Cabin on a lake

Today was a pretty mellow day. I got up early to avoid the heat of the day and started carving. I had an idea for a cabin along a lake with some trees on either side... Things didn't go exactly as planned, so only one side ended up with trees and the other got "WELCOME" lettering. Sorry about the poor quality picture. I had the first coat of varnish on it and didn't want to pick it up.

More carvings

Over the past few days I've been carving a bit in the mornings while it's still cooler.

I made a heart with wings for AJ and Kathy's 5th wedding anniversary. They already had a 2nd anniversary heart and I wanted to try making one, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I think it turned out pretty nice. Not much like the original heart, but then it's my design and not intended to be an exact copy or anything...

I carved another Gnome, but to be honest, he looks like he has the haircut that Johnny Depp had in the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Not exactly what I had in mind... I'm still learning.

Fishing is a big thing here in the lakes area of Minnesota, so I figured that I'd try to carve a trophy style fish. I chose a Northern Pike as my subject since I had a sample here at the shop already. I decided to keep it rustic, rough and not add too much detail so it would go along with my "CABIN FEVER" sign. It turned out pretty nice I think. I designed it so that there's a knot exactly where the eye is located.

Today I decided to try to carve a common loon. I used a thicker slab so I could have the loon's head turned toward the viewer. It's hard to see in the picture, by the loon's head is turned and the beak sticks out away from the rest of the piece. Again, I tried not to get too detailed and left it a bit rustic. After all, I made the whole thing with a chainsaw and it's supposed to be a bit rough and look carved.

As you can tell by my shirt in the picture, I get pretty dirty when I carve...

Insulating the dome

This afternoon a contractor came out to shoot the dome with a 2 part urethane foam insulation and rubber coating. The insulation is applied with a sprayer much like a paint and as it cures, it expands (foams) up and hardens. The foam gets pretty hot as it foams and cures. We had about 3-4 inches of foam insulation shot on before the rubber coating was applied and sealed everything up. The dome remains a pretty constant temperature during the day. With no cooling, it's at least 10-15 degrees cooler inside the dome than it is outside. Once we have a vent installed in the skylight we'll be able to vent at night and then close everything down during the day and keep it cold...

Exciting news

One of my bear carvings sold today for $395.00! I have to be honest and say that I didn't really believe that it was going to sell any time soon... AJ and Kathy said that it was a good bear and would sell quick and sure enough the day after I finish burning, sanding and varnishing it it's gone.

Well, I just had to share. I plan to work on finishing my other bear tomorrow. Maybe there's a bit of a career for me with a chainsaw after all. Now if I could just keep AJ in my shirt pocket all of the time to keep giving me advise and pointers. I am too nervous yet to carve anything substantial without him around to keep an eye on my progress. I guess that will come with time...

The chainsaw that I want to buy for myself costs around $300.00. With the bear and another carving of mine that sold earlier I may just have enough (after expenses) to get my own saw and keep carving once we're back on the West Coast.

More dome information

The dome has a slab floor with radiant heater hose embedded in it (the hoses can be seen coming out of the floor in the image to the right). The underside of the slab is insulated from the surrounding earth so that the ground does not affect the temperature of the slab as much as it would otherwise. The radiant heater hose allows for hot water to be pumped through the slab to heat it or cool water to cool it as necessary.

The floor and walls of the dome are meant to not only be structural, but also to act as a thermal storage. To ensure that the temperature in the dome remains as constant as possible, the OUTSIDE of the dome will be insulated so that the thermal mass of the cement is isolated from the outside heat & cold. Unlike a standard stick built home that relies on heating and cooling the air inside a home to manage the temperature, a thermal mass home relies on the ability of the solid walls/floor to hold and slowly release heat energy. It takes much longer to heat or cool the inside, which is what makes it more stable than a standard home. In a standard house, if you open a window and turn off the heat in the winter time, all of the heated air in the house escapes and in only a few minutes there's not much difference between the outside and inside air temperature. With a thermal mass storage home even if a window is wide open and the heat source is off, it takes hours for the heat to be drawn out. Basically the idea is to store heat from the day and use it at night to warm the home in the winter months and to store cold air at night to cool the inside during the day over the summer months...

The dome is very simple design. It's a 12 foot hemisphere that is slightly elongated (taller). There is a door opening and 2 windows. The windows are directly across from each other. There is also a small skylight that can be opened to allow hot air to vent to the outside. AJ added a small 4 inch hole for a stove pipe and also embedded 3 sections of chain in the concrete to allow for a couple of hammocks to be hung inside the dome. Today I added one electrical outlet to the inside. The electrical outlet is just connected to a 2 foot section of heavy electrical (extension) cord. The idea is just to run an extension cord to the dome from the main house when electricity is needed. It also gives us the flexibility to use a generator or inverter located just outside the dome to power the outlet if necessary.

The image to the left shows the left window. Above and to the right of the window is the 4 inch hole for a stove pipe. AJ plans to add a very small "fish house" stove to the dome so that it can be slowly heated inside. AJ found a cute little electric fireplace that may find it's way into the dome in place of the fish house stove... I imagine that a lot of experimentation will go on over the next year as the seasons progress and theory gets a reality check.

