Windows on the World

 

   Teresa and I used to go to auctions many years ago when we were furnishing our house. Bargains were available if no one else was there who wanted what we wanted. If someone raised the bid above our reserve, I'd glance at Teresa. If she nodded, I'd hold up our bidding card. If she didn't then I wouldn't and we'd feel bad for a bit and mosey over to the food stand for something sweet.

   One time we bought a pile of cute red windows for the cabin we might one day build in a scenic spot in the woods. We had picked out the perfect place for this cabin on a high spot overlooking the river and surrounded by trees. The spot was on our snowshoe loop so we passed it almost every day in the winter.

   Over the years I kept thinking about this little cabin or shack or hermitage. I even bought a set of plans for a 12' x 8' cabin modeled on Thoreau's slightly larger cabin on Walden Pond. Our son Matt asked to look at the book and we were shocked when a few months later he announced that he and his brothers Joe and Ned would all be coming to build the cabin.

   Matt sent a list of materials to be delivered from the local lumberyard and also requested that I pick up nine concrete pads and bring them to the building site. The building site is 347 steps (.15 miles) from the house and takes three minutes to walk there. There are two ravines along the trail. In late March there was still snow so I transported the pads by sled, three at a time, taking care not to get run over by the load going into the ravines.

Matt tests the pads

   In mid-April the boys arrived with spouses and kids. Their plan was to assemble the floor and walls in the garage where there was power then carry the sections to the building site. The snow was now melting and the ravines were muddy and slippery, but by standing the sections on end, we were able to carry/slide the sections to the site. Some of us had done considerable trail blazing and site prep before the big move.

   Over a nine day period the boys, wives Heather and Victoria, John and Sue Carstens and Joe Stenzel got the cabin, or Cabinet as we call it, put together. Crucially, John loaned us his Honda generator to run the power equipment at the site. Meanwhile Teresa dug out the five best of the old red windows and started scraping out the cracked putty. 

   Once everyone went home, I started working on the windows. Each window had six panes. Three of the panes were broken so they were replaced. I bought a large tub of putty but my early puttying work was a mess. The  YouTube videos made it look simple. I needed a video that showed how to do it badly like me, and then how to not do that. I did pick up enough tips so that the fourth and especially the fifth window looked pretty good. I wanted to redo windows one, two and three, but Teresa said life was too short for that.

   We were gone half of June and we had guests here all of July. In August I started working seriously on the windows. Some of the puttying videos said it can take weeks for the putty to dry completely. My putty took the paint beautifully. The paint highlighted my rough work, but as John Carstens said, "You're not building a piano." So true.

   Meanwhile, Joe Stenzel has been coming Saturday afternoons and the cabin siding and door have gone on and it's looking better all the time. There's a little woodstove inside waiting for a chimney. The walls need to be insulated and covered. People offer us small pieces of furniture. I'm looking for a small couch that turns into a bed. I'm now painting the four windows in the other three walls. None of them  have putty, God love them.