First family weekend of 2015

The entire family unit came up this weekend to check out the cottage progress. They were super excited and lil' Neil kept bugging Bonnie for days asking about when they were making the trip.

Earlier last week, we finally got the gargantuan furniture delivery from IKEA. So, I have the pleasure of loading 4 dressers, 5 nightstands and 1 queen bed into my truck for the Friday evening ferry trip. Good news is that IKEA is famous for flat packing all of their stuff. Much to my surprise, I was able to load all that onto my truck with room to spare.

Bonnie and lil' Neil came up and Thursday night and Anna, Sophie and me met them on Friday night. After unloading all the box-packed furniture, I started on Anna's dresser. For anyone unfamiliar with IKEA, all of the furniture is "self-assembled". By Sunday morning, I thankfully finished the last piece.

Saturday, I spent most of the day working on the master bedroom furnishings - Queen bed, two nightstands and dresser assembly. Bonnie was super happy. Check-out this photo of the finished product.

Master bedroom furniture

Saturday night, Herb and Cathy hosted a neighborhood full-on turkey dinner party. Great people, great food and great times!

Sunday afternoon, we hiked around the beach and celebrated my birthday with the kids.

Kelleys Island Beach Pier

We will be back on the island again next weekend for more family fun and some island Derby Day festivities.

Cottage progress...

Although, I didn't work on any of the remaining trim work or door painting, I did finish the bulk of the furniture assembly. This is nice.

Next steps:

1. Door trim
2. Baseboard
3. Shed firewood storage project (anything to get outside if the weather is nice!)

Tremendous = Trim-endless

Totally non-eventful cottage weekend. I just picked up where I left off last weekend to keep working on the door casing and baseboard trim. Starting at around 5:30 pm on Friday and finished up around 12:30 pm on Sunday, I think I put in about 25 hours... boring.

Anyway, I finished all the windows and most of the doors, not including some of the insides of the closets. Plus, all the trim in the bathrooms is done.

Master bedroom window trimmed

Here's a photo of the kitchen slider, looking good. Just need to add some 1/4/round trim at the base.

Kitchen slider trimmed

It's one thing to have the doors hung, it's another thing to have working door knobs with locks. I wanted to at least get our bedroom door completely painted and knob/lock installed... One down, NINE to go!

Master bedroom door - done!

Early Saturday evening, I finished up the attic access trim and drop panel in the ceiling of the utility room/closet. This is one of those projects that no-one cares about at all (including me) but had to be done.

Attic access

The last task late on Saturday night (probably technically Sunday morning) was installing the bi-fold closet/utility room doors. Really wasn't sure how these would turn out, but I am happy with the results. Nice to be able to shut the doors to hide all the utility room stuff going on.

 Main room bi-fold closet/utility room doors installed

Sunday morning, it was time for the master bedroom bi-fold closet door. This was the last remaining interior door in the cottage. Now, I just have to paint them all - ugh.

Master bedroom bi-fold closet door

It was very windy on the ferry ride home later Sunday afternoon. There were rumors that the ferry would not be running on full schedule due to the wind conditions. Anyway, I made it to Marblehead at 4:30 pm...

Rough seas

Next weekend, the family is coming up to join me for the first time this season. So I am excited about spending some island time with them and want to show them all the latest progress!

Season opener 2015!

Opening up for the season is always dependent on the ferry schedule. Since we had such a brutal winter, the schedule for the Kelleys Island Ferry was delayed into April again and supposed to start on Wednesday, April 8th. Well for some reason, they decided to start running boats on Friday, April 3rd. I had already planned on a long weekend starting April 10th, but how could I resist not getting up to the island to take a peek at the cottage a week early?

Anyway, I took quick 24-hour solo trip to open-up for the season...

Here is a boring ferry photo from inside my truck since it was raining (big surprise). This is the first official trip to the island for 2015, but not very photo worthy.

Empty ferry ride in the rain

Upon opening the cottage, most things worked fine... Good news - the furnace, well pump, pex manifold, and tankless water heater all good! Bad news - One toilet must have froze and the works inside the tank split and will need to be replaced (this sucks because this is same issue from last year, just on the other toilet) Also, I discovered the main drain pipe (4 inch pvc) to the septic tank has a small leak, at a joint, right before it exists the crawlspace. Tim Arnold said he could fix this real quick this week, so hopefully no big deal.

Funny note, when I was charging up the well pump and checking water pressure etc., I forgot the valves in the unfinished master bathroom were left open to allow for any expansion over the winter shut-down. So yes, I flooded the bathroom and had to mop-up for an hour. Nice move. No damage done, just dumb hassle and totally my own fault.

Here is a nice photo of the cottage from the street. The grass looks pretty good considering the ground is super muddy. One big plus is that after days of rain, we really had no standing puddles in the yard or driveway. Very happy that the overall grading from last September held up nicely.

"Our house" - early spring 2015!

I did try to do some interior finish work. I was able to trim-out the "build-in" wall shelves for the bar and the master bathroom. Overall, this was a low feedback trip as far as completing project work.

Master bathroom wall shelf trim

I will be trimming the entire cottage... floors, doors, windows, closets, ceiling, etc. over the next few months. I did a rough estimate and I think we need over 600 lin ft of miscellaneous trim wood. WOW! 

I'll be headed back up on Friday, April 10th to hopefully wrap-up all remaining plumbing issues and maybe start on some interior trim.

Later...