The Bunkhouse: It Really Happened

Ten years ago, when we moved to Tennessee into what a dear friend once called a "shack in the woods," we had a vision for what it could be. That vision included a small guest cabin for anyone who wanted to come visit. We dubbed it The Bunkhouse.

I drew up hundreds of cabin designs. Mason kept telling me to make it smaller.

I flagged which trees to take down make room for my vision.  Mason revved up the chainsaw.

I sat at my writing desk and stared out the window at that clearing we created. Mason stalled. 

"Let me build a carport. I promise, after the carport, we can start the bunkhouse," he bargained. The double carport was finished less than a month before Mason decided to add onto it, making room for the spare car we decided to keep, because when you drive 20-year-old-plus vehicles, one is always on the fritz. Then it seemed silly not to add a fourth stall for the 1949 International Cub tractor that we rarely use.

Finally, three years ago, Mason held true to his word. I came home dirty and stinking from working at the garden nursery one day and he had drawn up his own plan. Hallelujah! Of course I knew I would redesign it, but his graph paper sketch showed more than a floor plan. It showed Mason was finally all in!

But could we afford it? When we started scratching at the dirt with cinderblocks that would form the bunkhouse's foundation, we guessed the project would cost us about $15,000. We vowed to log every receipt and keep track. We weren't sure how we were going to wheedle that kind of money out of our tight budget, but I was determined.

By the fall of 2018, we had built the foundation of a 20-foot-by-16-foot cabin, with a 6x12 utility room. We had just started the walls when we had to bury our 14-year-old dog, Nick, who’s health had been declining for the past year.  The project was a well-timed gift, a distraction from the hole in our hearts.

The first wall went up with my sister and brother-in-law’s help; we never could have raised that 26-foot-long piece by ourselves. (Later on, a neighbor and his son helped us lift a 6-foot-wide window into place, but those were the only two times we didn’t do all of the work ourselves.)

That winter, we worked nearly every day. On freezing mornings, I spent the first hour of the workday chipping ice off the subfloor so we could safely walk and work atop ladders installing a massive center beam and cross supports that would hold up a cathedral ceiling.

I really hoped that we built that center beam strong enough. I still can’t believe I was strong enough to help install it. We really, really needed to keep working hard so we could get that roof on. 

Once it’s dried-in, Mason said, we would be able to take a few days off. 

Well, in early January, sooner than we expected, we found ourselves taking a day off to race to a nearby animal shelter and rescue a dog whose face we fell in love with.  Layla was meant for Flat Top Mountain. She’s an outdoor girl, and after a few weeks of forced cabin time to ensure her newfound loyalty to us, she would soon spend her days hanging at the base of the bunkhouse, watching us work, chasing the occasional squirrel and waiting for our lunch break and her evening walk.

I remember a 30-degree day in late January shingling the roof. While Mason climbed down and up the ladder for the 20th time, heaving unbelievably heavy bundles of shingles over his shoulder, I laid down in the valley between the cabin and utility room roofs, seeking refuge from the north wind and soaking in the sun’s warmth off the black shingles. It was almost pleasant, until I had to get up to work again.

Once the roof was done, we did take a few days off. Then we launched into window installation. The 8-foot-wide window on the back wall involved scaffolding, pulleys and lines — all born from Mason’s imagination in yet another Rube Goldberg rig that allowed two aging beer drinkers to lift way more than they should have been able to.

There was a 150-foot-long ditch for the propane and electrical lines to dig. And digging a 5-foot-by-5-foot-by-5-foot-deep pit for the septic tank, renting a jack hammer to finish the job. Then digging the leech lines.

Then Mason decided he wanted to side the cabin with cedar shakes, which are utterly charming, but super labor intensive compared with 4x8-foot sheets of siding. By the time he was done, so was summer.

Launching into wiring and plumbing, Mason realized we might have room to add a washer and dryer in the utility room. If you’ve ever been to a Soddy-Daisy laundromat, you would realize how exciting this was. It was just about when the COVID pandemic hit when I had finished drywalling the laundry room and Mason had finished installing the washer and dryer. Now we had one fewer reasons to go to town and mingle with the unmasked masses. 

Next we finished out the bathroom, because a second bathroom is always a good thing. The shower is large, and the tiling project was a nightmare. The rest of the space is very small, forcing us to create an unconventional vanity.

The rest of 2020 was spent finishing out the main area: drywall, trim, tongue-and-groove ceiling, flooring, painting, wood stove. Oh, and the small kitchenette, complete with propane cooktop for that morning coffee! We might still add a small fridge for that cold beer.

