October can be a very soggy month in New Brunswick
which made working on the outside of my cabin a tad inconvenient
even the locals were looking a little ruffled in the rain
it also reminded me that I need to get some preservative on my deck soon
well I could sit and watch a storm forever but unfortunately I got work to do
now this is the part I've been waiting for the fun part of working on this cabin. not that the rest
has been really that bad it hasn't. it has had its fun moments, but this is the one I've been
waiting for because I no longer have to deal with code, I'm dealing with design and that's
something that can go anywhere. now um I've already experimented here with putting the old
wood on this side and I absolutely love it! this is exactly what I was looking for. this is what
I've got actually right here for this end only and I'm trying to make it work. in this corner I used
lighter wood that I've found and uh now I've got a mix. and this is going to be a little bit of a
challenge because there's light wood, and there's dark wood and there's weathered wood. the height
there is about 88 inches and I need a board about 26 inches wide which I think yeah about that size.
so then I put this all down on the floor just to see what I've got. um it's 62" so I need another
uh 26 inches is my math right? I guess hopefully! I and I don't have. it but the good thing is some
of these boards are you know like this one's 57. there's at least a few of them I can cut
in half and make two pieces instead of one. so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm start
gonna start cutting all of these to 26 inches put them out see what looks best and hammer them up
got the boards all cut ready to go up there, but in trying to put them in a logical progression
it's just not working out right. because I've got these beautiful old weathered boards and then I've
got these newer ones. and uh it's kind of clashes! you know it's only a visual thing but hey that's
what it's all about I want it to look good on the wall. now rather than just make all the old
boards look new again so everything matches, I think what I have to do is make the new boards
look old. and that's not that difficult a thing to do. as a matter of fact it gets really really
incredibly easy, and when you see the difference you probably wouldn't even know they weren't old
boards. but the way to do it is if they take boards like this and you grab some vinegar
and this is so easy, steel wool, you just put them together and just let it sit for a day.
and you end up with a jar like this. and I'll just sort of show you. and just mix it up every
once in a while, and if you want to add a little bit of color what I found is if you just throw in
a tea bag that helps as well. but all you have to do is just coat it on. at first it really
doesn't look like much you can sort of see it it's starting to take there a little bit but
give it a while let it dry and you'll be amazed at what it looks like
so I took all the lighter colored boards and coated them with that stain let it sit for an
hour and a half and look there's no more light colored boards. they're just various shades of
brown and gray which is exactly what I want. it would be hard to tell which were the lighter ones,
the newest wood, and and which is the older wood, except for the fact that there's texture on these.
but if you if you forgot let me show you I'm just going to put this one over and you can see that's
what it looked like. and this is what it looks like now. it's a really good stain vinegar and
steel wool a little tea and the vinegar is actually really good for the wood if there's
any hint of black mold um that kills it . there is one no to caution that I have to
make sure everybody understands. I didn't just take this wood and put it on the wall I treated
it first. and the big concern and this is really really big is black mold. now I know for a fact
that some of the wood that I had did have black mold. the way to treat it or the way I treated it
is with vinegar. what I did is I made sure it was completely dry and then sprayed it with vinegar,
just use like a little sprayer like this go right across any areas that are infected
with black mold, let that dry and then you take a wire brush and you brush it down.
so vinegar is actually really good for the wood and as far as the stain goes the price
of a little vinegar and steel wool it's like almost free. look what you get you can rough
some of these up like these smoother ones you can beat the hell out of it or verbally
abuse it whatever you want to do, make it look like these rougher ones but you
know I think once they get it up in the wall nobody's gonna notice the difference
just don't tell them
to separate the entrance from the rest of the cabin I wanted
a thicker board that looked like a support beam
a nice neighbor even donated some old style nails to give it that pioneer look
thank you now one thing I didn't film was installing the insulation. it was just too
boring!
well there we go. the wall is up and I think it looks pretty good. I put a like a fake beam on the
top it's really just a two by six weathered one. and I tried to stagger the pattern,
I didn't want it all one or the other. tried to mix it up and not make it too
perfect. you don't want it to be perfect you know, I've left a few gaps here and there.
um I think it looks like it belongs here and that's the important thing .
