Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Irishguy's Cabin Build...

Did you frame the walls 12” o.c.?

That's awesome. Good for you guys.

16" O.C. the standard.

Thanks man. Our goal is to have it all finished by Thanksgiving so we can spend the holidays up there as a family.

That is awesome.

I think I speak for Aldeer when I say we are all pretty invested in this cabin build so when you throw your cabin warming party dont leave us out. We won’t break anything

Seriously, the place is beautiful. I admire the work you’ve done.

Impressive view and cabin sir

Well, that'll be a first.

I have enjoyed watching this thread. You have done some fine work mr Irishguy. I absolutely love the cabin and now you have me wanting to do it.

What are you insulating with?

Still very cool...

Got a little plumbing done...

I hired a couple of local guys to do the rough in wastewater plumbing. They did "OK," but I see some stuff that I will need to go back and tweak.



Fortunately it was raining pretty steady Sunday and I was able to find some leaks by the thresholds of 3 of the doors. I think I have two of those fixed, but one still baffles me... It's the door going out to my grilling deck off the kitchen and it's coming in right by the door jambs. I know I have the door sealed up tight with caulk on the sides and top and drip angle top, so the only place I think it could be getting in is splashing up and under the threshold and by the jambs and then wicking in somehow. I'm going after it with a caulking gun next weekend.

I got started on my PEX plumbing the copper PEX manifolds were almost too pretty to hide in storm shelter under the cabin...

Mister anal retentive cabin builder guy has to label each one and actually measure all the little connector tubing. (I actually cut one wrong. Can't be too perfect. )



Mounted on the wall of the storm shelter/wine cellar:



The rest of the plumbing should be a cinch now. My crimping tool works great. It was calibrated correctly right out of the box. I checked all my connections with the Go/No Go gauge. So fingers are crossed for no leaks...

Since I'm sitting here chillin' at the condo and digesting that big brunch I just finished I thought it might be a good time to give a cabin update.

Mrs. Irish and I recently finished up the rough in plumbing using PEX... Ain't this manifold sexy?





Once we had that all done I called A1 insulators out of Gadsden and man... Those guys did a bang up job. It was going to cost us more for just the insulation than they charged to do the whole job including caulking and foam sealing the cracks. Amazing job. Great folks to deal with.





I managed to start on the wood stove alcove that will be lined with slate ledger stone. I put up some backer board and then built a form for the hearth. The goal was to make the hearth look as much like natural stone as possible and to make it match the grey in the slate. So I used a live edge form and dyed the concrete with a little black dye in various strengths to give the finished product a more natural look. I was pretty happy with my first real concrete pour in a long time...



I undercut the pour with 7/8" boards about 1" inset so when I lay the 3/4" pine T&G it will simply slide under the edges of the hearth and have a nice finished look.



The finished product. You can see where I should have vibrated it more around the edges, but Mrs. Irish likes it and that's what's important.



You can also see the slate ledger stone that will line the inside and here you can see my free reclaimed timbers that will make up the mantle and the side posts of the alcove...

So a couple of weeks ago my Cherokee County buddy that has a construction company called me up and wanted me to look at an addition for him and give him some structural advice on it. He then took me to see a really cool project he is working on. It's a place for Barn Weddings (I guess these are a big thing right now.) It consists of a huge "barn" structure which is actually an event center and a large open air chapel for the actual weddings. Anyway the cool thing about it was that he actually MILLED ALL THE LUMBER ON SITE! Mostly using the trees that he cleared from the land.

So as we're talking I'm looking at the shiplap that he has used in the interiors of everything and I'm like,

"Did you mill that too!?"
"Yep."
"Can you mill me some of that?"
"Sure thing buddy!"
"Can you plane it on one side?"
"Yep."

So a quick cal to Mrs. Irish and we have completely changed our interior game plan when I find out Larry is going to get us the hookup for all the locally grown, milled and planed ship lap we want for .65 cents a square foot. Delivered and stick stacked on my back deck under the cover... Killer deal.

So last weekend after about 1000 S.F of the stuff has been sitting there with the mountain wind blowing on it I decide to check it with my moisture meter and low and behold it is anywhere from 9% to 12%. I checked the interior studs just for reference and they are at about 11%. So I looked at Mrs. Irish and said let's get after it!

Here's our first interior wall going up... We are pretty stoked.





Things are going to start to come together pretty quick for us now I think... Hard to believe we have been working on this thing for 2 years now on the weekends.

Looking good! Finish line in sight!

Nice wood!

Thanks AC. It's amazing when I pop open a beer at the end of the day working up there and then start to walk around and take mental notes of all the stuff that still needs to be done. It's mind boggling.

If there's one saving grace... It's that because it taking so long we're able to pay for it as we go. Or the fact that we're paying for it as we go is why it's taking so long.

Yes it is. My buddy Larry hand selected the logs he killed for us. He is truly a great friend and has really blessed us.

We are going to do a very light whitewash on it so that it lightens up the interior of the cabin, but still let's the grain of the wood show through.

Yes it is. My buddy Larry hand selected the logs he milled for us. He is truly a great friend and has really blessed us.

We are going to do a very light whitewash on it so that it lightens up the interior of the cabin, but still let's the grain of the wood show through.