Nice job, John

Welcome mogie!  Looking forward to watching your dream come true!  I used to snow ski a lot but haven't in years.  Took a really bad fall at Snow Mass in Colorado - didn't break anything but had to be taken down by the ski patrol in a litter (guess that's what it's called) - was way up at top & seemed like it took forever to get down - was embarrassing    Skiing was fun, though!  Had some friends who were ski patrol who had a cabin close by Badger near Yosemite so used to stay there & get to ski free - ahhhh, that was the life!

Really interesting - am enjoying reading about your progress & seeing all the pictures!  Looks like the little guy is having a ball! 

Impressive!

We love to go snowboarding in the winter months and for the longest time we have been dreaming about having our own place to stay when we travel up north.  We purchased a small area of land in northwest Michigan, near the ski slopes.

We will be building a 1-1/2 story, 34 x 20 cabin.

We have our septic and well permits, a street address and are now waiting on our building permit.  The wait is killing me, I have to learn to be patient.  We found a contractor to install the septic tank and well, and he will also clear the property of brush etc, put in a driveway and culvert and build a foundation for us.  We can't do anything though until we get that building permit!  My husband has a few friends who are willing to help us build the cabin.

On my lunch break right now so will post more when I have time.   

That really looks sharp. 

So it's been a crazy last week!!!  A lot of 12-14 hour days of almost non-stop working.  When the machines are here , stuff moves FAST.  I was basically cheif ditch digger and forman with deb helping whenever humanly possible.  We got a call on the weekend saying they would be there monday ready to go full steam.  This was good except we needed to finish up drainage around the footer and a weekend full of shows with the band.  

So we were constanly pushing to get the french drain redug out AGAIN,the vapor barier installed on the walls and french drain finished on the sides.  One more time of a day full of moving mud and digging out the work that had been filled in by errosion.  the soil we have is def high clay ...every time it's wet it's heavy and sticky.  II'm glad it's done now

I had in my head to use plastic membrane on the rear wall (per john hait PAHS book) with a rug to protect from back fill.  But the logistics of getting the plastic to stick on the wall (duck tape?) then trying to keep a rug up against it while Tim backfilled seemed tricky.  So instead we use grace ice and water shield.  It had enough adheasion to stay for quite a while (we have since tacked furring stips onto it to keep it from peeling off).  

The house is bermed into a rather steep hill and there is water consitantly running from a shelf underground ( The water that you see in the above french drain coming out).  It's not like the  spring above but seems to come out as little droplets evenly above a certain elevation point in the dirt through out a 30' swatch.  We decided instead of a  even pitch grade drop to a swale in behind the house,  to instead drain to a deep ditch (5 or so feet).  This did a few things.  It got us below the elevation in the dirt that had water dripping in it, so that it does not penetrate the mass behind the house which needs to be dry.  This was evident when after the pic was taken. The earth behind the drainage ditch we got to as steep as possible before we thought it might be a problem for errosion.  I don't see any water coming out of the french drain now that the ditch is completly done and filled in.  So maybe we got it, time will tell.  It also saved on the amount of dirt we had to do something with.  There are only so many placed we can put dirt ( 2 really) and those piles are getting REALLY high.

Having the septic set was pretty sweet.  The septic has to be away from the house 25' (past where the horizontal earth insulation skirting will go.  This way if we need to pump it when can get to it with out tearing out the insulation etc!  Tim set it with the track-hoe while i was trying to play catch up so they were not waiting.  Working with these guys is great.  Both of them are good operaters and even though they don't complelty understand why we need a drainage ditch 25' away from the house they humor me (although getting a bit of ribbing).  Not only that they are trying to understand how things work  they also  have a varied skilset (like so many around here they wear many hats) and have a lot of different experiences we can benefit from, so i'm very happy with them.

 I'll let deb post the rest of the pictures and I'll comment on them.  This is about 1/2 way through the work they did

I like the Osburn models out of Canada. I would disagree that you want the biggest stove! What you should strive for is the correct size for the job you intend to do. The worst case would be too big of a unit for the job. Modern woodstoves keep the glass clean burn extremely clean and if installed correctly with a long chimney never get smoke in the house!  Good Luck!

DOG I haven't gotten a lot yet only dressers and chest.  It seems that estate auctions have slowed down here lately.  I did purchase about 75 gunny sacks which I may convert them to curtains later.  

Yesterday I finished the deck for the time being.  The only portion remaining is adding two benches to the area adjacent to the fireplace on either side.  I have been looking for plans which will suit the space.  I may have to wait on that portion of the project until I get the stone laid on the fireplace so I can properly place them.  Building them first would probably create a headache in laying the stone.  

After the railings have dried out in a couple of months I plan on routing the edges , sanding and staining them the same color as the siding on the B&B addition.  The floor I will probably wait until the following year to treat.

Here is a few pictures of the finished deck.  

That is great, Tickhill.

On the batteries you will want to have enough that you only discharge them to about 1/2 capacity.  Don made a calculator in the free stuff section of the forum I think it is.  It may cover it.  Fun to play with if you have time.

I also increased my order for the 190's to 6 of them - 3 arrived and 3 more are on the way - actually they are at a truck terminal about 40 miles away - I told him it was OK to wait for all of them to deliver them.  That is another 1000 watts -a bit over, so my batteries should like that.  The panels will power everything including pumping most days and the batteries will standby for night.  

I even run a welder off of my solar power doing some decent sized projects.  At our place most of the time it is like we are on grid even though we are off.

We figured that now is a good time to expand the system as some figure the prices may start going up again.  That may not happen if the economy continues coming down.  Better to take a chance and get it while we still have jobs.