BLUF!

 One thing ARRRRMEEE Training taught me was the proper way to do paper work. Apparently that training is still functioning in my brain because even though Blogger "looks" like paper, it isn't.  So, Bottom Line Up Front.

LJD is doing well all things considered.  Little J and Wife spent the weekend in San Antonio in the NICU with her.  The Doctors and NICU staff are very happy with her progress.  She's gained about 1/3 of a pound, which doesn't sound like much, but it's about a 25% increase in body weight.  She's up to 6mL of Milk per feeding and the feedings have gone from every 6 hours to every 3 hours.  So....Progress!

I know many of you readers are praying for her and words don't begin to describe how much that means to us.  Thank you!

As I mentioned earlier this week, this post will be about a carpentry project I've been working on with some help from Little J.  As many of you know, we've got two guest cabins on our property.  They were built in 2014 and have been very beneficial financially as well as housing visiting family and friends.  A couple of years ago, Mrs. J (the brains in the house) decided that our well water was too hard and was making everything that came in contact with that water....Ugly.  

(Did I mention I take showers regularly?)

In any case, she decided we needed water softeners installed in the two cabins as well as our new house.  So let it be written, so let it be done.

Source

Now, the cabins don't have a lot of wasted space in them, so the addition of water softeners required a bit of artistic license.  One actually had an out of the way space that could be used.  The other, not so much.  The softeners are installed and Mrs. J promptly declared them "Ugly".  

I thought she was talking about me at that point.  

In any case, she wanted something built that would hide them from sight.  Yay, I get another trip to Lowe's.  Off topic and in response to this post from Sarge about retirement, Lowe's is a large gap filler in my "what the heck am I gonna do to keep busy?" conundrum.  Mrs. J does a great job of filling in the rest.

Got some pine 2 x 4's and some cedar planks, and finished the job in a day or so.  

Yes, the wire hanging out the right side has been...beautified.

Spent a week or so in recovery. AKA, on the computer, then started trying to figure out how to do the second cabin. 

Made some progress, then gravity intervened, and the project went on the back burner.

Little J arrived just after LJD was born and after the routine of visiting her and LJW at the hospital was established started looking for something to do in between.  I mentioned the second project.  We went down to the cabin and I showed him what I thought we should do.

He came up with a WAY easier, more sturdy and nicer looking idea.  So...We started turning lumber into sawdust.  

Completed the side panels outside as there was no way to attach the cedar once the frames were installed in the bathroom.

Then we built the front frame onto the side panels.

At this point we realized we hadn't completely analyzed the project requirements. See the Culligan box on the right?  The one with the hinged lid?  I hadn't even thought about access to that in my original plan.  

Culligan might have gotten mad at me if they couldn't access their control panel.  Little J proposed an alternate solution, which I quickly approved.

At that point, husbandly and fatherly duties took priority and Little Juvat and LJW took the weekend off to spend quality time with LJD.  I gladly approved the leave and thinking that there was no way to screw this up at this point, continued the operation.

As I had run out of planed cedar, I brought the unplaned boards up to my work in progress work shop and planed them.  I was pleased with the baptism of cedar chips my work shop underwent.  Fortunately, the broom, dustpan and shop vac made short work of them.  Cut the boards destined for the lid to length and glued them to a plywood backer board and left it overnight to dry.

I went back to the cabin and was test fitting the remaining front planks when I noticed something. Somewhere in the front face is a 1.2^o error off vertical over the 45" front.  After a few choice words directed at me by me, I decided to call it quits for the day.  

We don't have guests in the cabin til next Friday.  If it's a frame problem, I'll just cut a board to fit.  If it's a slat out of vertical, I'll consider rehanging them.  But might just cut a board to fit.  

It'll give our guests something to laugh about.

That's life in my world.  Ups and Downs, but still turning. Doesn't get much better than that.

Peace out, Y'all!

P.S. Mrs. J and I will be traveling to College Station today, to spend time with MBD and MG.  I'll be commenting from my iPad. So...Expect spelling errors and short and slow comments.

Cancelled due to changing circumstances.  But.....

Finished!