I think your tractor is sexy.
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Our Northwoods Cabin Journey (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter Trihonda
- Start date
OP
OP
my uncle loves his John Deere stuff.. in fact he had a diesel lawn tractor up there as well. He indicated he was going to leave it up there for mowing, but has since indicated he’s going to trade it in on a new tractor for his own home.
This leaves me with the need for a new mower. It’s 2.5 acres of mowable yard. And my uncle claims it takes 2+ hours to mow on his diesel lawn tractor. But he has a JD Z turn mower (w/ 300 hrs) at his current house he’s willing to sell to me for $3k. Said it was 6500 new, and going rates for this tractor used, with these hours is $4k (That’s what I’ve seen online). Seems like a deal. And my uncle claims his zturn mows in half the time. Said it’ll mow the cabin lawn in an hour-ish.
Stock photos of his mower:
BukNaked36
Straight
Looks like your uncle is cutting you a pretty sweet deal on the mower.
You might be able to mow it in an hour, but I'm not sure you'll want to - those guys can be a bumpy ride.
You might be able to mow it in an hour, but I'm not sure you'll want to - those guys can be a bumpy ride.
OP
OP
That might result in a visit from child protective services, lol. At least in MY county…
Snap buy. I ended up buying a Zero Turn Mower for my acre yard and it is frigging amazing. It takes me 40 minutes to mow with it whereas a push mower was almost 2 hours. I literally bought myself the most important commodity, time, every single week. Even better is I put on the headphones, and have a lot of fun zipping around the yard while doing it. Win win. Mine cost me 3.5k for a 54“ Craftsman and to get the bagger that has would be another few hundred dollars.
My first thought when I saw the Star Trek mower with the two levers instead of steering wheel is how fun would mowing the yard be with that big boy! The service does my yard with one…and we have 1/2 acre and they seem to be moving at gocart speeds.
OP
OP
Up working on the cabin this weekend. Little projects right now, as we haven’t closed on the property quite yet.
next trip up will involve installing siding on toy garage, which have never had siding on it. Thus this trip, we started staining it.
We are also trying consolidate the various wood staged around the property. There at least 4 stashes of lumber around the place, and my uncles idea for current storage was to simply lean it up against the wall, vertically…. and then won’t leave a dehumidifier or the air on during the humid summer heat…. He’d wonder why the boards were all warping.. lol.
I installed a lumber rack in part of the detached garage a couple months back, and it worked great. We did a smaller add on to that, and cleaned out the toy garage of 40+ 2x4’s and tons of other boards. so two of the four stashes of lumber are organized. We still have an entire large stash of lumber and flooring to store from the utility room.. my uncle was telling me the reason I shouldn’t move the last stash to the garage racks is the humidity and warping..
another task was to install closet organizers in the two lower level bedrooms, we went cheap (ish) with these closet systems. These were nice rack closet organizers, but I can see the appeal of wooden closets too… the one shown is from out bunk room, and we anticipate shooters guests staying. Other closets were installed taller… lol
well, there’s a lot to do, other odds and ends we need to get dialed in. Mrs Honda got to drive the tractor today. She seemed to like it.
next trip up will involve installing siding on toy garage, which have never had siding on it. Thus this trip, we started staining it.
We are also trying consolidate the various wood staged around the property. There at least 4 stashes of lumber around the place, and my uncles idea for current storage was to simply lean it up against the wall, vertically…. and then won’t leave a dehumidifier or the air on during the humid summer heat…. He’d wonder why the boards were all warping.. lol.
I installed a lumber rack in part of the detached garage a couple months back, and it worked great. We did a smaller add on to that, and cleaned out the toy garage of 40+ 2x4’s and tons of other boards. so two of the four stashes of lumber are organized. We still have an entire large stash of lumber and flooring to store from the utility room.. my uncle was telling me the reason I shouldn’t move the last stash to the garage racks is the humidity and warping..
another task was to install closet organizers in the two lower level bedrooms, we went cheap (ish) with these closet systems. These were nice rack closet organizers, but I can see the appeal of wooden closets too… the one shown is from out bunk room, and we anticipate shooters guests staying. Other closets were installed taller… lol
well, there’s a lot to do, other odds and ends we need to get dialed in. Mrs Honda got to drive the tractor today. She seemed to like it.
