Mental note to self...

Cabin building not as interesting to a bunch of hunters as gay guy's mom having his kid.

What's this "cabin build" you speak of? 1st I've heard of it

Not to this hunter, Irish!! I appreciate your cabin posts about a million times more than hearing about another turd in todays cesspool!!

Love following this thread!

I'll tell you what... I was on the verge of burning the place down this weekend.

I went into the little storm shelter/utility room and of course there's always camel crickets in there, wheel this time (I assume he was hunting and feasting on them) was the largest spider I have ever seen in my life. It must have been a Carolina Wolf Spider, because they are supposed to be the largest in the World. If I wasn't scared chitless I would have taken a picture, but this badass was as big as my hand, and I am not exaggerating.

I looked around outside the door and all I could find was a 2' piece of 2x2 flashing. I ask the Lord to guide my hand, because if I missed and he ran off I was going to have to burn the cabin to the ground. I rared back, kept my focus and squashed the crap out of him. I think I am still suffering from PTSD. I've got to get an exterminator out there and eliminate the food source. He was just insane.

Just catching up on this thread after a good while. Mark...it is just fantastic. So proud for y'all! Dude...the spiders have to go!

I had my first ice cream at the cabin this weekend. I was at Dollar General and saw the Eddy's ice cream over in the freezer and I thought, "Man wouldn't some ice cream be good." And then I thought, "HEY! I have an actual freezer now!" So we bought some to keep in the freezer. It's the stupid little things that you really appreciate.

I just talked to Lowes today and they are delivering the stacked laundry center Saturday and since the shelving is in the closets, now we won't even have to pack every time we go up there. We are going to just clean out our closets at home, take the "cabin clothes" up to the cabin and leave them there and when they get dirty, just wash them and dry them just like at the house.

We go some ice out of the ice maker this weekend to make a drink and tanked the Lord we had bought our last bag of ice and though how far we had come from taking "showers" by pouring a gallon jug of cold water over our heads.

Weekend update. It's always such a bummer leaving on Sunday afternoon to go home, we are trying something new this weekend. We are just staying up here tonight and we're going to get up really early in the morning and commute all the way to Birmingham. Anyway on to the pics for this weekend update:

Now every weekend we are moving a truck load of furniture and cabin furnishings. Virtually everything that is going into the cabin is stuff that we either got on the cheap at garage sales or free from friends and relatives. These two vintage, numbered Italian wedding prints came from my Mom's antique shop after she passed away last year. So even though she didn't live to see it finished, a little bit of her is here...



The weather is just getting wonderful up here. It always seems to be about 5 to 10 degrees cooler than it is at home. it makes for nice evenings with a little Wild Turkey on the back deck...



The guys in the big Lowes truck cam down the dirt road on Saturday and brought a game changer. We picked this special order laundry center on sale for less than a grand out the door with my military discount and they delivered it for free to boot. This is a huge deal, because what it means is that we don't need to pack when we come up anymore. We just head up here anytime. There was even enough room for me to put her a little shelving in there. It took me a little bit on Saturday to run the rigid piping for the dryer vent, but it turned out to be pretty easy to run it under the floor and out through the bond beam.



Sunday I finished trimming out the stairwell, which means that I am done with the interior trim. (I still have the flooring, handrail, stairs and base boards to do in both lofts.) Trim has taken a long time in this place because I have used locally sourced lumber and just about every piece has to be ripped to size in addition to being cut to length. Leaving the joists and rafters exposed has been a nice look, but it has also been a lot of extra work to trim around them all and seal them all up. But it's all been worth it. Again you can see our free light fixture that a friend at work donated to the cause and I got all crafty with some antler sheds. (I may add some more, because I found another box in my storage shed at home...)

My oldest daughter and my Son-in-law gave us this sweet futon. It's just in the little sitting area temporary and will eventually go up in the loft above our bedroom for morning coffee, late night reading or just chillin'. It is amazingly comfortable.



Of course we ate good...

