Locke pond cabin

Mancamp North Construction

In January '06 I had the pleasure of roaming throught the woods next to Locke Pond trying to photograph an ermin (all white, thought it was a mink) and stumbled upon this little gem of a lot. 165' on the water, very deep water frontage, very steep land, very difficult to perc, very difficult to excavate and in general, a hell of a buy! I had the good fortune of meeting up with Jack Mills of Little Women excavation who replied to my every concern "Not a problem!". So I purchased the land in June '06 and my brother purchased it off of me in March '07. Below is are photos and captions of the building progress.

The Virgin Forest

On the left is the view of the land from the ice taken on a cold February '06 day. On the right is the view from the shoreline looking up the hill at what will be the house location.

These shots, taken in June '06 right after I closed on the property tell the story of how wooded, steep and beautiful this lot is. The pic on the right shows the original staking I did for a 30x40 cabin with a 12' wraparound deck. The final plans called for a 36x26' cabin with a 12' deck to the south and a 8' covered deck to the west (facing the lake).

October '06 Jack Mills to the rescue! On the upper right and left you can see the road has been excavated as well as the home site, what a glorious experience to have driven my truck in there for the first time! On the bottom left you can see one of thousands of beautiful sunsets that will grace this beautiful piece of land. On the lower right, hallelujah! I got a permit to rebuild this delapidated old tent platform that came with this land. This deck/tent platform will set back from the water by about 25 feet and will be a perfect place to watch the kiddos swim and the loons frolic in the sunset.

March '07 Congratulations spider! At last you've done something smart, it only took 43 years!!!! Spider purchases the land off of me and immediately gets to work cutting the timber that Brenda (our lovely CEO - Code Enforcement Officer) said we could trim. Lower right, the one of many beers to be consumed on Mancamp North.

May '07, all ready for construction. I've taken out the last of the large trees and Jack has the land completely prepared for his excavation. In the photo on the left is Skip Pingree, Western Maine Concrete. What a charlatain! He gave me a written estimate, came and inspected the property, said he could do it around the middle of June, just give him a call... between myself, Jack and my builder Michelle, he got about a dozen calls and returned none. Not exactly my idea of an honest businessman. Fortunately I had the fortune of hooking up with the good men of Advantage Concrete, now talk about a great outfit to deal with!

July '07... boy are things happening now! On Monday, July 2nd, one week prior to kit delivery, Bob and Nick of Advantage Concrete come out to spec the job. They met with Jack and Gerald of Little Women excavating and aforementioned Jack, Gerald and Corey worked until dark to get a frost wall dug. Bob, Nick and Justin of Advantage Concrete showed up at 4:30am the next morning to form the footers. After the footers were formed, they gave it a day to cure and got to work on the foundation walls... see below.

The boys had the walls all formed and ready to go for a Thursday July 5th pour, but the pumping truck could not stabilize itself well enough to pour the concrete, so we resceheduled for Tuesday, July 10th. Upper right, the good men of Advantage Concrete were helplessly torn away from their work to join us for a beer and steaks. In the last three photos of this series... the kit has been delivered! Thank you Ross Claire of WoodMizer for allowing us to store the kit there during construction. Also a big thank you to Northern Log Homes of Bangor for running such a professional top notch operation. I can say from a very quick look at this kit that this is one overbuilt log cabin, I very much look forward to doing business with this company in the future.

Tuesday, July 10th the pump truck arrived. Jack did a great job carving out the side of the hill and excavating a small area for the pump truck to put its rear tires down, all in all it was smooth as silk. The boys from Advantage worked like a well oiled machine and got the foundation poured in no time. A few days later, et voila, a foundation appeared where there was none. I was told this was a "top 10 most difficult job", but the boys of Advantage made it look easy. On the lower right, that's the deck down by the water that I and my daughters (Alletta and Laura) have been working on.

Update for July 18th, 2007. The boys from Advantage finished up the floor on Monday, just as they said they would. That allowed Michelle from Handy Women Services to get started on the framing (upper right). Today, Wednesday the 18th, Goodwin Well and Water showed up to drill us an Artesian well, that's there rig there on the left. And alas, electrical service is in! We just await CMP to energize the service.

