2013: Before & After

Cleanup

We've had a lot of rain, and our little waterfalls were looking extra pretty.

Not much left to do.  Just some final cleanup.

 

 Lots of de-nailing, as usual.

Tidied up the shed and stacked the firewood neatly.

Everything put away.  Let it snow!

Winterizing Weekend

With the weather getting colder, being that its early November, we needed to close up the cottage for the winter. (Drain the pipes, water heater and pump).  So we called a plumber to show us how to do it for the first time.  We also want to take advantage of the nice warm sunny days, so we drove up early on Friday morning.

 

We had taken down the walls already, so we just had the floor to get rid of, along with all the piled lumber that still needed to be de-nailed and sorted.

Chris found in the other room that removing the sub floor first and removing the floor boards one by one was easier than just cutting the whole floor up, and we wanted to see what the floor joists looked like. Maybe they could be saved.
  

Meanwhile the plumber arrived to empty the pipes.  He used a compressor to push the water back through the compression tank where it could then drain.

Outside it became clear that we couldn't save both the joists and the boards, so we chose to cut up the floor boards and save the 2x10 joists.

Carrie would take the nails out so the boards could be removed with little damage to the joists.

She then took a turn with the reciprocating saw.  It's harder than it looks, and shakes your whole body, making the world look like it's vibrating.

Mary and Sid arrived and their help sped up the process.

Carrie kept the fire going all day.

With all three of us working on the floor and Mary denailing the boards, we go through it quickly.

 

Finished for the night.  We'll all spend the night in Bridgewater and come back to finish up tomorrow.

The plumber thought we could find an old fashioned pump at the local Home Hardware.  Apparently that's the place to be on a friday night... live music and free food!  (Turns out it was customer appreciation night.)

The plumber was right, and the next morning we temporarily set up the new pump to try it out!

It works!  Now we'll have to get a proper well cover and design a stand for the pump.

More de-nailing, while Sid creates a Jenga-style pile of firewood.
  

The ladies, hard at work.

Last task of the day was to finish weatherproofing the house.

 We had one leftover package of shingles - not enough to patch the leaky roof, but we improvised with some Tyvek and roofing tar.
  

A nice 180 degree overview of the site, with the lake on the far left and the trench on the far right.

The floor is all gone, and only a small pile of wood left to take care of before the snow comes.

Now that the plumbing is winterized, we're back to getting water from the well the old fashioned way.

We stacked all of the salvaged 2x10s inside the house for the winter.
   

 This piece was so long we almost couldn't get it in the house!
Once it was all done, we headed home.
 

Tyvek

We arrived about 8:45am on a chilly November morning.

It had snowed a little bit overnight.

Our lunch sitting on the snowy table.  Chilly day for a picnic.

 Lots to burn...

 ...better start a fire.

 Piling on the siding.

I think we'll save this piece though.  

Had a huge bonfire going all day.

Siphoning off the last of the oil from the oil tank.  Glad to be done with this smelly job!

Ripped up the floor.  As usual, the joists practically disintegrated.

 But for once we found some good wood in the floor!  Seems like it's been dry under this part of the house.

 More salvaged lumber stacked against the house, and sealing up the exterior wall with Tyvek for the winter.

Tidied up and done for the day.

Solo

It was a nice weekday so I took off a day of work to spend at the cottage.

I wanted to denail some wood that we had salvaged previously, and take down the walls from the room we demolished this past weekend.

 I cut out all the middle studs and pulled it down.

This is a 180 degree panoramic looking from the beach to the house from the firepit area. 

There isn't much holding these rotten walls up.

All by my lonesome, so I had to resort to a selfie.

 Walls are down.  Have to denail (or burn?) all of that next week.

Right before I left, the sun came out.