OP
OP
my uncle is leaving a surprising amount of tools behind, pretty much everything you see in the wood staining garage photo above, plus tons in the lower level utility room See below. This utility room was one of the wood stash locations. we gutted this room of all the nonsense and garbage and cleaned it up, and reorganized everything. You couldn’t even walk in there.. now it’s fairly clean. My uncle was having spasms.. like an episode or hoarders when they can’t let go of trash, lol…
OP
OP
The closing dates keep getting pushed back, and I’m so frustrated with my lender I’m ready to pull out every dollar from all my accounts with this bank.. but we finally have a closing date scheduled, and we are back up at the cabin working on projects. i keep telling myself positive thoughts…
We will be installing the siding we stained last trip, and we’ve already painted some of the interior and such. as always, we took some time to take in the beauty (although we missed peak colors…
We will be installing the siding we stained last trip, and we’ve already painted some of the interior and such. as always, we took some time to take in the beauty (although we missed peak colors…
OP
OP
Spent the day siding and getting internet installed and run to a secure closet (where our camera hub will go). i also took the drone up for some aerial pics.
yay, we have internet!
yay, we have internet!
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OP
OP
Sadly, We missed the peak colors by about a week. Leaves were actually 95% off a number of the larger trees.
here’s pics of the trees from last year.
OP
OP
Well, the adventures continue…
Up again this past weekend for more projects. On the agenda was installing wired POE security cameras around the entire exterior. I wanted every entrance and important property feature covered. Eight cameras in all.
we had to run wires up in the attics, and there are two attics (actually three) that required climbing into to run the cables. On a buddy’s advice, I snagged a spool of cat 5 cable and a bunch of tools to create patch cables (where the supplied 80’ cameras didn’t cut it).
we did find some time for fun (And adventure)…. A friend (and fellow poker player) agreed to help out over the weekend. In exchange, I wanted to make sure he got some fun adventure time…. We went ATVing, and shooting… and we took him out to various local restaurants.
one adventure was ATVing, which took us down some very familiar (yet wet) trails. at one such familiar puddle, we encountered a totally hidden muddy sink hole. Ridding along in 9”-12” of water, and suddenly our side by side drops into a hole. Our SxS is submerged to the point that Mrs Honda and I are sitting in freezing cold muddy water to our chests…. Unsure how, but our SxS is still running… my buddy is behind us riding an ATV (he avoids disaster). Between Mrs Honda and my buddy, we get the winch tied around nearby trees. The winch and controls are completely submerged in muck. Somehow I’m able to fumble around get the winch to operate. After extricating ourselves from the sink hole, we are able to limp back home (hour ride) with air temps in the 30’s and in soaking wet clothes (brrrrr). Upon returning home, we were greeted by the most amazing sunset…. Wow!
we failed to take pics of us stuck in the sink hole, but we did get some pics of our SxS before cleaning it the next day. There’s an inch of packed mud/clay covering the floor boards, and over everything.
after cleaning out the ATVs, we hit up the range for some fun shooting stuff. My buddy sighted in his deer rifle, and I needed to test out my “carry” gun that got submerged the previous day. Yes, there are very few times in northern WI I don’t pack heat (cuz bears and such). Anyway, my gun had mud in the barrel, and though I cleaned it right away, you always want to test out your equipment that you might depend on in life threatening situations. All was well, and we wrapped up the weekend!
Up again this past weekend for more projects. On the agenda was installing wired POE security cameras around the entire exterior. I wanted every entrance and important property feature covered. Eight cameras in all.
we had to run wires up in the attics, and there are two attics (actually three) that required climbing into to run the cables. On a buddy’s advice, I snagged a spool of cat 5 cable and a bunch of tools to create patch cables (where the supplied 80’ cameras didn’t cut it).
we did find some time for fun (And adventure)…. A friend (and fellow poker player) agreed to help out over the weekend. In exchange, I wanted to make sure he got some fun adventure time…. We went ATVing, and shooting… and we took him out to various local restaurants.
