Old House. Brown Dog

Both Jose and I love to cook, so a nice kitchen is a must for us. The one in the cabin when we bought it was not up to our snuff, so as soon as we decided on new cabinets and had them in hand, we ripped that bad boy out. I worked on the backsplash the same weekend I got drunk on monkey beers and started tearing out the fireplace brick. I managed to get it all out on my own and only added about 6 holes to the wall. no more faux brick for this kitchen! I was actually able to find someone to take the cabinets which was great because they didn't just get thrown away and we didn't have to deal with throwing them away, but bad because when ever you give something away on craigslist, you really get what you pay for in terms of the people who take the free things...I got in a minor fight with the taker, but in the end after we made up the cabinets were gone. It is pretty crazy how little is actually holding up your cabinets, so removing them was a piece of cake. bye brown cabinets! Aft...

We bought beds for the cabin almost right away. After about a month of sleeping on an air mattress we remembered we are old folk and went to the bed store in Breckenridge. We were able to get a bunch of mattresses on sale (I think mattresses are always on sale, kind of like Kohls) and I managed to score a bunk bed frame on Facebook marketplace. The beds were the only furniture we had aside from camp chairs for quite some time. After a few weeks of living with the bunk beds, I decided I didn't like the tone of the wood, so I bought some stain at the Depot. Then came a Friday night when Jose was working on the floors and didn't give me a project... If I don't have a project I just start drinking. After several brewskis, I decided the time had come to stain the bunk bed! Now, I am not the most careful carl to begin with, but give me a few drinks and all caution goes to the wind. I did lay down some sheets and cardboard before I began but that was where the smart thinking stopp...

One of the things I love most about the cabin, other than everything, is the wood stove. I love forcing Jose to make a fire for me so I can sit by it and drink wine or read a book. That said, the area surrounding the fireplace was quite fugly. hashtag not cute So I did what any reasonable adult would do and drove up to the cabin one friday night with no groceries and my brown dog/bestie to tear it out. Jose was working in Utah this weekend so I was left to my own demolition devices.  I assumed this would be a real piece of cake. It wasn't. I got a little frustrated with how difficult it was to remove the faux brick so decided to take a break for dinner. I didn't have any food so I ate a slice of cheese and had a few Monkey beers. They are 9% if you've never had one. Once I was re-fueled the project went more smoothly. And I was able to knock out most of the brick. The little bit remaining, I left for Jose and his brother the next weekend and turned it into a contest to see ...

One of the things I love most about the cabin reno is we have not yet created a walkway or steps from the driveway to the cabin so the walk up in the winter is treacherous and quite a work out. (I am not being sarcastic, I actually like this and get real excited when I look at my fitbit after unloading the truck). We started on the floors during a pretty snowy weekend so carrying the boxes up to the house was intense. I logged 3 miles just going back and fourth to the truck, and each box weighed 40 pounds.  Construction Boots are a must We went back and forth quite a bit on what flooring to go with. Eventually we landed on a luxury vinyl, but deciding on the color/tone was a whole process following that. I brought about 30 samples up and set them on the floor like a fun puzzle you trip over to come to a decision. I eventually went with an oak tone wood look.  Why fake wood you might ask? Well, we have hard wood in our Denver house and I saved for months when I first bought the...

When we bought the cabin it had carpet throughout. Not very nice or clean carpet, but carpet nonetheless. Now, I am not a big carpet person in general, but given the cabin is in the woods and will be used for skiing and maybe a rental when it grows up, I knew I wanted hard floors. So one weekend I had a few beers and ripped it all out. I actually really enjoyed removing the carpet. I got to lay on the floor and stretch and bang a crow bar with a hammer to remove the tacks. It was pretty fun, and I only hit my hand once which was much better than I anticipated. The weekend I decided to pull out the carpet was a few weeks before we would be installing the new floors, so Jose and I got crafty. After I removed all the tacks, we actually rolled the carpet back down. That way we did not have to walk on plywood for weeks before the new floors were in (we both are always barefoot). It worked great, and when we were ready to install the new floors in a room, we just rolled the carpet and took i...

