Cool

I was looking through my pictures and realized I had not posted an update lately. With my brother, my nephew, a local fellow who's good at cutting trees really cheap, Mrs. Irish and myself all working on the cabin off and on, things are really starting to come together...

We got all the trees cut down in the front yard to make way for the septic system. While they were cutting I had them go ahead and purge out all the tall pines that looked like they might be a danger to the cabin in a weather event.

It hurt to cut all those trees and open us up even more to the road out front, but it is what it is. I think now we will move those Leland Cypress' back a little and then step out in front of and in between them with some other plantings. Once that all matures it will screen the cabin from the road pretty well. Behind that, off to the left in the picture will be a pretty nice garden space for the future. Once the septic is installed and field lines, we will cut off and grind the remaining stumps. I will probably plant clover all over as a ground cover until I decide about a garden there. Keep in mind that the future addition of a great room and the master bedroom will be off to the left of this picture. It will probably be my first retirement project.



All the doors are hung, all the bathrooms are dry walled, finished and painted the final coats. I have started trimming out the windows and doors. I love working with wood even though I have a lot to learn. I am fortunate to have a brother who I consider to be a master carpenter to help teach me. Even though he is a surly fellow. He and I are completely opposite: I'm this cheerful, happy, outgoing, glass half full kind of guy and he's kind of quiet, surly, and always seems to be thinking about all the bad stuff that can and will go wrong about any situation. Weird how two brothers can be so different.



I trimmed the kitchen window a little different that the rest of the windows in the house, because we are going to tile all around it with the white subway tile.



Some of my amateur carpentry skills on the main windows in the sitting room area. Keep in mind that every single piece of this window trim has to be custom milled by me while I'm trimming everything out, because all of this lumber was cut on a portable sawmill from local pines and it is all very inconsistent in width and in some cases even thickness even though it was run through a planer once already. Plus I am using a router on several of the window trim pieces. So it's kind of slow, but at least I am enjoying it.

My brother looked at my first window (I was all proud of it ) and he proceeded to tell me how I had everything all wrong. So I tore it all out, because I wanted to make it all "right." He showed me how to shim it all out correctly so all the windows of the same size would all have the exact same trim on them and I could mass produce the trim pieces. After I listened to the "Master" and redid that window before starting on the others he came in took a careful look at it and told me, "Now that actually looks like a professional did it." That was probably the best compliment he has ever given me.





Got some lighting installed and we're just about through with that. I'm making a custom fixture for the stairwell with some antler sheds.



Dean's school of carpentry in session. He's teaching Mrs. Irish the finer points of cabinet preparation for painting. Of course he has his Pall Mall and Pabst Blue Ribbon...



My first window, prior to ripping it all out and starting over...

looking good

Looking good! And I'm envious of the burned wood. I need to burn 2 or 3 brush piles but I'm afraid I'll burn this end of Marshall County if I do it.

If you could have seen the pile of brush I started with and then seen the resulting inferno once I got the thing started good, you would have an "I'm coming Elizabeth!" moment. Once that thing started flaming up i was out there running around soaking down the surrounding woods like some kind of Smokey Bear wanna be. It was scary there for a minute or two. But it all got done. It wasn't going to burn itself up until I got out there and did something and until all that got cleared out I ain't getting any nearer to a flush toilet inside the house. And my lady friend wants a flush toilet pretty bad after 3 years without one...

Thanks man! Slowly but surely. Having fun, learning stuff and building for our future all at the same time. You can't beat that combination.

Starting to finally get some stuff completed around here.

Mrs. Irish has been doing some miscellaneous stuff, helping my brother, sanding, etc...

I've been doing trim work.

My brother and nephew have been doing, stone, tile and slate...

You can see some of my trim work better when it's dark outside:



The wood stove alcove is now finished with the slate ledger stone installed, the reclaimed wood beams and the stained live edge concrete hearth:



The place is a mess because we are living in there while we are finished it up.

The main upstairs bath room is finally coming together. I don't even want to add up what I have spent on this thing. Slate shower with a river rock floor and wood look ceramic tile. My brother did a really good job on it we think:









More wood trim upstairs. Honestly, had I know all the trim work I was going to have to do to leave all the rafters and joist exposed, I probably would have reconsidered, but it's almost all done now and all the exposed wood framing looks pretty cool.

Guest bedroom and loft with all the joist gaps trimmed and sealed and the windows trimmed:



Main bedroom and loft with our temporary bed in there:

Y'all done good man. I am seriously impressed!

x2... Thanks for sharing Irish I really look forward to seeing ya'lls progress...One of my favorite threads and it Looks Awesome... Well done...

As always..................... .

I like the shower/bathroom. How did you seal the shower floor?

Is that a Ludwig kick drum?

Thanks. It's a lot of sacrificed weekends. I talk to friends all the time...

"Hey man waddya do last weekend?"
"Nuthin. Just watched some games, drank some beer and chilled. What did you do?"
"Same thing I do just about every weekend... Worked on the cabin."

I'm ready to get this thing finished.

We used the Schluter Kerdi Shower kit:

https://www.amazon.com/Schluter-Off...&hvtargid=pla-387528238268&psc=1

And then we also sealed the crap out of that with some kind of sealer my brother recommended.

We found it at an antique store down the road and thought with a piece of round glass on top it would make a cool coffee table.

Nice job! Things are coming together well.

Nice! I bet you and the misses are glad y’all started the cabin before the beach house!

Looks great.

Hahahaha... No joke. We were just talking today and we were curious just how Mexico Beach will weather the storm.

Thanks... I'm just some grown up kid trying to build a glorified fort out in the woods. My brother is a craftsman and God has blessed me with some time to learn some stuff from him during these last few months.