one adventure was ATVing, which took us down some very familiar (yet wet) trails. at one such familiar puddle, we encountered a totally hidden muddy sink hole. Ridding along in 9”-12” of water, and suddenly our side by side drops into a hole. Our SxS is submerged to the point that Mrs Honda and I are sitting in freezing cold muddy water to our chests…. Unsure how, but our SxS is still running… my buddy is behind us riding an ATV (he avoids disaster). Between Mrs Honda and my buddy, we get the winch tied around nearby trees. The winch and controls are completely submerged in muck. Somehow I’m able to fumble around get the winch to operate. After extricating ourselves from the sink hole, we are able to limp back home (hour ride) with air temps in the 30’s and in soaking wet clothes (brrrrr). Upon returning home, we were greeted by the most amazing sunset…. Wow!
we failed to take pics of us stuck in the sink hole, but we did get some pics of our SxS before cleaning it the next day. There’s an inch of packed mud/clay covering the floor boards, and over everything.
after cleaning out the ATVs, we hit up the range for some fun shooting stuff. My buddy sighted in his deer rifle, and I needed to test out my “carry” gun that got submerged the previous day. Yes, there are very few times in northern WI I don’t pack heat (cuz bears and such). Anyway, my gun had mud in the barrel, and though I cleaned it right away, you always want to test out your equipment that you might depend on in life threatening situations. All was well, and we wrapped up the weekend!
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite threads on here. Just throw in some scotch/bourbon pron and I'm gonna be all set.
12thMan
Full House
Agreed. Beautiful. Congrats and good luck dude.
OP
OP
The cabin is coming completely furnished! Everything in the cabin comes with the sale…
Going through the kitchen cabinets this weekend, the wife found a shlew of great appliances.. from a “Salad Shooter“ to this beauty! I love the avocado green!
Going through the kitchen cabinets this weekend, the wife found a shlew of great appliances.. from a “Salad Shooter“ to this beauty! I love the avocado green!
OP
OP
It’s official folks…. We had our closing tonight… we handed over a lot of various checks to my uncle…. A lot of money! But our name is on the dotted line, we own the property. The Lazy Bear Lodge is officially ours!
bsdunbar1
4 of a Kind
Congrats
OP
OP
im seriously considering it… but there would be a LOT of logistical issues… tables, for starters…. But I’m in the process of building a 51” round table for the cabin…. And i suppose I have one more portable table I could trailer up….? Hmmm, much to think about
OP
OP
Up north again, this time bringing my buddy Mark up to help out. Day one wraps up! We tackled installing one of the new 65” TV and a sound bar. I’m very impressed. Shown is a before and after…
before.
after.
Then tackling the nightmare lower level kitchen…. the cabinets were installed by a master cabinet builder…. Seriously, the guy who helped my uncle buy and installed these cabinets actually worked for the cabinet manufacturer…. I have no idea how these were hobbled together. I mean, they’re nice cabinets, or they could have been. But it was a nightmare game of reverse Tetris to get them out. There were several boxes that weren’t even complete, and were Frankensteined together…. Crazy.
Anyway, many of these cabinets will be repurposed in utility areas for storage or work benches.
before.
after.
Then tackling the nightmare lower level kitchen…. the cabinets were installed by a master cabinet builder…. Seriously, the guy who helped my uncle buy and installed these cabinets actually worked for the cabinet manufacturer…. I have no idea how these were hobbled together. I mean, they’re nice cabinets, or they could have been. But it was a nightmare game of reverse Tetris to get them out. There were several boxes that weren’t even complete, and were Frankensteined together…. Crazy.
Anyway, many of these cabinets will be repurposed in utility areas for storage or work benches.
I enjoy this thread because I can relate. Our cottage is much smaller and just off the lake. I’m working on our deck right now. It’s one of my favorite places to be!
OP
OP
Days 2 & 3 of this trip up north…
we relocated a number of the cabinets to various places… the “toy” garage got a selection of cabinets and will serve as a future workshop. we are putting a sub panel in there on our December 3rd trip. Lights and electricity will be nice.
we put the other cabinets into the utility room. These will provide storage and a work bench of sorts. Here I am screwing in the crazy warped counters (repurposed).. Mrs Honda is holding them down…
the next project was the stairs.. no carpeting and missing side trim…. Carpeting these stairs was a bitch…. Not gonna lie, but there hasn’t been carpet in 9-10 years. It was about time.
the kitchenette area behind and under the stairs got some love. Did some mudding and taping of the drywall, and we installed new LVP flooring. A fridge and cabinet will go along the back wall of this alcove. Under the stairs will get framed in, and wrapped in old tongue and grove pine flooring.
