Northern White Cedar

Here are some photos that I took of the various stages of harvesting of the Northern White Cedar species while wandering around the Town and Country lumber yard. According to the Town and Country website, they are a "green" company, adhering to environmentally conscious standards of harvesting and milling. They undertake a "selective harvesting" process which allows new growth to take place in the areas of harvesting and the special mechanical harvestors virtually eliminate any damage to the surrounding forest during this process. The mill production building is heated from undeground pipes with excess steam from the drying kilns. All of the sawdust and shavings from production are blown into a silo and collected to be used for horse and dog bedding. Bark is used for landscaping and tree limbs for railings. Nothing is wasted during the milling process. Their "end-match" tongue and groove paneling product is machined to also have the tongue and groove on the ends of the boards which eliminates the excess "squaring" waste of fitting boards together during installation.

Town and Country Cedar Products Lumber Yard

As we were having the pallets of our cedar tongue and groove ceiling paneling loaded onto the bed of the trailer, Cody and I wandered around the vast lumbar yard to check out everything. There were huge stockpiles of cedar all over the place in their various stages of processing. According to the Town and Country Cedar Products website, professional harvesters go to work each winter in northern Michigan to maintain the more than $3,000,000 in white cedar inventory stored up at the Boyne Falls sawmill and production location.

Town and Country Cedar Products Roadtrip

We left on Saturday morning to take a whirlwind road trip up to Boyne Falls, MI to the Town and Country Cedar Products mill location. We picked up all of our northern white cedar tongue and groove ceiling paneling for the entire second floor (including cathedral ceiling) of the house. We didn't mind the 4 and a half hour drive to save about $500.00 in shipping costs (when all was said and done with the expensive gas costs to travel north and trailer rental). It was a beautiful weekend to do so. We got a chance briefly to smell that clean "up north air". I took several pictures at the facility and will post a few other entries surounding this topic. Once we arrived back to our property, we unloaded 515 pieces (~4100 linear feet) of the tongue and groove paneling and are storing it inside of the master bedroom walk in closet until we begin the task of installing it. It is a beautiful product. We are really happy with the quality of the order.

Garage Siding Done!

We placed the last piece of Northern White Cedar half log siding on the garage today! The only tasks remaing on the outside of the garage are placing the decorative black metal spade handles on the garage doors, mounting/wiring the 2 mission-style garage lights on either side of the garage doors and staining the wood (which will be including in the massive undertaking of staining the house this fall after we are moved in). Ade will also need to frame-in his workshop in the back portion of the garage, but that can also be completed after we move into the house.

HVAC Work

Our sub-contractor Aspen Heating and Cooling started supply and return air runs in the house 2 weeks ago. The system is starting to take shape. As soon as the upstairs windows and doors are in, they will install the actual geothermal furnace unit (Bard 5 ton), control board and all appropriate plumbing.

House Updates

The Northern White Cedar Soffit has been completed around the entire house. The skylights have been cut out of the ceiling of the shed dormer, and the rest of the shed dormer has been shingled. The ridge vents are the only thing remaining on the roofing portion of the job. The Anderson windows and door package arrived this past Thursday, so our building crew should be installing them shortly. We installed our five basement windows this weekend and will wait to install the sliding basement door until after the HVAC sub-contractor has the furnace delivered to the property. Dad Chauvin brought us our first American flag for Memorial Day.

Cody Cameos

Mr. Cody passes the time in a variety of ways these days out at the property while the building seems to drag on until dark. He patrols the field behind the house, lounges and naps in the sand or on the cement floor in the garage or basement (the cool surface feels good on warm days) or even collects saw dust on his coat while watching the latest task at hand.