Mrs. Irish's ham and swiss omlette.



Some chicken quarters, broccoli salad and mac and cheese...



Saturday night we had some friends over for drinks, cigars and dinner. We grilled boneless chicken thighs, and breast tenders and served it with some of Mrs. Irish's risotto and a little side salad...



It feels good to just still be chillin' here on a Sunday night. It honestly feels like I'm in someone else's cabin.

I guess I'll make a few more updates on this...

It rained most of the weekend, but fortunately was beautiful on Easter Sunday. We got to listen to Pastor Chris' sermon on the computer, connected to the internet through the cell phone and played through the TV, which was nice. We had some of our very best friends over for Easter dinner and were still able to get some fun stuff done.

King sized bed installed in our bedroom.
Queen sized bed moved into the guest bedroom.
Shelving and base boards installed in the bathroom linen closet.
Some more interior decoration stuff done.
Cellular shades installed in both bedrooms so the full moon won't keep you awake and the sun doesn't come in like a laser in the morning.
The propane hooked up to the gas range and a base and cover built for the 20# propane tanks

Believe it ro not we still found time to cook some good food, smoke some cigars, drink some adult beverages and relax...

Damn good burgers on Friday night cooked by my buddy Skipper...



Some fun on a rainy day with some left over paint, blue tape, a razor knife and some garage sale boat paddles...





There's just something about homemade sausage gravy and fried eggs on Saturday morning...

Saturday night was cold so it was a nice night for a gumbo with some friends...





Sunday was beautiful outside, so I got out, took some scrap wood I had laying around and made a place for my propane tanks that supply the new gas stove. The two propane tanks work like a charm. The little regulator lets you know when to switch over to the other tank and then you have have the empty one swapped out. Super simple and cheap since the only propane appliance is the gas range...



Of course we had a nice Easter dinner of: Ham, Tater salad, squash casserole and a sauteed kale salad with apples, candied pecans, feta cheese and crazins...



Guest bedroom looking more like an actual bedroom...



I almost forgot I made a cool little bar out of a garage sale find. it was an old wooden box (Probably used to haul chicken $hit) and I added a small shelf and then attached the whole thing to the wall in the dining room and voila... Bar! (Irish people need bars.)

By the way if you take 0000 steel wool and soak it in a little white vinegar for an hour to a several hours (depending on how dark you want it.) and then take the vinegar and paint it on some new wood, it will make it look like old wood. That's how I "stained" the new wood sheld to look like the 100 year old box.

Man I don't know bout that liquor shelf... don't see any Blanton's or even Buffalo Trace........ I do however see the Four Roses..

Looking good!

I have tried lots of bourbons in the name of science and discovery and honestly... It is hard to beat Wild Turkey 101. I like Blanton's and Buffalo Trace, by the way, but for whatever reason, I have found that I like high rye mash bill bourbons. Bulleit Rye is one of my favorites.

Looks awesome man!! I love Four Roses! It’s beautiful up y’all way! We ride up to Little River Canyon all the time!!

What’s up with those little bottles? I thought adults bought liquor in bottles with handles.

It's a small cabin. We only have so much room for booze.

Thanks man. Now that most of the really hard work is over, we're just having fun now. I kind of pick and choose what projects I want to tackle on the weekends.

Thanks man and it is awesome up there. It is an underappreciated state treasure. You would be surprised how many Alabama residents I have talked to about Little River Canyon and how many don't even know the place exists. (Which is fine with us.)

Since we have already started commuting up there on Thursday or Friday afternoon and commuting back on Morning she and I have started discussing how we could just move up there full time and sell the house in Trussville. It would add about 12 hours a week to our commute, but we could car pool and keep an extra car in Birmingham somewhere so once we got here, we could split up and go to our separate offices. Just something we are thinking about to see how we could make it work.

We figure, if we sold our house we could save about $2k a month in expenses, plus bank all the equity we have in the house, which would be a substantial amount, especially in this "sellers" housing market.