Saturday July 21st, 2007. Jack Mills excavating away as always. We got 2-3" of rain in the previous few days so Jack wanted to enable the drainage system, which he did. Click on any of the above photos for full size pics. Lower left, we got a well in, 200' deep and 10 gallons a minute. So strong as a matter of fact that it's overflowing and will require an overflow valve. Lower right, I spent the week working on the new deck down by the water. Picked up lumber from Dennis' lumber mill (Way of Wood) right on the lake and brought it over via boat. Got most of the wood painted and about half of it in place. Floor boards next!

All work and no play make John a dull boy! So Sunday evening, around 8:30 I finished up working on Spider's deck and started cleaning up... so I was down by the water and my fishing pole was there, the lake was still as could be... so I did a couple of casts, second cast I caught this monster. This is probably the largest bass I've caught in 3 or so years. He put up a heck of a fight, took me at least 5 minutes to pull him in, he had no intention of being landed. Saturday night I was sitting on what will be the first floor of the new house and was admiring the beautiful sky... so I pointed my camera straight up and took this 30 second exposure of the milky way, click on it to see the full size pic. What a surprise as well, there's a meteor in that shot!

Saturday July 28th, 2007. When I arrived, there had been a huge rain storm the night before and there was several feet of water up against the back wall of the foundation. When Jack got in Saturday morning, he looked at it and said "not a problem", took his shoes and sox off and unplugged the drainage and it quickly went down. Top pics, first row of logs are up! Everything is looking really good, some minor problems but nothing worth losing sleep over. Bottom row of pics, there's Jack letting me know he can operate that thing with just one hand, and over there on the right, Gerald prepares the site for the septic tank.

Saturday night, while I got the bonfire ready, Tracie decided to land whaley, the mythical monster lunkah of lock pond, well, she came close, getting spawn of Whaley. On the right, we spent Sunday painting floor boards and bolting down the rail posts, should be done by the end of August if I'm lucky.

Tuesday, July 31st 2007. Underground utiltiies going in. As always, Jack was present to excavate the trench. Terry Booth is putting in the utiltities, probably have it going live sometime next week. On the bottom right is Gerald finishing up the backfill of the foundation wall.

Wednesday update. There's Gerald on the left putting the protective ribbon over the underground utilities and on the right, you can see Michelle has been awful busy this week!

Saturday, Aug 3rd 2007. Click on any of the thumbnails above for larger version. Things are coming along very well. 10 rows of logs are up, next two rows should start capping the windows and doors. Michelle told me she's going to take on the interior framing next. Lower left the deck down by the water is almost done, I tested it out saturday night with my tent and it was a wonderful place to spend the evening. Just gotta secure the floorboards, get 4 new ones to complete the project and finish painting. I'll be happy to have that project behind me! What would a weekend at mancamp be without a few casts of the rod? As usual, MCN lives up to its reputation, it took me about a half hour but I landed this guy, what a fighter! He jumped out of the water 5 times on the way in, never seen anything like it.

Saturday August 18th update. Wow, what a difference a couple weeks make! The front deck is up, the first floor logs are all up, the interior walls have been going up. Downstairs, the windows and slider are in. My brother made the decision to put a bottom floor deck in, so that's a project I'll be undertaking over the next two or three months.

Saturday August 25th update. Most of the exterior walls are up, Michelle has been working toward getting the roof on ASAP. Seems every time I head up there, we get a good 1-2 inches of rain so those tarps are always there on Friday night. You can see on the lower left, the framing of the loft is well underway, as well as most of the second floor flooring. On the bottom right, there's my little Laura Loo checking out her Uncle Rich's hot tub.

Saturday Sept 1st update. Michelle's been 'wicked busy' on the house, she's almost ready to get the roof on. The spider got a four day leave from Niagara so he took advantage of the time to get his tail out here and burn lots of loose brush on the site and helped me get started on the deck on the walkout basement. Of course, no weekend at mancamp would be complete without some quality time at the shore for Tracie and me catching lunkers out front of camp Morris.

Saturday Sept 21st update. Been three weeks since I was up last, Michelle's got the roof framed now and ready to cover it in. Planning on getting the metal roof on some time around mid October. Tracie, Spider and myself were busy getting the siding up and the flooring for the lower deck, starting to really look like a fortress! Click on any of the above thumbnails for a full rez picture. On the lower left, spider's all moved in, he has a kegerator for a nightstand, some things never change. On the bottom right, you can see the leaves are starting to change.

