A Family Cottage
December 27, 2020 – This morning Robrandi and I traveled to McVeytown to do a Winter check in on the Cot-Taj-Mahal. This was just a “down and back trip”. It was cold and blustery with lots of frozen puddles in the yard.
It has been almost one month to the day since our last visit. The Juniata River looked cold! The front yard looked cold! The back yard looked cold! The inside looks good, everything, just as we left it. It was also cold!
November 28, 2020 – Back outside today and working on exterior siding demolition. This will complete the removal of the remaining fiberboard siding. After the siding removal is complete I can finish the building wrap installation.
There was some exterior siding demolition at the location of the temporary electric drop on the south east corner. After that was complete, I moved over to the closet bump out. Finishing the building wrap on the closet I moved to the west end by the fire pit.
At the west end I had to work off of my scaffolding set up to reach the top of the gable end. Today’s exterior siding demolition was pretty straight forward. I didn’t have any surprises and I finished up the west end right around 4:15 PM.
Technically, I have one very small section of siding left to remove. It is on the east side where the pump house meets the cottage wall. It’s about 2′ × 3′ in size. This will be removed in the future when we install the new siding. So, for all intents and purposes the exterior siding demolition is complete!
The gallery below has ten images showing the outside of the cottage.
We probably won’t make it back down until sometime after Christmas. It’s just too busy around the holidays. Until next time…. take it easy!
November 27, 2020 – I continued the trim installation in the living room. First up was the casement around the big eight foot picture window. It trimmed out very nicely. Right after I finished it up a bird flew in the open doorway and took a dump on the new window sill. This is just my luck. So now I’m chasing a bird around the house!
Trimming out the living room picture window.
Window sill trim installed.
Completed living room picture window.
Random bird that flew in the open doorway.
After I got the bird out of the house I took a small break for lunch at the lookout. I had a sammy, a pretzel, an apple and a bottle of water. LOL! It was a little chilly and overcast today but it’s still great to be able to sit by the river and watch the water flow.
When I came back, I continued in the living room trim, working my way around to the railroad side, finishing the window near the wood stove. Everything looks good!
Lunch at the lookout.
Corner trim by the television.
Complete railroad side living room window.
We are supposed to have a little better weather tomorrow so I’ll let the trim go for a day or so. I am planning on going back outside to remove the rest of the old siding. That will let me complete the building wrap installation.
November 23, 2020 – This morning I made the return trip to Burnham. I dropped off the pallet jack at the Penn Equipment rental yard. Earlier, I decided to go to back to the Cot-Taj-Mahal to start the molding, casement and trim in the Living Room.
This work consists of wood base around the perimeter of the floor, corner moldings in each corner and door and window casement. Before the renovation is all said and done all the windows, doors and rooms will have new trim.
Trim around the living room sliding door.
Base trim along the living room exterior wall.
Corner and base trim in the living room.
Since it was a Monday I did not stay long. I think I left for home around 1:00PM. On the highway I came up on this truck with a big old black bear laying in the truck bed. I’m so busy with the renovation that I forget everything else that’s going on around me. It was surprising to find out that it was bear hunting season in Pennsylvania. I did not know.
Looks like a pretty big one too.
November 18, 2020 – On Wednesday we received a call from AES Hearth & Patio. They received our new hearth pad and it was ready for pick up. Okay, hopefully it won’t have any damage this time.
I drove over to their Camp Hill store on the Carlisle Pike. It was in fact, a new hearth pad with no damage so I was good to go.
November 21, 2020 – On Saturday morning we left the house bright and early at 6:00 AM, bound for the Cot-Taj-Mahal with the new hearth pad. If you can remember the wood stove is sitting outside on the porch. I unloaded it from my truck using a pallet jack that I rented from Penn Equipment in Burnham, PA. After we place the new hearth pad on the floor we can move the wood stove inside and put it on the pad. To do that we need to rent the pallet jack again so out first stop was Penn Equipment.
With the pallet jack in the back of the truck we drove the rest of the way to the Cot-Taj-Mahal.
At the cottage, we unboxed the hearth pad and placed it on the floor. I used the pallet jack to bring in the wood stove.
After removing the fire brick from the inside of the stove, I installed the ash pan and the Queen Ann’s legs. At this point I pondered about how we were going to stand it upright without breaking the cast iron legs. At 350 lbs, the stove is just a wee bit heavy for Robrandi and I to be lifting.
