Working for the weekend

It's Monday morning and yes, I am already planning for the KI weekend activities. Al and I are heading up again to continue work on the HVAC, tankless hot water heater, miscellaneous electrical, and the water tank decking.

We have invited the ladies to join us on Saturday. Should be a nice change to spend some quality island time and not quite so much work.

Need to figure out how to get ~80 sheets of drywall delivered to the island for May 17th. I was thinking about using the Lowes Spring delivery special, but they are not giving me a solid delivery price.

Toilet dreams

OK, this may sound funny to anyone who is not familiar with Kelleys Island living and the process of building a cottage from vacant land, but yes, we were able to FINALLY get a working toilet installed sometime around noon on Saturday, April 6th! To the cottage building process, this is as important as the invention of the wheel for advancement of humankind.

Everyone (including myself) takes for granted that working toilets are always available everywhere. Let me just mention all of the dependencies to make a toilet flush on Kelleys Island...

1. Water - enormous (1800 gallon) concrete water tank - manually filled via truck
2. Pump - well pump with proper plumbing from water tank
3. Plumbing - supply lines to (3/4") and from (1/2") PEX manifold and drains (PVC) installed
4. Toilet - easy peasy
5. Septic tank - drain lines tied into septic tank  

All of the above have to be "leak-free" with multiple connection points that make me crazy. Anyway, we are good-to-go so far as the toilet goes.

Uncle Al was able to join me for the weekend and he brought his dog "Maddie", the newest member of the crew, on her maiden voyage to the island. Maddie was a good girl and hung around the construction site, in-and-out, of the cottage all weekend.

Maddie, the "Island Dog"

 

We were able to make great progress on the tankless water heater intall. Next working weekend the plan is to actually have hot water!

 

Uncle Al working on the electric for the tankless water heater

The "eco smart" tankless water heater mounted and all wired up!

I got rolling on the water tank beautification project by hanging vertical decking around the perimeter of the concrete structure. Others have used different techniques. However, I thought the finished look of the decking made a nice clean impact on something that you can't hide smack in your front yard!

Friday, just getting started

Almost done, view from the street

 

All done, view from the house, notice the custom/crafty access ladder 

 

Big Al brought out the Big Ladder and mounted the electrical box for the outdoor spotlights. Can't wait to be able to light-up the yard at night.

 

 Al working on the spotlights



Dumb ass!

SUNDAY
Late on Sunday, March 24th, wrapping up a long, cold, opening weekend on the rock, I stopped back the cottage to drop-off some stuff and lock-up. I was ahead of schedule and had about 45 minutes to relax before the ferry...

DUMB ASS
 

I inadvertantly LOCKED my car keys in my truck along with my phone!

 

PANIC-PANIC-PANIC

 

Clock ticking, wind blowing, no phone, no car keys!

 

TOTALLY SCREWED
 

Chris was home also wrapping up. After we tried to break-in to the truck with a coat hanger for 20 minutes, I was running out of time and options. The worst part was I could see my keys and phone through the driver side window, sitting upright in the console, just mocking me. Thank god, I was able to catch a ride home with Chris - big thanks.

MONDAY
Due to the limited ferry schedule there were few opportunities to get back to the island from Olmsted Twp and then back home again in a short time frame. Our first attempt was on Monday morning, leaving the house at 6:30 AM, in a snow storm, in an attempt to catch the 8:00 AM ferry. Of course this ferry was cancelled due to inclement weather. The trick is that you have NO WAY of knowing the ferry schedule because NOTHING IS EVER POSTED and they don't answer the phone until 30 minutes before the first scheduled boat run (in this case, 8:00 AM). The problem is that we live 1 1/2 hours east of the boat dock, so we had to travel one hour west before we could call for confirmation!

TUESDAY
Nothing.

WEDNESDAY
Finally made it up to the island on Wednesday morning and got things all squared away. Thanks Bon for driving up and back with me. Here is a photo of Bonnie (thankfully smiling!) during our extremely brief time on the island (1 hr total) to get my truck and phone and week back in order.

My baby

 

Needless to say, I will be getting a spare key made this week to prevent this type of non-sense from happening again.



Duct work, plumbing, mud, beers and cold

Welcome to Kelleys Island 2013! Well we opened up the season with a bang. The weather was unseasonably cold ~25-35 deg on March 22. I was able to make the second official ferry run at 9:00 AM on Friday. I was pleasantly surprised to find the crawlspace of "Our House" very dry after the long winter.

Uncle Al and Brad came up Saturday morning to work on the HVAC duct work.

Brad working on assembling a duct

Chris helping out

Uncle Al working his magic

 

Huge shout-out to Big Al for spending most of the entire day on Saturday up in the rafters, wrestling with the duct work for the HVAC installation.

Uncle Al and the air handler 

Me filling-up "Old Smokey" the kerosene heater

 

Chris brought up two old-school kerosene heaters from his endless arsenal of stuff. "Old Smokey" and proved to be an invaluable tool for the weekend. Without these heaters, we would have not been able to do much work at all in the frigid cottage. After a few hours, with both heaters working, the cottage heated-up nicely. Since the heat would build up in the attic, we were sweating working up in the rafters.

 

Septic 4" pvc pipe tied into cottage

The area directly in front of the tank inlet will be backfilled with dirt to bury/hide the pipe and gradually tapered towards the cottage. Unfortunately, the pipe from the cottage will be exposed permanently because of its position in the siding. I am planning to add some type of low landscape wall using vertical decking (same as planned for cistern/water tank) starting at the back-right of the septic tank and stopping near the back-right corner of the cottage by the pipe outlet.

Septic 4" pvc pipe tied into tank inlet

 

Thanks to Chris for his help engineering this install using two 22 deg couplers and leveling the proper fall from the house. This job follows the old saying, "sh-t rolls down hill". Let's hope so!    



 



 

Well pump plumbed-up from the water source

 

We managed to get a ton of work done despite the weather. However, we did spend our fair share of time at the Pump drinking beers and "Storm Cloud" shots. Good times...

Opening weekend approaching!

The long awaited opening weekend is planned for Friday, March 22nd. I'm working getting the crew assembled and the ferry schedule hammered down. Hopefully, we will have more fun than issues with both cottages. More details and pictures to come!

KI Neighbor party at Sawmill Creek Resort

The annual KI party at Sawmill creek was on Saturday night, March 2nd. As usual, it was a good time had by all. This is a funny event where we spend most of our time hanging out in hotel rooms highschool style. Great to see all the neighbors and get mentally ready for the upcoming season!

Me and Bon

Bon and the lady neighbor crew

Me and the dudes

Notice the hotel room background

Happy New Year 2013!

Well here's to healthy, happy and prosperous 2013. It's only been 7 weeks since we closed up the cottage for the season and I'm already getting the itch... Since, the plan is to open sometime in March (weather permitting) I'll be back on the rock in less than 90 days, nice!

On facebook today, the Village Pump posted some new info about the Battle of Lake Erie. Starting to look forward to the Bicentennial celebration already. Should be tons of fun with various festivities planned on and around the lake all summer. The big shindig on Kelleys is happening on Labor Day Weekend. This gives me a deadline to have running water, at least one bathroom, and air conditioning working in the new cottage as soon as possible but NO LATER than August. Let's do this...

Get ready for Labor Day Weekend 2013