You guys, I hate painting. Like so much. I hate it so much that I forget how much I hate it until a few years later when I do it again. This is my relationship to amusement parks as well. I knew I wanted the interior of the cabin to be green because nature and shit, but anyone who has been to a paint store knows there are 1065707980.67 varieties of green. I had broken my wait a few years rule when painting the interior having just completed the exterior so I really wanted to pick the right shade. Picking a good shade isn't always my forte. I have repainted my office twice and my bathroom thrice in the 6 years I have lived in my house. To avoid that, I tested just about every green you can imagine. I do not rely on samples these days (see above bathroom comment) so I get the cute baby testers. It took several weeks for me to land on my greens. I won't even lie and say that is all the samples I tested By the time I finally decided on the two shades of green, Jose was shipped to U...

For most of the cabin we are trying to do a quality job with a small budget, for the shed however we decided to just slap some lipstick on a pig. The cabin came with a shed, or a few pieces of particle board nailed together that has a door like part on front might be a more accurate description. I am sure at some point we will build a legit shed with a foundation and a real door and all the bells and whistles, but right now we just need somewhere to protect stuff from snow and bears. For reals, I found bear prints on the shed and squealed in excitement, but they steal tools and picnic baskets I hear so we need to keep the shed locked. before. sorry for the photo quality, I was on the vodka that day The shed makeover was a really simple project and we even had friends visiting to help us with it. We bought some of the siding and trim we used to patch up the exterior of the cabin and attached it to the sides, we then painted it all the same color as the cabin. The overhang of the shed th...

You guys, I am a real clean freak. I like everything to have its place and I get all sorts of stressed when they don't. So I was as shocked as anyone by my love for our cabin trash heap. When we bought our house in Denver the previous sellers decided to leave us a bunch of treasures in the form of crap they didn't want to move. Now having never owned a house, I didn't realize you have to actually pay to throw shit away, so in this contract I made sure to include that every single thing be removed. Naturally it was not. There was quite a bit of junk left in the shed and the house, and as we got to tearing things out we generated even more junk. We quickly realized we would need a dumpster but those bad lads aren't cheap so in order to get the biggest bang for our buck we collected as much trash as possible before having one delivered, and so was born the trash heap. We nurtured the heap for weeks and it grew into a beautiful child. baby heap It was so glorious being able...

Every project we have tackled thus far has been fun or at the very least tolerable. Except for one... When we bought our cabin we were informed that the septic system was not up to snuff. In the county where the cabin lives, the seller is responsible for getting the septic up to code before a property can be sold. Lucky for us!  Now, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and currently live in the City of Denver, so as one might assume my knowledge of septic systems, or leech fields, or whatever the kids call them these days is limited to say the least.  As a result of the ground being totally frozen when we put our offer in on the cabin, our realtor told us the septic work would need to wait until the ground thawed, but it was no biggie because we would just include in the contract that the seller would take care of everything and we could use the cabin and it would be no problem. That shit was wrong. It was a big deal. The giant hole where our driveway once was... The contracto...

After spending an entire weekend painting the cabin, we were stoked to get back the following week to see how beauteous it looked. When we pulled up the drive however we noticed several spots on the front of the cabin were much lighter than the rest. I just figured some woodland creature had dirtied things, and hosed it off. Nothing changed. So then I got to thinking... what's up with these splotches?  Do you have combination skin like your mom little cabin? The entire cabin was painted with the gallons of paint I purchased at a little paint shop in Denver, with the exception of two gallons used on the front of the cabin which were bought at the Ace hardware near the cabin when we ran out of paint. Normally I would be all hot and bothered by this, but I am trying this new calm thing out so I just took the remaining paint in the two new gallons along with some photos and went to Ace. Now, I love a small mom and pop shop and I would gladly give Ace hardware my money over Home Depot o...

I did not hate the look of the cabin when we bought it. In fact I quite liked it. ze cabin before... But then....Pinterest. So I quickly decided I would paint it black!  I found the color I wanted pretty quickly, Benjamin Moore Black Forrest. I did grab a few dark greens to test just to be sure I was ready to take the plunge, but ruled them out as soon as I saw black beauty. I always buy paint samples, I like to see my colors in the flesh not a paint chip, and the tiny jars are the cutest ever Before we could paint we had to do a bunch of work to the exterior. We removed the shutters and planks on the top of the cabin, replaced the siding where we had cut it out to replace the rim joists, along with a bunch of other places, and we power washed. This took us about a day and a half if memory serves. We also decided to replace the existing doors with new ones that had windows so we could see the trees! Now there are windows almost all the way around the front and side of the cabin whi...