I've got a lot more to do with it but I think it's a good basis uh for this particular area. it's
rustic but yeah I still have to work on the door, I'm getting there. but I'm kind of pleased with it
every once in a while there were a few breaks in the clouds to let the sun shine in
now here's something I forgot to even mention. somebody suggested I should get a trail camera
and just see what animals are around when I'm not here and so I took their advice and
I bought a little inexpensive one here that does both stills and videos. you uh strap
it to a tree and if something goes by it's got a motion detector. something goes by in
the middle of the night or where you're not here it'll take its picture. I set it up on
the lower lawn you know near where my fire pit is, and the first time I used it I got
a picture of Prudence of course because Prudence likes to go down here. but when
I set it up a few days later and it was at night it's amazing what the camera captured.
at first was a tiny pair of ears, and then the big eye
initially it looked like it was only two raccoons
but then the third little one appeared from the bushes
I think they were after the deer corn I had left for Prudence
next I put up the camera near the laneway and caught this
scruffy porcupine wandering down the road
just after it looks at the camera and exits the screen, another creature appears.
watch for the sparkle of an eye to the right of the center
there it goes
for those interested in trying this,
the camera was made by "Toguard" and I included a link in the video description
so my next step is this wall here which I call the wood stove wall. why? because it's got the
wood stove in front of it! and you've probably seen this in the past and you might notice it's
looking a little bit better. it's got brand new stove pipe on it it is actually hooked
up. theoretically I could put it on right now but I'm not I want to put it on I want to start
it off for the very first time on a special occasion. it's not cold enough now but it will
be soon. so look out for that the big fire up of the wood stove! but for now I'm doing
this wall. I've taken my old weathered board and I put them across the floor down there. I
have it in an order I think it should work, and all I have to do is put it up. and yes,
a lot of people didn't like that I was using a framing hammer so fine I'll use
a little hammer like this. and I'll I'll have my little dinky finger up like this!!!
so I can go dit dit dit like this... here's my hammer, there's the wall, let's get started
there it is I think it looks good we've got a lot more nails to put in. I've just tacked in
each board in case I had to shift it. didn't know if it was going to make it to the top
correctly but I think that combination should do awesome. now I know there's going to be a flurry
of emails or comments saying "slim what the heck are you doing? you can't put wood behind a wood
stove it'll catch on fire and you'll die! " I am aware of that there's more to follow believe me.
I'm gonna give you one last precautionary note about old wood and fungus. this particular piece
still has black mold right here and although I've killed it with vinegar I haven't removed
the spores. it's the spores that are the issues because people have allergies to them. you got to
get them out of the air and out of the surface of the wood so I'm going to take this outside scrub
it down again and make sure I dust it off. if I had to do it inside however you're gonna have
to wear a mask and you're going to have to use a vacuum cleaner that has a HEPA filter, that way
you're not just transferring the spores from the wood and into the air. now not all fungus is bad,
especially when it's outside because there's all kinds of fungus out there that's actually fun!
in October two unique kinds of mushrooms poke up through the leaves. here
the first is the shaggy mane which is easy to identify and is great fried with a little butter
they appear suddenly overnight and must be picked and cooked before the gills open up
and it turns to black goo. but the popularity contest goes to this mushroom, the stinkhorn
not something I want on my dinner plate as its attraction is not to humans but to flies!
watch as I speed up the camera as a swarm of them arrives
they go absolutely nutso trying to get a lick of this smelly fungi
I bet you thought it was that other stinky stuff that attracts the most flies right?
well, that's now number TWO on the list!!!
ever been annoyed by a fly? it's time I annoyed them back!
I think that's enough about flies and stink it's time to discuss costs.
now there's one other Critter that makes me think fall
the area around my cabin is the stomping grounds to about 20 wild turkeys
although some eyes only see these as food, I turn this around and I feed them instead!
my way of giving back to nature
wild turkeys
not very wild right now. pretty tame
so you see the difference just a few old barn boards can do. this is starting to
warm up. my cabin is actually starting to get a little character. and although it's
getting really cold outside, it's going to be warming up inside. I hope you enjoyed
this video and check out my others as well. I'm going to end off with my first decoration
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bye for now