Weekly Update: 8.3.24

They never show you the whole story on YouTube. We all know this, of course. DIYers rely on more than random videos. I have to say, though -- this bunkhouse would have taken us even longer without YouTube. It is immensely helpful that we can search for any aspect of the project and find dozens of how-to videos immediately. Watching a professional complete a task before your eyes has a way of making jobs appear straight forward.

Take wiring a house -- most videos show an electrician deftly drilling a few holes through the walls, then slipping the wires easily around the room. Simple. Easy. And in a few places, that has been our experience.

But mostly, wiring has been tough.

For one, we hit nails while drilling -- over and over. We measure along a wall for a circuit or home run, begin drilling, and immediately start having to deviate because we hit nails where we need to drill. One problem has been our adherence to a Gage family proverb -- when it comes to nails, more is always better. (We now know this is wrong. More nails than you need will just be in your way.)

Because we hit so many nails, we have been struggling to keep our drill bits sharp. We had one get so dull, it simply spun and smoked instead of cutting much of anything. We have been slowed down a few times by replacing bits we thought would last the whole project.

And then there is getting the wire around corners. Again, the guys in the videos make it look doable. And really, with 12/2 wire, it's not too difficult. But the 10/3 was really hard. And the 6/3 felt almost impossible.

Levi, Grace, and I have been at our wit's ends some days, between the daunting tasks and terrible heat. The bunkhouse gets so hot by midmorning, we have to just push through or we won't get anything done. It has made us rather miserable and cranky some days -- especially when the progress has felt so minimal.

Still, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We have one more circuit to run, and just a few loose ends to finish up. After that, we will turn our attention to wiring the outlets and switches before our electrician comes to wire our panel.

The rest of the week was a blur of hot, sweaty work punctuated by cold showers, trips to the creek, and dips in the pool. We've taken to almost living in our swimsuits, as it makes cooling off easier.

The heat has been so bad, we took a day to rearrange our camp area. We moved a picnic table back down to the shade of the woods. We replaced our canopy covers, since the old ones had ripped in recent weeks. We also ordered a couple new canopies, as more areas need shade to be bearable.

We have also been going through more ice than our ice maker can produce. We decided to moved all of our ice chests from inside to under the bunkhouse, where they will be in the shade and on the cool earth. We covered them with wet blankets, hoping some evaporative cooling will make the ice last a bit longer. So far, it seems to be helping.

Having good cold storage has become even more important than usual now that our garden is producing so quickly, and we can only eat it so fast. We are fully stocked with cucumbers, squash, and peppers. Our tomato plants are covered in green fruit, so it is only a matter of time until we are in the tomatoes as well.

At the beginning of the week, my computer decided to quit. The driver allowing it to connect to the internet wasn't working correctly. The laptop was almost four years old, and it had other issues, so I decided to retire it. Since I used my computer so much for the bunkhouse build, my folks decided to replace it for me. They bought me a cute little HP, as well as a case and bag for it. It's smaller than my last laptop, which is much nicer for moving it around as often as I do. And -- it is supposed to have 10 hours of battery life. I feel so spoiled and thankful.

Wiring is going to continue as our main priority in the coming weeks. We spoke with our electrician about scheduling a hookup date, but he said just to call him when we are ready. We would love to be done running our wires this next week, then be able to start on the outlets the week following. We are hoping that by the beginning of September, we can have the bunkhouse turned on. God sees how hard we are trying, and I know He has His plans for us.