20
Jun

Log Rhythms: Endless Trim…

Even with all the major work done on the inside of the cabin, one final task remained: Trim work. If we weren’t such a nice family, one could argue that there was still some lack of privacy in all of the bedrooms and bathrooms, because the baseboards and door trim had not been put up yet.

This project, unfortunately, began in the summertime last year…in Texas. Much of the work had to be done outside. Granted, we largely worked under porches, but it was still hot, sweaty work.

It wasn’t easy for the hubby and father-in-law–I wanted an arts and craftsman look trim-wise. Each door required 4 pieces of trim. Each window required 7 pieces of trim, including window bucks. Even in a small cabin like ours, that meant entire rooms filled with stacked trim pieces as the hubby and father-in-law routed each piece. And that doesn’t even include the baseboards!

Once everything was routed, then we had to sand, wipe down and apply stain and lacquer. We applied 3 coats to everything to make it as smooth as possible. The father-in-law and hubby rigged up some bracing to hang pieces as they sprayed them with lacquer and sawhorses to apply stain. On the porch we also rigged up some more “shelving” with twine and scaffolding. This was to allow the pieces to dry as we worked on the other pieces.

We put tarps down all over the porch to protect the deck. Unfortunately, when we were finally done, we pulled up the tarps only to notice that some stain had been pulled off the porch deck and in a few places, some trim stain had leaked through. ARGH!

Then came the nailing process. We used a nail gun to install all of the above and often the nails didn’t want to permeate that log facing very well. But we finally got it done.

When we nailed up the first door’s trim, I was suddenly transported to my grandmother’s home. I realized I had selected the right design for the trim in that moment–I had the exact trim as in her arts and craftsman home! It was even in a stain color akin to hers!

We guesstimate that we saved about $ 4 or $ 5 per piece of trim we put up. In the fall our exterior builders returned to see our finished cabin. We had had the option of having them do all the trim for us. When they looked at what we had completed, they said that they would have had to charge us much more than what was originally quoted, because the price was only for very simple trim. Since their price was more than we wanted to spend, budgeting-wise, I am so glad that the hubby, father-in-law and I worked our fannies off to do the trim ourselves.

Would I like to do it all over again? The answer is not any time soon! But if it saves us as much money as it did this time, we will probably be doing it again for when we build another cabin across the lake. Let’s hope we can do it in the wintertime next time.

Next Post: White Dog Bowls

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2018 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Log Rhythms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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