The last few months were spent rounding up the decor, everything kindly gifted from good friends who are downsizing and from family (all the art in the cabin is by my mom). The only furniture we had to buy was the $100 couch, which folds out into a full-size bed, allowing the bunkhouse to sleep three, or maybe four if two are small kids. Larger families will get to stay in the big cabin, and Mason and I get to stay in the bunkhouse!

All those receipts? We tallied them up to a whopping $22,000. We were shocked, because we didn’t splurge on anything, and luckily we bought all our lumber before the COVID price spike. But if I did the math right, that’s just $55 per square foot, which is about $150 less than the average rate here in Chattanooga. 

So, $22,000 and nearly three years later, the bunkhouse is ready! Who’s ready to be the first (vaccinated) guest?

(The next project, you ask? I’m rallying for a greenhouse; Mason wants a “line shack” down by the creek on our new property.) We’ll see …

Friends When You're 15 Years Old

At age 15 my best friend was Linda Donaldson, and we did everything together. 
We met in 7th grade, that tumultuous age when girls turn on each other. It’s an ugly phase, but Linda and I found each other and held on tight. At least for a while.


When she turned 16, she got a red Firebird with a T-top. We used to drive around at night with the windows rolled down, the radio blaring. Singing every word. Laughing till we cried. Linda was that friend.

I recently read a book called “Beartown” (thank you, Leslie), and it had a recurring line in it:

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again.”

Sweet Jesus, that struck home. Linda.

I immediately thought of Linda.We would drive that Firebird all over the Palos Verdes Peninsula. By the house of the boy she liked. Then by the house of the boy I liked. Neither boy knew, of course. 

At least as far we knew.Then we’d drive up to the Swensen’s ice cream shop at the top of the peninsula where we lived. We’d get one scoop of Swiss orange chocolate chip and one scoop of coconut, and we’d share. Sometimes we’d swing by the cliffs and look out over the ocean. Then Linda would drive me home. I could have driven, but I drove the hand-me-down banana yellow station wagon. She had the red Firebird with the T-top.

We’d sing at the top of our lungs in that car, warm night air swooping in on us.

Linda and I spent every day together between our freshman and sophomore years in high school, when I made it onto the high school drill team. Linda had been on the team for a year. I didn’t get on that first year, but that didn’t stop me from trying out again. 

That summer, Linda and I hung out constantly. After drill team practice, we’d go to my house and watch “General Hospital.” That was the year that Rick Springfield was on it, the year “Jessie’s Girl” played nonstop on 93-KHJ Radio. In my mom’s art studio, we created a little black wood sculpture that we dubbed the “Ice Princess.” I really can’t explain this to anyone, but if you watched “General Hospital” in the early 1980s, maybe it will make sense. 

Sometimes we’d bring home a large Borrelli’s pizza and devour it. Other times, we’d cook up what we dubbed “Noodles Noodles Noodles and a Little Bit of Soup,” which was exactly what the name so creatively implies.  We ate chocolate-chip cookie dough all the time. I mean ALL the time.

Later that summer, I finally got my first job, at the local McDonalds. It was embarrassing, because all the cool kids who had to have a job worked at Marineland. I interviewed there, and even though my older sister had worked there for two years, I didn’t get the job. So I had to settle for McDonalds. A friend of the guy I liked came in one day; I still can picture him there at the counter, me in my polyester yellow uniform and dorky cap, asking him, “Do you want fries with that?”

The job cut into my time with Linda, but by October, I had quit, and Linda and I were thick as thieves again, driving by those boys’ homes. Linda was tall, with thick brown hair. That year, she always parted it straight down the middle, with her bangs pulled back in barrettes. The tips of her hair were fried from the curling iron, a curse of the ’80s.

Damn, we laughed so hard. 

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again.”

There’s another part to that quote from “Beartown,” by author Frederick Backman.

“You never have the sort of friends you have when you’re fifteen ever again. Even if you keep them for the rest of your life, it’s never the same as it was then.”

I suspect he’s right, but I didn’t keep any friends from that time. Even Linda.

By junior year, I had a boyfriend, and so did she. I can’t remember who started dating first. And I can’t remember why we’d stopped seeing each other. I left the drill team to become a cheerleader; maybe that was it.  We also probably spent every moment thinking about boys. And my boyfriend’s friends became my friends. Kinda. Sort of. But not really. Not like Linda.

Then came college, when people drift even farther apart. I was in Oregon, Linda was in Arizona. I’m not sure why we didn’t write or call; maybe we did. My parents moved overseas when I left for college, so I never had a reason to return “home” during school breaks. I never went back to Borrelli’s or Swensen’s. 

