House Work

I often tell first-time homeowners that, “From this point on, one of your ‘hobbies’ better be working on the house.”  It has always been that way for me, although I am finding the scope of the projects are getting smaller as my bones get creakier.  Small things, okay.  Large things like re-chinking the cabin and the upcoming new standing seam metal roof?  Better leave those to younger and more nimble folks.  The problem is exacerbated by the dearth of a labor pool in the hinterlands.  To get skilled tradesmen to attend to a specific need you might have to wait up to a year or so once you “get on the list.”  Any man available for hire as an hourly wage laborer is available for a reason.  I’ve got leads for a couple of younguns to help out on the homestead on occasion but I have to wait for school to get out to firm up those connections.  We’ve got Amish moving into the community which I hope will alleviate some of this shortage.

Recently I had a nice little project that was pretty important.  Ironically it was on one of the newest pieces of wood on the cabin, on the rear side of the mud room built around 2008 or so.  The beveled sill at the bottom of the board-and-batten siding had decayed to the point that it was literally falling off.  unfortunately it was originally made from soft white pine so its life span was bound to be short.

With very little effort I was able to excavate the detritus and make the necessary measurements for a new one.  My first inclination was to make the new sill out of PTSYP, but given the current price of lumber (~$14 locally for an eight foot PT 2×4) and my depleted stock of PTSYP I went in another direction, one that was actually more appropriate; I recycled some of the chestnut framing lumber from the old shack up on the hill.

I re-sawed a full 2″ x 4″ stud to the size and configuration of the piece being replaced.  Given the “run of the mill” character of the chestnut I had to hand plane it a but to get it less curv-ey so that it would just slide into place.  It did, and a handful on mondo finishing nails later it is in place looking like it was always there.  Well, it will look that way after a few weeks of weathering.

This whole side of the cabin gets the brunt of the weather so I will certainly have to re-visit it at some point.