Leveling up
My last post was all about the mistake we made.
Well, readers, we learned from our mistake. And we bounced back.
The day after the mistake, we had Home Depot deliver some 16-foot-long 2”x10”s for the replacement rim joists. We also had all the normal joists (which are 12-foot 2”x8”s) delivered.
The lumber appeared at 9 am, less than 12 hours since I had placed the order. This was money very well spent. With cousins Gabe and Anthony joining, the crew was four strong, and we quickly got everything moved down to the build site.
We ripped out the mistake, cut the new rim joists, and got to work re-installing the edge post. Luca kept a helpful watch during this phase.
By lunch we were past where we had ended the previous day, and with a much stronger frame than if we had stuck with the original plan (to split the long side into two pieces joined at the post). The way I see it now, I’m glad we made that mistake; it gave us a reason to change course.
After lunch we finished the frame of the deck. Everything was level and felt rock-solid, and we thought it looked great.
Our cousins departed the next day, and Paul and I got to work installing the joists. This was a new process for us, but Paul looked up a neat trick for holding a joist in place while installing it: you temporarily screw scraps of wood to the top of the joist at both ends, so it sits at just the right level while you set the joist hanger in place. (The joist hangers are the U-shaped metal brackets that support the joists.) Nailing in the joist hangers was a pretty satisfying process, but it gave us both sore shoulders.
By sunset on Tuesday, we’d installed 3 joists and were feeling really good. We packed up all our tools and lumber on the end of the platform and put a tarp over it, because there was rain in the forecast for Wednesday.
As it turned out, the storm was a snowstorm for us. We woke up Wednesday to more than a dusting of winter — about 3.5 inches of wet snow! The ‘Rolly wasn’t going anywhere, and the surface of the lake was transformed into a slushie.
The cabin looked so cozy in the snow.
And we were very glad we had tarped our tools!
The temperature rose above freezing the day after the storm, so the snow began to melt, but the sky continued to spit water all day. We just hunkered down inside and made preparations for Thanksgiving. Our bodies were thankful for the mandatory rest day.
The next day, feeling rested and well-fed, we quickly got a bunch more joists installed while the sun melted the snow around us.
We left the joists in the center of the platform for last because we still needed to dig the final foundation footing. (To support the weight of the sauna stove, my plan calls for the two joists nearest the stove to be doubled, and one of those doubled joists sits on a post connected to one of the concrete-on-gravel foundation footings.) It was cold out, but the ground wasn’t quite frozen yet. And by this point I had already dug and leveled 6 of these holes, so it went fast. We cut the last post, got the double joists in, and….
BOOM.
Cover shot! (My emo album is out in January.)
But we weren’t quite done yet. The holes for the foundation footings needed to be backfilled with dirt. It got real cold after Thanksgiving, with temperatures dropping down into the teens. The lake fully iced over in our last few days there, and — more relevant to the backfilling — the ground froze, too. So the piles of wet, clay-rich dirt I had dug out of the foundation holes had hardened into icy slabs. I found that by bashing through that layer of frozen dirt with a splitting maul, we could get down to some softer stuff. Luckily, Rosa was excited to join in on this part, and together we got into a great working rhythm. It’s a such a joy to labor with loved ones.
The platform and the icy cove look great great together, don’t they?
And that’s where things stand for now! It was so fun to have Paul and Luca spend some extended time up at the cabin, and to have so many other friends and family members join to help us out along the way.
I hope more folks (maybe some of you readers?) will become involved in the next stages! It’s looking like the next building window will be in January 2024.
In the meantime, I’m looking for a good local sawyer so we can source our lumber for the floorboards and the next steps of the project without relying solely on Home Depot. Enjoy the holidays! Let’s all take a page out of Luca’s book and chiiiiillllllll.
—Jake
Jake, I am so impressed with your construction skills, and your ability to make this process make sense to others. I loved your point about learning from our mistakes, and your observation about the joys of laboring with loved ones (and canine friends). The spot chosen for the sauna looks absolutely lovely! Kudos to you and Paul (and all your partners) for all that you accomplished already! And please keep writing. I love to read about whatever it is that you are up to.
Jake, congrats on leading the team to complete the first phase of the sauna build! I, too, hope more family and friends can join as the project continues and you build community around the Seeley Sauna.