The image to the right shows the same window from the outside. The bump just above and slightly to the left of the window is the exit hole for the stove pipe. The texture of the cement is very rough on the outside of the dome, but soon the insulation and rubber coating will cover all of that rough texture and smooth out the exterior. The rubber coating is a copper color, so we're thinking of painting all of the wood trim pieces a deep emerald green to go along with the copper color. The inside will be painted with a latex based paint. AJ wants to go from a white color along the floor to a deep blue sky color near the skylight in the center of the dome.

More work on the dome

AJ and I did a bit more work on the dome to get it ready for insulation and rubber coating. It has windows, a metal door and a bit smoother interior. This weekend the guy who shoots on the insulation is coming, so I have a little bit of electrical work and clean up to get done before he arrives, but other than that, the dome is looking good and getting finished.

We put another layer of cement on the inside of the dome to smooth out the walls. It turns out that it was easier to do it by hand (literally) than to try to trowel it on. While not perfectly smooth, it's a huge improvement over the rough texture that was on there before. The place is looking pretty cute now.

Toilet Trouble

Last night I noticed that the carpet was wet in the bathroom. I thought at first that the girls had just splashed a lot during their evening bath, but after some investigation I found out that the water was coming from the toilet valve. We temporarily fixed the leak, but it was obvious that we were going to need to fix it permanently.

Becky has been dying to get rid of the carpet in the bathroom, so she decided that since we had to remove the toilet anyway, she'd replace it with linoleum. At first that didn't seem like such a big project, but once we got started we realized that the carpet went under the bathtub, stair supports and cabinets too. We ended up trimming the carpet back flush with everything that was too difficult to remove.

Once the toilet was off, we found the problem. The entire valve assembly had cracked and was leaking with each flush. We made a quick trip to the local RV shop in town and bought a replacement of the same brand (next model up). The new toilet is nice. Clean, a little larger and taller which is really nice for me...

The rest of the day was spent putting in linoleum and sealing all of the seams. We didn't get the stairs done, that will have to wait for another day.

Simple hot water

I have not had any more time to work on the solar hot water system. The temporary hose hot water system has been working so damn good that it just seems logical to keep and expand on that simple idea. Today we decided to make the hose a little more of a permanent fixture on the RV and expand the capacity to double the size. So, we purchased another 100 foot black garden hose, some pipe mounting brackets, and a few hundred self drilling sheet metal screws. We painted the brackets semi gloss black to match the hose, and spent a majority of the day siliconing, screwing, and mounting hose to the side and roof of the 5th wheel. After 98 brackets, a few hundred screws and some sore knees - we got the job done. We'll see how long the hose lasts before it starts to leak. It actually doesn't look too bad.

Today's testing shows that we have 4 3/4 gallons of hot water just from our stupid black garden hose. It smells a bit like garden hose, but for showering and doing dishes - it's perfectly fine, we don't drink from the tap anyway.

I can barely move my hands. Over a week and a half of carving has done some damage, I think it's sore muscles, but I can't tell. I can barely move my fingers. I am hoping that a couple of days "off" will help me recover.

Cabin fever

I'm still looking for ways to practice carving and lettering is a new challenge. Using a piece of wood that was destined for one of the tikis, I carved a sign for all of the little lake cabins in the area. We'll see if it was a waste of time or not...

Another day of fishing

Becky and I decided that we needed another day of play...

The girls went swimming. Becky managed a decent sunburn and the girls got good an sandy at the beach. There are a lot of lakes here in Minnesota, especially around the area where we are staying. With the temperature hanging out in the low 90's, the water was a great way for them to cool off.

AJ and I did a little fishing near the boat launch. It was very casual fishing - the kind with chairs and a cooler full of beer. Despite our lack of real effort, we managed to haul in a decent sized small mouth bass that ended up being an appetizer for dinner.

More carvings

I've been working on more carvings. I still don't "see" the finished carving before I take the saw to the wood, but it's getting clearer every day that I work at it.

I did my second bear a few days ago. Everything came together a bit better than the first bear and I needed much less help working through the carving process. I like the face on my second bear better too. It's a bt happier and more "Disney" than my first bear. I forgot to carve the sign, but that can happen at any time, so it's not a big deal...

Today I decided to work on a piece of flat wood which is more or less what I will be working with if I decide to continue carving while on the road. I am concentrating on gnomes since one of my small business ideas involves them. With that in mind, I spent most of the day working on one piece which gives me practice working on gnome faces. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out, despite a few goofs that I managed to work into the carving.

I'm not sure how long we're planning on staying here in Minnesota, but while I am here I plan to learn as much as I can about chainsaw carving, sanding and finishing so that I will know another trade that I can earn money at and get enoyment from.

July 4th

We took a break from all of the work and spent the evening at AJ's farm.

There were great fireworks and a couple of motorbikes to zoom around the 40 acres on. We blazed a few new "trails" through the brush and broke the bikes in a bit more than I think AJ would have liked. Then again we all had a lot of fun and that's what is most important when you're trying to relax and enjoy yourself right?

The fireworks show out at the farm was a blast (literally). AJ had some special fireworks that he brought out that really got your attention and lit up the sky. AJ and Brady lit off lots of really nice fireworks... Unfortunately, I was too busy covering my ears to take any pictures of the big fireworks. It's probably best that I didn't get any photos of them since I am pretty sure that we were supposed to have some kind of license for them and didn't (grinning). It was a good evening...