Sometimes you just go where the current takes you. I always just kept moving forward, not looking back. But I won’t apologize for this moment of looking back.

If I remember right, Linda got married right out of college. I can’t even remember if I went to the wedding. Maybe I wasn’t even invited. I hate losing my memory.

But it wasn’t too much later, I remember, that she and her husband were having troubles. If I knew this, maybe we did talk now and then. 

I do remember that, when I was 28, I learned that Linda had stomach cancer. I only learned this because I ran into a mutual friend, Aimee, who had stayed in touch with Linda. Why hadn’t I stayed in touch?

I wrote Linda a poem; it was probably awful, but I know it reminisced about that summer, those Firebird drives. I called her and apologized for the awful poem and told her I loved her. She died sometime soon after.

“Even if you keep them for the rest of your life, it’s never the same as it was then.”

Maybe that’s true for most of us. I’m jealous of my husband. He’s still good friends with his running mate from age 15 — well as good of friends as 68-year-old men might have. Men are different about friends, right? 

Still, every year we go back to Texas and spend an evening or two with Chuck, running through the old stories, wondering how they both survived the 1960s and ’70s, and learning which other friends had not. I love hearing Mason and Chuck howl about those old days, tears welling in their eyes with uncontrollable laughter, recounting old nights of just riding around in cars, just like Linda and me.

If I remember right — there’s that memory thing again — yesterday would have been Linda’s 54th birthday. I meant to post my memories about her yesterday. I’m late, and I hope she forgives me. For forgetting. For letting her go. Maybe even for remembering. For everything.

Nine Years on Flat Top

The bunkhouse as of Jan. 14. Yup, still under construction.

Yes, we’re alive. No, we haven’t fallen victim to wayward chainsaws, hungry bobcats or angry Trump supporters. Yet.

We’re still here in the woods, staring at the calendar in disbelief that it was nine years ago today that we pulled our U-Haul up to this pile of sticks and called it home. We reminisce about those early days often. Living with no running water. Chipping ice off the rain barrel so we could get enough water to flush the toilet. Sleeping in a winter cap. Choking on the fumes of the fire-trap woodstove.

We had some new Chattanooga friends come up the other day. I felt compelled to show them the “before” photos, so they could see how great this place really is, compared with what it was. After the years, I fear we’ve lost some perspective. It IS great, right? Because it looks a little rough around the edges again after nine years. 

I posted our biggest news of last year on Facebook, then never got around to posting it here: We’ve doubled our property from five to 10 acres. Neighbors put their 5 acres up for sale, and while we didn’t pine for a larger hunk of land, we didn’t want anyone else to move in so close to us.  And we love that this new land comes with a creek most months of the year, especially with the crazy amount of rain that’s been falling here. More than 66 inches last year!

The bunkhouse will have its own water supply, or at least 165 gallons.

The bunkhouse project has dragged into its second year. After the distractions of December, we’re back on the job. Mason got to wedge himself in the narrow crawlspace, installing all the drain piping, which now await the rental of some heavy machinery so we can finish digging the septic tank pit that I started by hand this summer. The past week Mason’s had more comfortable working conditions, manning the blow torch to run the copper water pipes. Yes, he’s heard of Pex, but he’s old-school.

Mason had to create a water system for the bunkhouse, and its first test this week found two leaks and the realization that the pressurization pump needs a check valve. Only two leaks? Not bad! Besides, he can fix it. Two steps forward, one step back.

As lead painter, I’ve been occupied slapping stain onto the bunkhouse’s cedar shakes. Boring, but at least the unusually warm winter weather has made the job more pleasant. Before staining, I was on rock duty. With Mason's help, we hauled a bunch up from the new property, and I spent a day lining them up  along the path to the bunkhouse.

Estimates for bunkhouse completion remain a little fuzzy. We’re thinking possibly by this summer, but it just depends on the bank account and our backs. Spring gets a bit busy around here, adding new plants, restarting the veggie garden and picking up shifts down at the garden nursery. But we’re hoping to at least have the bathroom operational by then; a second bathroom on the property will feel like progress. We set the bar low around here.

As for low bars, let’s see if I can do a bit better by this blog this year, because it appears a few people actually do look at it now and then.

We saw a dusting in December, but for the most part,
the temps have been unseasonably warm.

Bunkhouse Progress

Lord knows what she just ate. She spits out the toads,
but chomps the blue-striped lizards.

Solidly into our eighth year here on Flat Top Mountain, weeks fly by once again without anything that seems worthy of reporting.

The day Mason killed three copperheads within a matter of hours? Ho hum. (We haven’t seen any since, though the tally for the season is at eight.)

