Walking on air...or laminate flooring, depending on your perspective

So as I mentioned last time, John and I spontaneously purchased 400 sq. ft of laminate flooring for the cabin back in 2010, and it was probably the second best purchase we've made, in my opinion.  Prior to this, I never removed my shoes in the cabin, because in the kitchen, "bathroom" (aka room with a mirror and a sink hooked up to nothing), and the bedroom the flooring was cracked and dirty tile, and in the living room it was an assortment of various carpets nailed down that looked as though they hadn't been cleaned in several decades.

After removing everything except the carpets - all masked up and ready to go.

Moving the wood stove which was hooked up to that chimney pipe was an amazing feat.

After ripping up the carpet, John caulked all the cracks in the plywood subfloor, in an attempt to keep nature out.

Unfortunately, I don't have any in-progress shots, but it was super easy to install.  While obviously a cheap laminate, it works perfectly for the cabin and is a breeze to keep clean.

The wood stove ready to be moved back into place.  A little ottoman on wheels was definitely our friend, as it weighs a bazillion pounds, approximately.  Unfortunately the kitchen is still to this day covered in stick-on tiles, but eventually that will get taken care of as well.

New Fridge!

One of the first projects we undertook at the cabin, aside from just cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, was to replace the fridge, because the original fridge was old and gross and dead.  Because the electricity was all shut off in between visits, mice found the fridge to be a lovely home and ate through a lot of the external bits which caused lots of problems.  So back in 2010, we headed off to Lowes to find the cheapest small fridge we could find, that wasn't a dorm fridge.  We found a great deal on a fridge, but we also found an amazing deal on laminate flooring.  We weren't intending to do anything about the floor any time soon, but it was too good to pass up.  We loaded up the explorer (there literally wasn't a square inch left over) with our new fridge and 400 sq. ft. of flooring and away we went.

After removing the fridge, this was the grossness that remained.  I won't show the close-up shot, but trust me, it was not fun cleaning that out.  

 The old fridge just barely fit out the front door.

John proudly showing off the new fridge.  We now leave the fridge breaker on when we leave, to avoid having more mice colonizing the fridge.  The $2/month electric bill is worth it.

Next up - a beautiful new floor!

Off to the Woods

This weekend we are heading out to our cabin the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania for the first time this year, which is always a bit of a nervous time, as who knows when the cabin may eventually fall down the mountain.  I've realized I've only discussed the cabin tangentially on the blog here, so I figured I would give a bit of a background.

What the cabin looked like the first time I visited, back in 2008

John's Grandpop built the cabin about 40 years ago, and he grew up going out to the cabin for family vacations.  The owners of the adjoining 160 acres use the cabin during hunting season as well, and we have free range of their property when we go out, so it is a good relationship.  Family members stopped going out there regularly about 15 years ago or so, and the neighbors only went out a couple of times a year, so the cabin slowly was going downhill (both literally and physically).  While Grandpop did a good job building the cabin, he was a minister, not a carpenter, and it was built slowly out of scraps over time, so it was not in the best shape when John and I started going out regularly about 5 or 6 years ago.  After Grandpop passed away, Grandmom gave the cabin to John, since he was trying to fix it up.  We've been slowly trying to get it back in shape, and it's doing much better these days.

A few of the specifics - it is situated on a very small mountain, and we have about 4.5 acres of land, which is pretty secluded.  The cabin has electricity, but no running water (stay tuned for massive improvements in that department this year), and is about 20' x 20', with a loft over half of the first floor.  I've also realized I haven't been great about documenting everything, so I don't have any good pictures of what the inside looked like before we got started, but trust me, it was a little scary.  Because it's at the bottom of a hill which requires 4wd, and no one in the family had a 4wd vehicle until Hubby, everything that came and left the cabin had to be hauled by hand up and down a very steep hill (including all water).  Needless to say, not a lot has left the cabin in the past 40 years, so it was a bit full, both of stuff and wildlife.  Regular trips to both the cabin and the dump have been taking care of that, so it's much better these days.  Over the next few days I will get you all caught up to where we are now!