Saturday, Sept 29th update. The plywood roof is on, but not quite watertight yet. Michelle's got the chimney flue boxed in and ready to go. Should have the deck on by next week, looking forward to columbus day up at the new place!.

October 6th, 2007 update. Dave the roofer was over on Saturday putting the underlayment on, we now have a watertight house! Just in the nick of time too, it rained that night and really put the underlayment to the test, all worked fine. Jack and Michelle delivered the hot tub earlier in the week, so I took most of the day Saturday to wire that monster up, believe it or not, without electrocuting myself once! When I was getting ready to leave on Monday, Michelle and Duane had finished framing the upstairs bathroom, closet and exterior wall. All ready for interior electricity! On the right, a perfect fall day on Locke Pond, doesn't get any prettier.

October 20th, 2007 update. Michelle's got the house stained and most of the windows and doors in. Really looking fantastic. The foliage was absolutely magnificent, one week after peek it was still gold, red and orange. Tracie spent Sunday afternoon finishing the painting of the deck down by the water.

Weekend of November 9th update. Bob the plumber came up for a week to get the plumbing done and it took him a grand total of 4 days to get the job done! There he is on the bottom left showing off his fine work. Top left, most of the exterior trim is done and the roof is just about done. Top right, I had to stabilize the railing by attaching it to the vertical 6x6 so what better way to do that then to build a bar? Bottom right, there's spider, bob, steve and greggy getting the important work done.

Saturday Dec 1 update. Took delivery of all the tiling and wood floors as well as the fridge, range, washer and dryer. House is now heated and ready for winter! Got quite a bit of insulation in, so hopefully we can keep the fuel bills from doubling the cost of the house! The lake was open on Saturday and froze over on Sunday, that happened quick!

December 8th Update. Lower left, first casualty of the season! Tracie had a bit of trouble navigating a turnaround right after spider's driveway and this was the result. A few hours and one visit from AAA later, all order was restored. During the past week we got our first major snowfall, so the driveway really shouldn't be used again until spring. As you can see from the photos, Michelle's been busy, most of the exterior is done and most of the v-match is up, it's looking pretty darn good! Next time up I'll be bringing some mattresses in. In the basement, I got most of the insulation up, the washer and dryer wired, the septic pump wired and checked the keg operation, it works great! Upstairs, we have a fridge and working range, imagine that.

New years '08 update. Well the place is almost done other than a few finishing touches. I actually headed out to Rumford to pick up a couple of mattresses, a king for the master and a queen for the kiddos. When I got there, it was snowing lightly, but probably received about 20" additional inches of snow during my 4 day stay. Above you can see the interior ceiling is pretty much done, antler chandelier and ceiling fans are in. On the lower left is little Laura Loo in front of my latest project, getting a hearth in to support the wood stove. When I first fired up the woodstove, it smoked the place out, but that was normal. It was running perfect shortly afterwards and easily heated the house up to 68f with the windows open. Lower right, there I am making breakfast for the kiddos in what will be the kitchen.

Weekend of Feb 2nd, 2008. Well the end is in sight! Michelle will be finished up with the kit and the flooring on Wednesday, Feb 6th, Hallelujah! Most of the interior finish work is either done or well underway. The electrical is plumbed although there's still some finishing work to do there as well. On the upper right you can see Greg and I enjoying a cold frosty one from the comfort of the hot tub. We did about 100+ miles of snowmobiling the previous weekend, so the hot tub was a perfect place to finish up the ride. The two photos to the upper right show a good perspective of the finishing work that's been done, and the shot from the deck on the left (facing south) shows how private this lot is. Off to the left there is the master bedroom, all ready for furnishing and the rest of the photos are all of the bathrooms.

I won't be providing any more updates until next spring, when I get a chance to get outdoors and clean up the grounds as well as finish some of the exterior work (an additional deck, some stairs for our guests, etc...). We plan on having the house entirely furnished by the end of May and the kitchen cabinets should be in around May 1st.

Click on any of the above photos for higher resolution photos.

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