The trip wouldn’t be complete without an obligatory sunrise and sunset pic.. and we also had a monster fire pit to get rid of surplus scrap wood and a ton of packing supplies.
we relocated a number of the cabinets to various places… the “toy” garage got a selection of cabinets and will serve as a future workshop. we are putting a sub panel in there on our December 3rd trip. Lights and electricity will be nice.
we put the other cabinets into the utility room. These will provide storage and a work bench of sorts. Here I am screwing in the crazy warped counters (repurposed).. Mrs Honda is holding them down…
the next project was the stairs.. no carpeting and missing side trim…. Carpeting these stairs was a bitch…. Not gonna lie, but there hasn’t been carpet in 9-10 years. It was about time.
the kitchenette area behind and under the stairs got some love. Did some mudding and taping of the drywall, and we installed new LVP flooring. A fridge and cabinet will go along the back wall of this alcove. Under the stairs will get framed in, and wrapped in old tongue and grove pine flooring.
The trip wouldn’t be complete without an obligatory sunrise and sunset pic.. and we also had a monster fire pit to get rid of surplus scrap wood and a ton of packing supplies.
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OP
OP
Went up north last weekend to work solo…
i tackled all the minor trim work that was unfinished. From missing chair rails to baseboard and wainscoting. There were probably half a dozen sections of chair rail that weren’t complete.
To get the chair rail, we actually have to make it out of 3.5” x 3/4” baseboard Stock. I had to cut it in half than rabbit out a channel on the back to lip over the wainscoting….
there is also several gaps that require creating trim pieces. The bathroom cabinets and three large 10’ wide living room windows needed pieces ripped down and in the case of the window trim, stained to match the interior log stain color.
it also snowed, so I got some spectacular winter views I’ve never seen before.
bottom of the stairs wainscoting and trim
missing chair rails
trim pieces created, such as to conceal a gap between the cabinet and the wall, or under a window.
i tackled all the minor trim work that was unfinished. From missing chair rails to baseboard and wainscoting. There were probably half a dozen sections of chair rail that weren’t complete.
To get the chair rail, we actually have to make it out of 3.5” x 3/4” baseboard Stock. I had to cut it in half than rabbit out a channel on the back to lip over the wainscoting….
there is also several gaps that require creating trim pieces. The bathroom cabinets and three large 10’ wide living room windows needed pieces ripped down and in the case of the window trim, stained to match the interior log stain color.
it also snowed, so I got some spectacular winter views I’ve never seen before.
bottom of the stairs wainscoting and trim
missing chair rails
trim pieces created, such as to conceal a gap between the cabinet and the wall, or under a window.
OP
OP
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We loaded up a buddies trailer with a bunch of stuff and headed north. Including a refrigerator, counter top, poker chairs, a dresser and poker table (partially constructed).
Day one of this trip was the drive (through wind and snow) and sketchy AF. Towing a loaded trailer in this crap sucked. Most of the drive was fine, with practically no traffic.
first thing was to unload the trailer…
next on the agenda was painting the lower kitchen area. this also included swapping out the ugly square acrylic floro light for a nice LED one from Costco. We need to paint the walls and ceiling, and carrying the ceiling paint job to the entire lower level common areas.
before, with the ugly light
after, and the new light
then during dinner, we experienced some great north woods sunsets over the nearly frozen lake..
day two should involve some lock changes, more painting, installing the cabinets, counter, and fridge in the kitchen, along with some trim work. Stay tuned!
Day one of this trip was the drive (through wind and snow) and sketchy AF. Towing a loaded trailer in this crap sucked. Most of the drive was fine, with practically no traffic.
first thing was to unload the trailer…
next on the agenda was painting the lower kitchen area. this also included swapping out the ugly square acrylic floro light for a nice LED one from Costco. We need to paint the walls and ceiling, and carrying the ceiling paint job to the entire lower level common areas.
before, with the ugly light
after, and the new light
then during dinner, we experienced some great north woods sunsets over the nearly frozen lake..
day two should involve some lock changes, more painting, installing the cabinets, counter, and fridge in the kitchen, along with some trim work. Stay tuned!
