Margarit and Helena and I went out to Nordegg last Friday after work. The two older girls stayed home. My Mom came along with us. Mom has been out to Nordegg with us before, but not for over a year. The last time she was out there we were still staying in our trailer, and only the driveway and some site clearing had been done. Now we have a nearly functional cottage...!
On Saturday we put up the chimney for our woodstove. I brought out the extra length of stove pipe that we had been missing last weekend. We stacked the pipe from the bottom up. Then I lifted the whole assembly from below, while Margarit was up on scaffold guiding it to align with the chimney connection on the ceiling. We managed to get a few temporary screws in to hold it in place. Then I climbed up on the scaffold and we both put the upper clamp on the chimney. Then I climbed down and replaced the small temporary screws with larger permanent ones. Just like that we were done. The chimney was up and we were finished with the scaffold. Before doing all of that, a couple of the neighbors came over and helped me to reposition the stove slightly. We also finished up the installation of the aluminum heat reflecting shields and the fresh air intake.
We tried out the stove on Saturday night. Just a small fire with three little logs and the whole cottage warmed up nicely. The catalytic Blaze King stove is really efficient with a thermostatically controlled damper and the fire burned for a long time.
I also worked on closing off the entrance into our basement. This was a temporary access during construction. If need be we can open it up again in the future. But in the meantime it will be sealed off and back filled. I secured the treated wood panel into place and ran an interior and exterior caulking bead around the perimeter. Then we sealed off the exterior with a couple of layers of self adhesive membrane. The front of the cottage foundation can now be properly backfilled, and the landscaping finished. These duties will be turned over to our contractor Scott, while I continue with other projects.
On Sunday with the help of a neighbor we took the scaffold apart. I carried all the sections out and stored them. A couple of our neighbors will be borrowing these from me over the coming weeks but I no longer need it in the cottage.
We cleaned everything out of the kitchen and family room on Sunday before we left. We are now ready for the flooring company to come out and install the vinyl plank flooring. Once this is done we can begin to furnish the place, and then work on cabinets and finishing.
On Sunday afternoon Margarit and Helena headed up to McKenzie Trails over on the David Thompson Highway and went for a trail ride. I stayed behind with my Mom and finished up the last of the clean up. The girls got back from the trail ride and we finished the last of the packing and clean up and hit the road for home shortly before 8:00. It was an uneventful drive back home and we arrived at our place in the city around 10:30PM.
It has been really smoky in central Alberta the past two or three weeks due to over 500 forest fires burning to the west in British Columbia. I'm not sure if a specific fire is contributing to the smoky conditions or if it is just a general overall smokiness. Unfortunately we weren't really able to see the mountains all weekend and my Mom didn't get an appreciation for the true experience of being at our place.
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