Just Carolyn and I went up to Lake Wenatchee yesterday to spend the night. Yesterday morning, Allie and I bought a couple of sixteen foot 2x8's and loaded them on the car. Later in the afternoon, Carolyn and I drove up to the cabin. There was very little snow over the pass. It looks like it'll be a long time before there's enough snow for the ski resorts to open. At the turnoff to Lake Wenatchee we stopped at the 59'er Diner for dinner and arrived at the cabin around 6 pm. Both cabins on either side of us were lit up and in use.

 
The main beam supporting the loft's floor: before and after

Our purpose this trip was two-fold. First, shore up the main beam that supports the floor of the loft above the shop. Second, tear the loft apart. The shop is a building sixteen feet square. The floor of the loft of the shop is supported by 2x4 joists that are 16' long. The joists are supported in the middle of their span by a sixteen foot 4x8 beam. The floor is woefully under-engineered. 2x4's are way too small to ever use as floor joists. Also, the 4x8 beam is too small to support the weight of the floor across a 16' span. Standing above in the loft, the floor flexes and feels flimsy. We planned to strengthen the floor by doubling the width of the main beam underneath. This turned out to be an easier task than expected. I used a Sawzall to cut out the vertical studs next to the existing beam so we'd have room to insert two more 2x8's. I notched the ends of the sixteen footers to fit against and under the top plate. Carolyn helped me maneuver the new boards into place. While I was working downstairs, Carolyn was upstairs dismantling the room.
 

Nailing the new beam

I borrowed a pneumatic framing nailer from a friend. That'd make it quick'n'easy to nail the new boards to the existing beam. Unfortunately, the nailer jammed on the first nail and I couldn't figure out how to unjam it. I ended up nailing everything by hand. Every stroke of the hammer reverberated through the silent woods. I felt a little sorry about disturbing the tranquility of our cabin neighbors on Thanksgiving weekend. We knocked off around 9:30 and headed over to Knight's cabin. They're out of town, but they invited us to use their cabin this weekend. At the Knight's, we found that a squirrel or something had torn up the kitchen. It had knocked a bottle of nutmeg onto a cutting board which flipped and landed on the switch which turned on the stove exhaust fan. In the master bath, the squirrel knocked a basket of potpourri into the toilet. We cleaned it all up. Then we made popcorn, drank Martinelli's, and watched a movie.

Catching snowflakes

I was so excited about working on the cabin that I woke up at 4:15am. Carolyn did not share my same enthusiasm. I read a book until I could fall asleep again. First thing after breakfast, we drove to Plain Hardware to pick up a couple of 2x4's we needed as vertical stud supports for the new floor beam. Back at the cabin, I finished working on the beam while Carolyn started tearing the paneling off the walls in the loft. The floor is a lot more sturdy with the strengthened beam in place. We could further strengthen the floor by replacing the 2x4 joists with 2x6's or double up the 2x4's.

We lit a burn pile and began throwing in the paneling from the loft's walls and ceiling. All of a sudden, it started snowing huge flakes. The flakes were the size of cotton balls. Off in the distance, we could hear kids yelling and screaming in excitement over the snow.
 

Snow!

It snowed heavily for a few minutes but it didn't last. In a later photo you'll see that it turned out to be a sunny (but cold) day.
 

  
Loft demolition: during and after

Carolyn pretty much demolished and cleaned up the loft single-handedly. I took apart the beds and moved them to the cabin and tore a few sheets of paneling from the ceiling, but Carolyn did everything else. She's not afraid of tough work and this was a particularly nasty task -- far worse than we expected. Once she tore off the first piece of paneling, it was clear that squirrels had been living in the walls. Like the cabin's attic, the squirrels had found in the insulation a ready supply of nesting material. It was a huge mess. The squirrels had cached away a large number of pinecones and dried mushrooms.

In the "after" photo notice the patchwork of boards in the floor. The previous owner never saw a board that he didn't think he could incorporate (with enough nails) in the cabin somehow.
 

Squirrel skeleton

Carolyn found a squirrel skeleton in the mess. While I was using a ShopVac to suck up the mess in the ceiling, there was a loud thhhhwwwaappp and the vacuum clogged. I sucked up another squirrel skeleton and the head jammed in the vacuum's nozzle. By mid-afternoon, Carolyn had ripped every piece of paneling off the walls, swept up every speck of mess and insulation and put it in garbage bags, and rolled up the carpets and put everything in a big pile. We'll have to bring the truck next time and load it with all the bags of debris and take it to the dump in Kirkland.
 

Blocking out the squirrels

It doesn't make sense to refinish the room until we prevent any squirrels from entering the loft's attic. The previous owner had stapled regular screening over the soffets under the roof. The persistent squirrels had chewed a couple of holes through the screens in order to get access into the attic. Inside the attic, the squirrels chewed notches in the 2x4 rafters to make it easy to pass from one section to the other. Those squirrels are like pesty aliens. I got a ladder and began replacing the flimsy screens with two layers of heavy gauge screen. The outer layer is heavier gauge, but with wider spacing and the inner layer finer spacing. I ran out of screen. We'll have to bring more on the next trip. When we redo the ceiling, we'll leave an access panel so that we can get into the attic to fix any problems that we might overlook on the first go-around.
 

Confluence of Nason Creek and Wenatchee River

Around lunchtime, Carolyn ran out of plastic garbage bags. We drove to the Parkside Grocery at the south end of Lake Wenatchee for more. I took this photo from the bridge that crosses the river at the south end of the lake. Nason Creek is draining into the river from the left. On the right, water is pouring into the river from Lake Wenatchee. This is the beginning of the Wenatchee River. The old steel bridge I'm standing on was built in 1941.

Back at the cabin we finished all the different jobs we had been working on. It starts to get dark around 4 pm this time of year. We went on a hike up to the viewpoint. It was beautiful as always even through the sun had set behind the mountains to the west. We climbed back down and stood around the coals of the fire and warmed up. We finished putting everything away and left at 5:30. We stopped at the Knight's and set a squirrel trap in the kitchen. It was below freezing outside by now and we carefully drove over the pass because it was icy and slippery.

We've now owned the property at Lake Wenatchee for a year. As I reflect over our progress of the last year, I have positive feelings. In most respects, we're nowhere close to where we thought we'd be in a year. I thought we'd have the old cabin in livable shape in a matter of months. We're still far from that goal. It seems that every attempt to move forward reveals some situation that requires more work. Yet, with all that, I feel little disappointment. When it comes to building and fixing this cabin, for me the journey is the reward. I've looked forward to every trip up to the cabin and enjoy the peace and the opportunity to work hard at each occasion.

I can't wait for this week. I have to go down to Silicon Valley for meetings on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, I'm flying home via Salt Lake City to spend the day with Paige helping her with a school project. Hopefully, we'll get to end the week with another trip to Lake Wenatchee.