Christmas at the cabin

After a nice drive from Powell, wy to the cabin near crandal we settled in to the already warmed up cabin. (thanks Robert) the first night was a simple pasta with meat sause that Stacee made, very good. The next day we headed out to find a tree for Xmas. After about 30 min of searching we finally found what we were looking for, the perfect tree. After realizing we had to drag the tree back I was
Wishing that we hadn't walked so far.

More later.

Testing

Trying out blogwriter app for the iphone. First try crashed, but so far so good on this one. How do I insert a photo?

Denmark

materialicious is a great little 'shelter' (a.k.a. architecture) blog that is loaded with content. that is where I found Arkitektfirmaet C.F. Moller which is a very nice site for a danish design firm

Gary's Wisdom (For Free!!)

I've been watching this guy by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk on Wine Library TV for a little over a year now. Great show about wine, life and sports, but mostly wine.

About 10 months ago I found www.garyvaynerchuk.com and Gary's "120's", (120 seconds) even though the videos are only 120 seconds +/- the content is unbelievable. Gary has the ability to make a complicated subject seem simple, even for those who are new to the game. The video below is his latest thoughts about advertising and ROI. Once again Gary very effectively shows his passion along with some visual aides to get his point across. I would suggest watching this along with the rest of the videos on garyvaynerchuk.com.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

there are just way too many cool videos out there... this one is from Keith Loutit ( http://keithloutit.com/ )  and i found a similar video on www.gizmodo.com

interesting explanation

found it here http://www.presentationzen.com/

It's all about the perception

it is interesting that when you say 'prefab' to someone 9/10 times they respond with 'you mean modulars' and the thought that comes with modulars is the standard trailer house that is placed on a foundation, even though a simple 'google search' would show you different.

A-A & A

tonight i listen to this guy talk about this . . . very interesting how other people see the same things in different ways. really Chris talked about prefab in general. I'm curious of  how it could serve a real purpose in the, now struggling, housing market. Is it possible to bring back, or maybe find an equivalent substitute for, the Sears catalog house that was so popular in the early 1900's? Seems like the prefab market has its options but the general public needs some education. The prefab market needs a 'Sears' to help them out.  Come on Dwell, where's the catalog?

Toilet Art

it is amazing where you can find art! i remember a good deal of this in a lot of the restrooms in italy.

if you are posting the same thing to all of the places that ping.fm sends to, what is the purpose of having different places?

trying out ping.fm

Gas Hole

as we were getting ready for our day this morning Isabella pointed to the place on a toy plane where you would fill it with gas and said 'gas hole'. not paying full attention, at first i thought she said something else, then i realized what she was talking about and i fully agreed with her. 'yep, that is the planes gas hole.'

LIAR!

'mommy i'm not going to vote for hillary clinton because she is a liar.' this was said out of a dead sleep and went directly back to sleep afterwards.  I think 'mommy' has been doing a good deal of talking in the car.

quote of the day

one thing i want to start doing is writing down izzy's quotes... and to start i'm going to go with 'samich' which is izzy for sandwich.

oh yeah.

just thought i would also share that i passed the LEED test yesterday. thankfully. there is no way i would want to have to keep studying for that.

Okay to Go!

Electrical inspection was a success. I have been given the okay to insulate the ceiling, now i just have to make that purchase. Tomorrow, first thing.

electric

inspection is scheduled.

i've got 2 light boxes & 2 fan boxes to wire over the weekend before the inspections of monday. I also have to take my LEED test on Tuesday. So I will take monday off from work to study for the test as well as wait around for the inspector. I also found out that a 4'x8' sheet of 3" polyisocyanurate insulation is really expensive, we have about 16 boards and it will cost us around $550. Which is what i need the inspection for, so i can install the insulation. 

photos to follow.

some point along the way we decided to move the ceiling. there was a portion of the ceiling that was open to the truss space above and if you used your imagination you could see the added volume that we would get by moving the ceiling from the bottom cord of the truss to the top of the truss.  just below the top cord which will leave just enough room for insulation.  So I've been spending the last few weeks removing the existing ceiling and relocating electrical work, as well as adding electrical for the what this all started for, the new kitchen.

i've been slacking in the posts lately so instead of giving an update of where i am right now this is going to be a 'where i've been to get here' type post.

 

these photos are from about 2 weeks ago when i had finally gotten rid of all the unwanted electrical and walls and was getting ready to go into the attic to route some of the new wiring for the kitchen.

i can't help show the 'Vicious Cycles' video

it is by far the best motorcycle video with no motorcycles.

i ran across it here

still in demo mode

well after removing even more sheetrock i found more questions. the biggest one so far was when i found a full 2x8 header in a wall that shouldn't be bearing. from looking at the shape of the truss i had a good feeling the wall wouldn't be bearing but i felt the need to consult with one of the structural engineers that i've worked with in the past - luckily they (talked with two) agreed with me that the walls wouldn't be bearing and that it is common for walls that are perpendicular to trusses to be built as if they were bearing because of incidental bearing that will occur. either way i was pretty careful to remove that wall. which i did this past weekend and everything came out just fine.

Off to the races!

At least a good amount of demo has taken place around here, of course it is always easy to destroy something and hard to rebuild. So far we are just removing the parts of the house we don't want anymore, which is mostly a few walls. After removing the sheetrock on the three walls that we plan to remove I found more electrical wiring than I was expecting. So there will be some serious time involved in reworking the electrical. 

pictures to come soon

by the way - this demo started the day after Christmas . . . so the last cooking that was done in the old kitchen was for Christmas breakfast & dinner.