Lumber Jack Festival

We're about two months away from our move-in goal, and we're feeling the time crunch to get things done quickly. With this in mind, we hatched a scheme to trick our friends into coming out to work on the new house for a day. Thus, the Lumber Jack Festival was born. Feats of strength included setting the massive porch posts, laying the wood floor, and cutting timber to clear space for the septic field. We were lucky enough to have a great crew of turn out -- eight buddies plus Sean, Mickey, and carpenters Roger, and Daniel.

A quick rewind: last weekend Sean and Mickey were able to get the stained cedar up on the back porch ceiling while Roger and Dan worked on the front porch.

Here are Roger, Mickey, and Sean at work on the ceiling of the front porch last Sunday afternoon. The weather has been holding out nicely, and with temperatures in the upper 60s the guys were happy to stay in short sleeves. Notice that Pedro and his crew nearly finished the stone bases for the posts last Saturday, too.

A view of the finished stained cedar ceiling on the back porch.
Sean gets credit for thinking up this creative way to use some of the large timbers that had to come down to build the house. He took them to Sawmill John in Whitmore Lake and had them turned into eight massive porch posts. Tom Grant helped haul them back to 40 Oaks in his trailer one rainy afternoon, and this is what they looked like before Sean stained them.
Here is the result of the first Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength. All eight stained posts were hoisted into place Saturday morning.
Mickey, Roger, and Daniel secure the last porch post on the back of the house.
The second Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was laying the wood floor throughout much of the first floor. Luckily some of our crafty buddies had experience with this, and we were glad to put Don and Andy to work.

Peter insisted on checking the quality of the new wood boards. Mickey acted as his trusted adviser.
The third Lumber Jack Festival feat of strength was clearing lumber. Bret had a new chain that was begging to eat some wood, so he led the crew cutting and hauling lumber.

Here is Bret working his chainsaw while Joe and Jay haul Trex to the back of the house.
Jay, Brian, and Andy discuss the finer points of Lumber Jack etiquette.
A feast of National Coney dogs, chili, corn bread, chips, and brownies was enjoyed by all the Lumber Jack Festival participants. A big thank you goes to Aimee and Missy for helping to feed the hungry guys.
Finally, here is the trusty crew of Lumber Jacks. We're lucky to have such a talented, helpful bunch of guys to pitch in and help us out. Left to right are Daniel, Andy, Roger, Jay, Brian, Sean, Bret, Mickey, Don, Anthony, and Joe. Missing is Andy T. who scooted out just before lunch.

Holy sheet rock!

The front door arrived and Mickey and Sean installed it Saturday. We picked a nice six light door with side lights and transom.The door and drywall have really lightened up the interiors, and we're feeling better about the amount of light we're getting on the first floor even with all of the porch overhangs.
The drywall crew started work last Monday, and they made swift progress. By the end of the day Sunday the entire house was finished, and the garage was drywalled Monday. They'll be taping the rest of this week and should be finished in a week or so.
The loft upstairs with a great, high ceilings and tons of light. This may be the best place in the house for house plants.
Lots of out of town buddies stopped by to check out the house on Sunday; we had a great time giving the tour to Sean's brother Matt and good friends Jon and Drew. Uncle John also stopped by to say hello, and we were spoiled with temperatures in the high 70s while hanging out on the back porch.
The rock retaining wall along the garage was built Friday and Saturday. The crew from Margolis was able to use rocks that were harvested from the basement excavation, and it looks better than we imagined. Aimee spent Sunday morning hauling and spreading wood chips to finish it off.
Luckily Peter is the best baby known to man and was happy to hang out in his Pack n' Play while we did some dirty work Sunday morning. Here he is in the basement toasting Sean with his sippy cup.
We were finally able to put most of the Eldons to work at the new house Sunday afternoon. Sean convinced his brother and mom to help stain some cedar that will go up on the porch ceilings.
Mickey and Sean got all of the porch posts up, and Mickey started covering the ones on the back of the house with shingles. Lookin' sharp.

We were so happy to have a beautiful fall day and even happier to have Matt visiting.

This week the drywall will continued to be worked on along with the porch. We've got a ton of materials that are ready to go, like the cabinets, decking, and stone, and we're hoping to get lots of exterior work finished before the weather turns cold.