While I've been making a mess in the interior of our Alaska lake cabin, good things are happening on the exterior.
It's time to put in windows and doors!
By the time we started hauling in windows and doors, the snow had melted, so we could not haul in via snow machine over the lake ice. Snow machine is preferred because the snow trails are smoother and the snow machine sled trailer is longer and can haul more materials. But we made do, transporting the doors and windows with the ATV trailer.
We had originally intended to build our own doors, but with the tight filming schedule for DIY Network, we had to drop a few things off our lists, and doors were one of them :( . That is something we could do in the future, should the need arise.
We choose craftsman style doors because the window is a little higher, providing some protection against bears. The doors went right in the framed walls.
The windows would be a different story though! Not only are there many more of them, but they are located in harder to reach areas, and are very heavy.
That, and I've had this recurring nightmare that a window won't fit or is the wrong size.
On the front of the cabin we have a wall of windows in the great room. We first protected the walls from moisture - you can use tyvek or similar too. The main thing is to layer in such a way that the water runs down and can't get behind the paper and into the plywood wall.
We built temporary scaffolding using leftover materials, tied into the foundation of the cabin to give us somewhere to stand while installing the windows.
The windows were passed through the interior of the cabin, out to the scaffolding.
Then the openings were prepped for the window with a window sealer,
And then the windows were lifted in place, bottom first,
Leveled up and screwed on. The lower windows went pretty quick.
Now for the upper windows ...
Despite me not wanting to spend the extra time and materials, we could see no other way to install the upper windows safely and securely without building another level of scaffolding.
Out here remote, where emergency rooms are several hours away, you just can't risk someone falling from a ladder.
We also reasoned that having the scaffolding up would save us time when we went to side the cabin.
We also built scaffolding inside the cabin to bring the window up. The interior scaffolding will also be used for finishing the front wall and was super simple to make - just some 2x8s resting on top of the loft floor and the upper window sill.
With the scaffolding, adding the upper windows became as simple as the lower windows.
As simple as a triple pane window of this size could be anyway. I sure hope we never have to replace this window - it won't be an easy one to get to.
Yay, the front windows are in! And they all fit!
The windows are then trimmed out in wood to match the timberframe.
I'll have to admit, the scaffolding was a good idea, and was worth the time investment to build.
Time for siding!
Have a great weekend!
XO Ana + Crew