After some engineering reflection I built a wood frame that we used to roll the stove upright. The frame was slightly taller that the Queen Ann’s legs. This kept the weight of the stove off the cast iron legs as we righted it. All good…. For some reason I don’t have any pictures of this contraption. I think we were to stressed at this point.
Moving ever so slowly we positioned the stove on top of the hearth pad. There you have it. The whole thing is centered on the accent wall and it looks great! All we need to do now is install the stove pipe and it will be ready to fire up.
After setting the wood stove it was too late in the day to return the pallet jack. Penn Equipment is closed on Sunday so this means that I’ll be making a return trip on Monday, at least to Burnham, to make the return. Rather than stay the night, we decided to just head back and spend Sunday at home.
November 17. 2020 – Just a very short post today. I traveled to the Cot-Taj-Mahal this morning to perform the 2020 winterization. This includes draining down the water, and winterizing the toilet and drain traps.
Everything went as expected. I used the shop vacuum to suck all the water out of the pipes and I loaded up the toilet and drain traps with anti-freeze . Winterization complete… We should be good for the winter.
Sometime next season I will be replacing the existing CPVC water pipe with much more temperature tolerant PEX water piping. I think I’ll still have to drain but I won’t have such a risk of a pipe burst if a little water gets left in the system over the winter.
We’ll see…
November 13th & 14th, 2020 – This weekend my brother, Dave, is coming to the Cot-Taj-Mahal to install the acoustical ceiling tile system in the Living Room. On Friday, before he got there, I nailed some 1″×3″ furring strips to the bottoms of the Living Room ceiling joists. This will help to keep the batt insulation from sagging down onto the top of the acoustical ceiling. The first few images show the furring strips.
After the furring strips completed, Dave was able to start the acoustical ceiling tile system. Wall angle installation is first. This angle runs around the entire perimeter of the Living Room. With the wall angle hung, the installation of the main beams come next. The main beams connect together with cross T’s to form 2’×2′ squares. In each of the squares we place a ceiling tile to complete the installation.
Field tile or full size acoustical ceiling tile make up the main part of the ceiling. Cut tiles or boarder tiles install along the edges of the wall. The tile at each of the “can lights” receives a circular hole to accept the light, and a trim ring on the light finishes the installation.
It is important for the grid system to be level and square to avoid any unsightliness in the completed installation.
I’m sure you will agree, the acoustical ceiling tile installation looks great. It is much cleaner and brighter than the old yellowed 4’×8′ ceiling panels and if any tile suffers damage we can simply replace it.
At November 14th, it’s getting late in the season. Next week I will have to drain down the water and freeze proof the toilet and drain traps. I plan to work thru the winter but with no heat source I can’t take any chances.
November 7th & 8th, 2020 – We are almost ready for the lay in ceiling installation in the living room. My brother Dave came down last night to make a list of the materials that we need. The focus for this weekend is to finish installing sound batt insulation and wall paneling in the Living Room. Once this is done we will be able to install the ceiling system.
The gallery above shows the progression through the Living Room. The wall paneling installation went pretty smoothly, and by the end of the day, on Sunday, it was complete. The hardest part was moving the miscellaneous tools, bins, tables and chairs around the work area.
With the paneling finished I can now install the floor base, corner molding and window trim. More importantly, we are now ready for the acoustical ceiling system. I have Dave set up for next weekend. It’s going to look nice!
November 1, 2020 – Just a short post and then a rant for today. As far as the renovation work is concerned I finished up the insulation in the living room ceiling. This gets us closer to installing the actual suspended, lay in ceiling system. Here’s a couple of photos.
and now the rant…..
Back at the end of September, when I initially picked up the wood stove and hearth pad, I noticed a small hole in the cardboard covering. It was so small that I didn’t think anything of it. Shame on me, but prior to today, I never checked it. Well….
Towards the end of the day we went to set the hearth pad on the floor. Robrandi cleaned off the mortar from the tile work and removed the blue painters tape from the floor. I brought in the pad and we removed the card board wrapping. Of course the first thing we see is a broken tile and missing mortar. My whole day just turned upside down. It seems impossible to get materials down here that do not have some sort of damage!
After some discussion we decided that it has to go back. The broken tile is right in the front of the pad and it will be extremely visible.
Because I have a smaller truck bed, I had to build a wooden carrier so it would lay flat to avoid any further damage as we drove the dam thing back to AES Hearth & Patio. Of course, as soon as we went to put it in the truck it started pouring buckets. We got soaking wet! After I tied it down and stomped around for a bit we packed up and left for home. A crappy ending to an otherwise good weekend. Uggghhh!