OP
OP
Day two of the trip was productive. We finished painting the ceiling in the lower level. We installed another 65” roku TV and soundbar, this time in the lower level.
then we tackled the kitchenette cabinets. These are 19” deep, so we needed to create a ledger to fill the gap
We chose butcher block for the counter top. after seasoning the top with mineral oil, it took on a nice tone.
Before
after : the wood on wood color scheme is a bit much, but we hope it will be muted once we add in a few other decor touches. The wire coming out of the wall is a switched circuit that I plan to “outlet” and then hang a neon sign on the wall…
installed baseboard and wainsdotting and unpacked the new fridge.
I’ll post some pics of the downstairs tomorrow once we clean up.
then we tackled the kitchenette cabinets. These are 19” deep, so we needed to create a ledger to fill the gap
We chose butcher block for the counter top. after seasoning the top with mineral oil, it took on a nice tone.
Before
after : the wood on wood color scheme is a bit much, but we hope it will be muted once we add in a few other decor touches. The wire coming out of the wall is a switched circuit that I plan to “outlet” and then hang a neon sign on the wall…
installed baseboard and wainsdotting and unpacked the new fridge.
I’ll post some pics of the downstairs tomorrow once we clean up.
OP
OP
Wrapping up day three! Lots of projects tackled.
For starters, I had some trim I’d ripped and stained on an earlier trip. Each piece was 11’ long and designed to fit under the three main room Windows. There is a gap u dear each window. There is still plastic in the gap, but it just needs to be finished.
before
after
Next came time to install some new locks. We have a number of these keypad locks we will be installed, but for now I just did two, and then took the spare deadbolts to use on various interior doors. We wanted to lock up the utility room, so we installed one of the spare deadbolts there. Keeps it keyed with the various other doors…
Then Mrs Honda found some nagging projects we forgot about.. the beds. I know one of my kids broke a mattress support a few years back jumping on it…. So I had to recreate the board, including the recessed hole for the mid supports. Funny thing, the numbskulls who originally built the bed, had the supports upside down, so the Tnut was on the bottom.. and the supports were literally just falling out. Easy fix, just switch em around so when you tighten the leg support, it actually tightens and pulls the nut further in…. I probably wouldn’t have recognized this had it not been for my poker table builds…
Mrs Honda tackled cabinet pulls in all the bathrooms and utility rooms…. 80+ cabinet pulls.. beast mode!
here are some shots of the lower level. It still has a lot of construction materials sitting about, but we did a quick straightening up, so it looks decent. It looks more usable than it has, ever. The poker table needs upholstery, but that’s for another trip.. It will have a black rail & black speed cloth.
For starters, I had some trim I’d ripped and stained on an earlier trip. Each piece was 11’ long and designed to fit under the three main room Windows. There is a gap u dear each window. There is still plastic in the gap, but it just needs to be finished.
before
after
Next came time to install some new locks. We have a number of these keypad locks we will be installed, but for now I just did two, and then took the spare deadbolts to use on various interior doors. We wanted to lock up the utility room, so we installed one of the spare deadbolts there. Keeps it keyed with the various other doors…
Then Mrs Honda found some nagging projects we forgot about.. the beds. I know one of my kids broke a mattress support a few years back jumping on it…. So I had to recreate the board, including the recessed hole for the mid supports. Funny thing, the numbskulls who originally built the bed, had the supports upside down, so the Tnut was on the bottom.. and the supports were literally just falling out. Easy fix, just switch em around so when you tighten the leg support, it actually tightens and pulls the nut further in…. I probably wouldn’t have recognized this had it not been for my poker table builds…
Mrs Honda tackled cabinet pulls in all the bathrooms and utility rooms…. 80+ cabinet pulls.. beast mode!
here are some shots of the lower level. It still has a lot of construction materials sitting about, but we did a quick straightening up, so it looks decent. It looks more usable than it has, ever. The poker table needs upholstery, but that’s for another trip.. It will have a black rail & black speed cloth.
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