River Run Cabin, Cuchara, Colorado: Spring Break Workcation

My husband Don, my sister Linda and brother-in-law Brett and I spent spring break week in March working on our cabin. We loaded a long trailer up with building materials and drove to Cuchara. Unfortunately the driveway was too steep and slick for us to back the trailer up to the garage, so we had to unload everything a good ways away from the house and haul it by hand up to the cabin! Good exercise, but hard on Texans who are not used to doing strenuous work at 9,500' altitude.

Linda hauling a cedar staircase railing. She likes green, in case you didn't notice!

Just a few things we hauled in. We did have a dolly to help us, but those porcelain tiles get heavy, especially when you're hauling them up a slick hill. Each load got a bit smaller.

The hot water heater is in, but so far we don't have water to the cabin, Hopefully it will be working for the next trip anyway. The hot water heater is in the equipment room in the basement.

A view of the ceiling in the basement. The ductwork for the heating system is being boxed in. All the insulation will be covered with sheetrock or particle board and finished.

Another view of the basement ceiling. It was lucky it hadn't been finished when we got there because it turned out the electrician installed the wrong kind of wire to the thermostat, and Don and I had to run a complete new wire all the way from the furnace upstairs to the thermostat. Only had to cut out a small hole in the sheetrock upstairs, thank goodness! If we had waited another week to come to Cuchara, this would have turned into a much bigger production.

The entrance to Linda & Brett's bedroom. You can see the thermostat on the wall on the right. This is BEFORE we had to cut a hole in the wall to re-run the thermostat wiring.

Here's what Don had to cut out to re-install the thermostat wire. We had planned to just fasten the new wire to the one the electrician installed and pull it through, but that didn't work because the electrician had stapled the wire to the studs inside the wall. Took a while to get that figured out, and it's still a mystery to me why he installed the wrong wire in the first place. The instructions are pretty clear that it requires 5 strand wire, and the one he put in only had 2. Obviously didn't read the instructions. I'm sure anyone who has built anything has had this same type of experience, though.

Another view of the basement. The door is the entrance to the staircase going up to the first floor.

The basement has really thick, R-39 insulation. This will be covered with sheetrock and finished out.

The wood you see stacked on the right is tongue-and-groove aspen which will be installed on the ceilings.

Circuits in the basement equipment room.

The equipment room has been sheetrocked and looks pretty nice now. Not nearly as scary as I thought it would be! The first time we heard the furnace come on, it was music to my ears! Between the furnace and the wood stove, the cabin ought to be pretty comfortable next winter. It's my dream to live somewhere that doesn't require air conditioning, so maybe someday we can retire to Colorado. So great to wake up and hear birds singing and the river running! Not too fond of listening to the wind, though, but we have plenty of wind in Texas too.

Furnace wiring.

Don is installing the outdoor temperature sensor for the furnace. It tells the furnace when to start storing heat in the ceramic bricks.

We brought our shop vac this trip. I think I would have gone insane without it, although a person could use it all day long and still keep finding dust and dirt. Unfortunately spring has come early to Cuchara this year, and there is mud everywhere! Between the mud, the sawdust and the sheetrock dust, it's a pretty dirty job building a cabin.

The underside of the loft floor. You can also see the loft ceiling. The blue thing is where a lighting fixture will be installed in the hallway near the downstairs bathroom.

Gary Pino, a local, is doing the tape and bedding and the texturing. He has finished the texturing in the upstairs but is still working on the downstairs. His texturing is really nice, reminds me a bit of adobe. We'll be painting when we come back in June.

Brett built the enclosure for the downstairs shower stall and installed the shower pan. We have to get this inspected by the state plumbing inspector before we can install the tile.

UPDATE: The inspector came and we passed the test! Yay for us, and good job Brett! This means we can start putting in the tile and finishing out the bathroom on the next workcation.

The ceiling and wall in my bedroom. You can see a little bit of the texture in this shot.

Don is using our bedroom as a shop for working on the staircase railings and balusters. The closet will be on the left, and the area on the right will be used for extra storage.

Another view of my bedroom, aka Don's shop.

While we were there Brett's sister, her daughter and grandson dropped by to inspect our progress.

Great-nephew Riley was a big help with hauling in snow to melt into the shower pan! (We don't have running water in the cabin yet so we had to improvise a bit.)

Riley is very safety-conscious. He thinks the railings ought to go all the way up to the ceiling!

He was a bit concerned that Don hadn't finished the staircase railing yet. We assured him that we weren't going to stop until it was finished!

Riley went outside and inspected the snow also. Because of the spring melt, there was quite a bit of mud in the driveway. Riley says he is "Not a mud guy." I'm sure that's a relief to his mom! Most little boys I know love to jump into a mud puddle.

Here are some of the railings and balusters (or are they spindles?) Don has made for the cabin. They are made of Texas cedar. Don got the poles from a cedar supplier in Granbury, TX and he's been drilling holes and cutting tenons since before Christmas out on our back porch. Our house smells like a hamster cage!

Don with a partially-completed section of railing. He says that putting these together is like playing Whack-A-Mole. Only not as much fun!

Working on the railing in the loft. It's difficult to install a length of railing between two fixed objects.

Preparation for adding two more sections of railing.

It is really tricky getting this to line up. Don built a kind of diving board that he used to keep the railing from falling down while pulling it into place. You can see it hanging out on the left side of the picture. There are companies that you can buy pre-made railings from, but we wanted a more hand-crafted look. It's a lot of work, though!

For the center two sections it required all four of us working together.

Almost done!

It worked! (Thank goodness!) Only a few tense moments. Good thing we have 2 big strong men, I don't think Linda and I are much good in the muscle department. But we're great with advice!

One of the things Linda and I did this week was to stain the inside of the cabin. It was easy, but a little bit nervewracking. I didn't think I was afraid of heights until I was up on a (rickety) ladder with a bucket in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. It looks a lot further down when you're standing up on top of the ladder.

It's amazing how much different the logs look after they've been stained. That's the front door you see below me.

Linda is on the big ladder; I'm on the smaller ladder.

And Brett is working hard, making sure Linda's ladder doesn't wobble!

Now what was it I forgot? Oh, yeah, my paintbrush and bucket!

Taping the glass prior to staining.

Linda staining the peak. She doesn't like heights either, but somebody had to do it! I also cut lengths of insulation and stuffed them up along the junction between the walls and the roof. That was NOT fun!