Utilities

Over the weekend, I was able to get the slash pile and the remnants of the outhouse loaded into the trailer.  Then Gary came up and dug the trench for the gas, water and cable lines.  The cable and water have been installed and the gas goes in tomorrow.  With any luck the trench will be back filled Thursday or Friday and the previous owners can get their stuff out this weekend.

Cabinets

The cabinets arrived today.  I called to arrange a time to go pick them up and we could not find any time that worked well.  So they offered to deliver them for free.  I am so impressed with these guys.  If you need cabinets, go see Cabinets Plus.  The cabinets are great quality and the prices are outstanding.

http://www.spokanecabinetsplus.com

Water Level

I was up at the lake yesterday to drop some stuff off at the house and snapped this picture.  The water is really high right now.  In fact, we are very close to (if not above) the 100 year high water mark.  There is normally a few feet of sand between the water and this retaining wall which is about 4 feet tall.

Driveway

We finally got some reasonable weather on a weekend, so I took advantage of it today.  I spent most of the morning and early afternoon cutting up the down trees and marking the edges of the driveway with the logs.  You can see the slash pile in the background.  That is about the middle point of the driveway.

Cabinets

Here are a couple more renderings of the kitchen.  We went to Home Depot today and sat down with a kitchen designer.  We showed him the dimensions and he came up with almost exactly the same plan I had, so that was a nice validation.  The price they gave us for painted cabinets with MDF boxes and maple frames was around $4900 + tax.

We then went to Cabinets Plus and got a price from them much better quality cabinets.  Theirs are solid wood boxes, doors and drawers.  There is no MDF in these things.  We wound up buying the ones at Cabinets Plus today for $3400 including tax!  Like the price at Home Depot, this includes the bathroom vanity and cabinets in the laundry room as well.

New Kitchen Plan

After a little tweaking, I have come up with what I think is a really good plan for the kitchen.  We are going to move the stove to the wall that faces west.  That will allow us to put up a micro-hood  so we will not lose counter space to the microwave.  We will also change to full corner cabinets both top and bottom rather than blind corners.

The dishwasher will be moved to the wall that faces the dining area and the lake.  This will allow us to keep the larger window and the dishwasher will be next to the sink.  The whole thing feels much more fluid and usable than the previous plan.  Using off the shelf products, there is very little wasted space.

Septic System

The county inspected the septic system today and approved everything.  One of the neighbors suggested we keep the outhouse for emergency purposes, but the county made us take it out.  I was a little unsure that I really wanted to keep it anyway.  The previous owners can come get their stuff as soon as the ground settles a little bit, probably in a couple weeks.

Septic System

The larger tank at the top of the property has been set and both tanks have been back filled.  The trench is dug and ready for the waste line to be installed.  Since we have the trench open we are going to put a 3/4" water line in 2 feet above the waste line.  Then in the spring we will have the meter switched out for a 3/4" meter so we get a reasonable amount of flow in the house.

Septic Tank

The guys got the small septic tank installed today.  This tank is just outside the kitchen window and will contain a grinder pump that will transfer the waste to the larger tank that is up by the road.  The drain field will then be gravity fed by the upper tank.  They hope to have the trench connecting the 2 tanks dug today and the upper tank set in the ground tomorrow.

Perk Test

We had the perk test done on the lake house today and the soil looks great!  The original plan was for a 100' Presby drain field, but because the soil looks so good we will get away with only 50' of a standard drain filed.  That should save us a few thousand dollars.  We will have the permit today and the system will be installed starting Monday!