lead on a REALLY cheap and nice solution to the window problem, we'll see after work today how that works out.
So in theory after she gets back from teaching this evening the Dancer and I will be heading out to the cabin to do a final walk-through with the contractor and be done with dealing with him (mostly... there will be one or two small things he may come back to finish, and we unfortunately will probably be seeing what he would need to install some the structural reinforcement for the front porch).
There's still a good bit that will need to be done before the cabin is actually done and can be rented out- notably enclosing and insulating the support structure below the cabin- but things are mostly on track such that we at least will be able to stay out there ourselves after this weekend (assuming our plumber doesn't get mauled to death on the bear hunt he's on this week... 
)
Technically the main contractor is now done- though there are a few small things that were not finished up when we did the final walk-through last week that he and his crew need to finish up. The electrician was supposed to be out last week and finish up and get the final inspection done, but to the best of our knowledge has still not made it out, and the plumber was on a week-long hunting trip until (we believe) over the weekend. It's theoretically possible that all of the remaining trade work could be wrapped up by the end of this week, which would mean that we could actually stay there overnight- but unfortunately there's still the fairly major task of enclosing the underside that need to be taken care of before we can get the place listed to rent and start making some money back on it.
I was pretty happy with myself last Friday for managing to both put up the 'chandelier' I built and getting the trim at the top of the highest wall in the cabin finished up using a tall ladder- I'm REALLY scared of heights, but was willing to push past that to not have to pay through the nose for the contractor to do something for $1k+ that I could do myself in an hour or so with a $70 tool rental from Home Depot.
Kind of hard to see, but the top two rows boards to the left of the trimmed corner are what I put up. REAL pain in the ass to get the nail gun into position up a 2-story ladder with the roof angling the wrong way. Didn't bother with putting up the lower part of that corner's trim since it didn't require the tall ladder and I can just do it from the ground and with my 8-footer.
Homemade chandelier, sans bulbs (the electrician has to wire it in, so didn't want $50 bulbs sitting there where they could get damaged while he does so). The branch is from one of the trees that was cut down on the property, and it will have 5 large Edison-style bulbs.
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