We really should have just hired out the plumbing. But then we wouldn’t get to say that we did all of the work! We decided that it was worth the cost savings to do it ourselves. We only have to run about 15 consecutive feet of pipe with only one 90 degree turn. How hard could it be? Extremely!
Tim thought that it would be all down hill from the cutting of the concrete. After returning a dull blade and coming back up to finish the job, things had no where to go but up. But we didn’t take into consideration the tight spaces that we were confined to. Yes it’s only 15 feet long, but it is also only 12 inches wide and everything has to fit into that trench. Let’s start by looking at our water system…
We purchased the EZ Connect System from Pelican Water Systems which is totally customizable based upon your water sample. For perspective, the blue filter cartridges are about 2 feet tall. From this system we had to build a cold and a hot manifold. After which we had to run lines to connect to each fixture to include a kitchen sink (hot and cold lines), a bathroom sink (hot and cold lines), a toilet (cold only), a shower (hot and cold lines), and a spare set of lines for future washing machine. All of these lines were placed on top of the outgoing sewage pipe which is vented and connects to each fixture. The chaos of limited space can be seen here….
The sewage piping ended up being the son-of-a-gun for us! We had to redo it twice. The first time was to raise it up according to our septic installer as the water table was not very deep and he was running into water while trying to install our tanks. The second time was because we did it wrong. We finally passed our plumbing inspection and it felt very good to put that part of the project to bed with a nice layer of dirt and another of concrete!
The next project is preparing for the mechanical installation which includes running propane lines, installing our water heater, and having a mini-split installed for heating and cooling. As winter approaches, we realize that our work might have to come to a close for a bit. So, we managed to make one last trip up together to install our propane water heater.
We took this opportunity to make sure that the cabin was secure so that we didn’t come back to find tiny woodland creatures taking up residency inside of our home. I typically love the fall, but there is a sadness that comes along with it now as we have to leave the place that we’ve poured our hearts and souls into until the warm weather returns. We are hearty campers and have managed quite well in temps that are around the freezing mark, but it’s just not fun. And fun is the name of the game, otherwise we wouldn’t be here!
This year was wonderful as we have started to get visitors. My 90-year old grandmother made her way up with my mom and step-dad to see our progress at the end of the summer. I could kick myself for not getting a photo of here at the cabin. We also had our kids up to camp over Labor Day Weekend.
Very dear friends were also able to spend a long weekend with us in July. I even had a gang of friends from work make their way up for a chilly weekend in October. We used a volunteer day to clean up the beach at Christmas Cove before the snow flew.
Little Leelanau 