The Good & Plenty Upstairs Powder Room

Yes, that is “Good & Plenty” pink-and-white paneling in the powder room! This powder room is actually a closet that someone converted to a (very!) small bathroom! the previous owners covered all the logs with paneling. This is how the room (closet!) looked when we bough the cabin in 2009.

February 2010: Ripping out the paneling to expose the logs

In February 2010, Brian asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day… I told him I wanted the Good & Plenty GONE! … so on February 14, 2010, we began the first phase of the upstairs powder room!

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Ripping out the tile floor in my slippers… haha!
Making a bit of a mess!

After we ripped the paneling out, Brian installed a new toilet, and I refinished the logs and chinking, and installed a new floor so that we could use this “toilet/sink room” if needed. This is how the powder room remained for 11 years until we could do the next phase. Directly on the other side of that wall behind the toilet is another closet where the previous owners installed a stall shower…crazy, right?!

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Stall shower in adjacent closet (gross!):

 Ever since we moved in we used the first floor master bathroom as our main bathroom and wondered if there was a way to marry the “shower” closet with the “toilet/sink” closet and somehow make it a functional (and more normal!) bathroom. I had formulated plans in my mind of busting through the wall behind the toilet, and bumping out one of the other walls to allow for a pocket door, but we didn’t know if what I had dreamt-up would even be possible. What Brian and I did know was that this job would be way beyond our capabilities, and we would have to wait until we could seek out the advice of a contractor.

Almost 11 years later, in January 2021, my plan came together. Brian and I were ready to seek out someone to survey the job, and we shared my idea with a friend and local contractor,  J.Reynolds Custom Homes and Renovations who said it actually was doable!

Breaking through the wall to join the 2 closets

Shower closet gutted – looking into the toilet/sink room:

What was the shower closet now gutted

Gutting the adjacent shower closet

Busting through the original walls to create the new angle of the outer wall

Build-out of the new outer wall

Outer wall completed

Floor installation

Marrying the 2 closest together

Vanity

I’m disappointed that I never took a “head-on” photo of the original vanity…but you can get an idea of what it looked like from the first photo in the below set:

Toilet/Shower area

Project completed!

We now have a full bathroom upstairs with the shower, toilet and vanity all in one room!

First shower in the new shower

Although Limoncello (below left) was the first to actually walk into the shower, she declined and gave the first shower actual to Sweet Reet.

Margarita christened our new shower in April of 2021, just two months before she gained her angel wings.

Miscellaneous construction photos along the way

The Kitchen

The kitchen has been the longest-running project.  We built the cabinets all by hand – with no plans to follow, and no idea what we were doing!  We get complements on them constantly – they really came out great – and fit right in with our cabin!

The kitchen is mostly completed as of today (11/16/2013)…but we still need to complete the ceiling (we are going to do a tin ceiling), get hardware for the cabinets, and complete the chinking on 3 walls of the kitchen and adjoining pantry.

The kitchen when we originally looked at the house…

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The kitchen during the demolition…

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Building the cabinets

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…and the kitchen as of 11/16/13

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Copper farm sink…Brian’s pick!

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Other end of the kitchen

Adjoining pantry/laundry room (still needing the chinking in between the logs down as well as the ceiling)

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2019

Chinking (white stuff!) getting done in the kitchen:

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2018:  The “tin” ceiling going up!

 

 

2019

 

Kitchen Wall

One of the walls in our kitchen was nothing but rotted logs (from old roof leakage) and  a very tiny window.  We had the logs on hand, but hadn’t gotten around to replacing the wall. Friends of ours called us one morning to tell us they were removing a large window from their home to replace with a larger window, and that they thought we may be able to use it…well, it was a perfect size, and we dropped what we were doing that day, and ripped out the wall and old window!

Rotted logs and old window removed
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New window in and trimmed, and new logs installed…just need to stain the logs, and chink in between logsphoto 2 (1)

2019:  Farm table and chinking/trim complete

The Bar

More paneling on walls and ceiling to rip out… this room was a “treat”…we discovered to bats behind the paneling while ripping it out…quite the experience – and something I will NEVER forget!

The bar before…

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Bye Bye paneling….!IMG_2339

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Bats…YIKES! Brian brought them safely out of our house!

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With the paneling gone, it’s on to stripping the bark off the logs, sanding them down, staining the logs, securing loose wires, repairing the chinking, and painting the chinking!IMG_2345

The exposed ceiling in the bar…

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The bar after all the staining and painting…DSC08563

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Lodge Room

Originally, the lodge room walls and ceiling were covered with painted-white paneling, and the ceiling was dropped down far enough where we could reach up and touch it.  (The actual original height of the lodge room is 21 feet). You could only see half of the 2 story stone fireplace.  After we tore all the paneling off, we had to strip the logs of the bark (by hand), sand the logs, stain the logs, re-run the wires to hide them, repair the chinking (white stuff in between the logs), and paint the chinking… it was quite the project!!  In the middle of us doing this project, we had people asking us where we are living when all this is going on… the look on their faces when we told them we were living “right here!” in the middle of this construction zone was hysterical!

Lodge Room fireplace before…
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Ripping out the paneling…

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Windows behind the paneling! Awesome…light!IMG_1439

 

 

After the ceiling was exposed, the logs were stained, and the chinking was painted…IMG_2868

 

Lodge Room Wall

When we first moved in , I kept hearing “noises” in the lodge room…after some careful inspection, and some helpful hints from our cat, Loki, we discovered a family of squirrels were living in between the  paneling and the logs.  We trapped the squirrels and relocated them (mom and 3 “kids”), and removed the paneling…to find that we were left with a log wall that hand been gnawed down, where you could see through to the outside!  With some help from family and friends, we removed a window, replaced the chewed logs with new ones, and reset the window.

Lodge Room wall with chewed logs

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Lodge Room wall after all the work…

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The Side Yard

Our side yard was a mish-mosh of broken brick, slate, pavers, railroad ties, and a ridiculously over grown garden.  I spend an entire summer taking out each brick, paver, piece of slate, and railroad tie by hand, and stacking up the “good” pieces of brick (to re-use for a patio).  Brian “mowed” down the garden, and roto-tilled the entire yard in an attempt to grow grass in the sandy Pine Barren soil…EVERYone told him it was impossible to do… and what does Brian do when someone tells him he can’t do something?  He makes SURE he does it! …

The side yard as it was…

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Dante and Cleopatra checking out my piles after we installed the new fence:

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Brian, mowing down the jungle…I mean “garden”….

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The Roto-tiller….

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“New” side yard, with patio and walkways built with whatever good materials we saved from the original yard…oh – and the grass that was “impossible” to grow …way to prove everyone wrong, Brian!

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New “GSP” size fencing! Added in Winter, 2015:

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Porch

The 40 foot porch overlooking the lake had been screened in, and the log railings had been replaced by a plywood wall. We wanted to restore the porch to it’s original form – log railings.  We asked around town about where we could buy logs, and we were connected with a man named “Spike”…he still operates the saw mill where the original logs of this home were milled!  Generations of his family harvested cedar trees, milled them at their saw mill, and carted them by horse and buggy down the main street of our town, to the log homes that were being built here!  It was great getting some more history about our home and community from Spike!

Porch Before…

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Porch After…

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