About 36"-40" deep so far. Jackhammer possibly to come.

The days I spent hours digging the hole for a new septic tank? (Didn’t we do that already? Yes, but this one’s for the bunkhouse.)

There are all of the adorable moments with Layla the Wonder Dog, but seriously, cute dog stories? Is that what this blog has come down to?

Layla the Wonder Dog.

You can see how Flat Top seems a bit mundane after so much time living in the backwoods.

But Wednesday? Wednesday is going to be pretty sweet, because Mason is on schedule to finish siding the new bunkhouse — the cedar shake siding that he started so long ago. But we’ll just brush over that fact. Let’s talk, instead, about how cute it is!

Mason: up and down, and up and down.

As I type this, I’m watching Mason climb down the ladder for about the 50th time today. There will be leg cramps tonight. He’s been on the porch roof all day, nailing those shingles up one at a time. He was the one who insisted on cedar shakes, thank goodness, because otherwise I’d be getting an earful.

We’ve been hitting it pretty hard for what feels like months now, working up until 7 p.m., when we finally call it quits with an ice-cold beer enjoyed on the porch of the bunkhouse. We rock in a pair of rocking chairs we scored from my sister, who scored them from my mother years earlier. We rock, and drink and watch the setting sun filter through all our trees and stretch across the back yard. When the last rays finally hit the farthest woodpile, we know we’ve lingered too long and that dinner will be late. But with summer in full sizzle, there’s really no hurry to return inside to the Big House. Without air conditioning or a decent breeze, it can still be over 80 degrees inside by 8 p.m., sometimes 9. 

As soon as those shingles are done, we should take a break. But we won’t. It’s time to start working on the inside of the bunkhouse. First up: Build the wall that sections off the bathroom from the main room. The shower will have a giant window that looks out onto the forest; you’re gonna love it! But it will be a while before we get around to building that part. After the wall comes more digging; this time it’s a long narrow trench from the wellhouse through my vegetable garden and out to the bunkhouse.  As we dig, we will bury propane and electrical lines to bring power and hot water to our future guests. 

See? Who wants to hear about all this digging in 90-degree heat and 90-percent humidity? B-O-R-I-N-G!

We do have one more bit of news, but I better save that for now, so I have something to write about again soon. 

Check out the floating air compressor!
It got elevated so the hose would reach the peak,
 which I can just now officially report is DONE!!

What's Blooming

Columbine are popping up everywhere.

Spring has arrived in full glory in the past few weeks, and in between bunkhouse building, beer brewing, landscape designing, working down at the nursery, tending to weeds and planting new plants, there's been too few hours to enjoy it all. But we do what we can, especially around the 7 p.m. cocktail hour. Enjoy....

Creeping Mazus, thank to Terry.

Dropmore Scarlett honeysuckle -- the hummingbirds love it.

Smokebush in the setting sun.

Add caption

Native Dwarf Crested Iris

Shasta Viburnum -- one of two, thanks to Craig Walker.

Meet Layla

We are three again.

Meet Layla, a good-looking girl who just melted our hearts with her big brown eyes when we stumbled across her on petfinder.com.

We had talked about waiting until spring for a new dog, but I made the big mistake of checking the local shelters’ websites. As my longtime friend Cindy said, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

We first saw her photo on a Sunday night. She has Nick’s eyes. And she looked smart. Australian Shepherd was listed as her dominant breed; I’m partial to herding dogs. When I showed her photo to Mason, I was really just sharing a photo of a really good-looking dog. I didn’t expect his response.

“Let’s go get her.”

The shelter required a 4-page online application. As we filled it out that night, you would have thought we were applying to get into Harvard. Of course she would sleep inside, on her own bed. Of course we would train her. Kennel? Never!! We argued over how to best word all of our answers so they would know we were devoted dog people. 

The application submitted, we were now stuck in a waiting game. The shelter said it took 1-2 days to review an application. But Monday was New Year’s Eve, so the shelter was closed until noon Wednesday. For two days, we stared at her photos. I was convinced someone must have adopted her over the previous weekend. She was young, adorable and one of the few non-pit bulls available at the local shelters.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up and turned on the phone to stare at her photo again. But this time, it read “ADOPTED” under her photo. Heartbreak!! Mason moped all morning. I told him I’d call the shelter when it opened at noon just to see if they got our application and see if we might be “cleared” to adopt in the future.

The shelter worker put me on hold. She was confused, because she thought "our" dog was still available. What??? Yup, apparently someone had been approved to adopt her, but never showed up. Loser! SHE WAS STILL AVAILABLE!

\

Mason was in the middle of bottling beer, and you know how important beer is in this household. It didn’t matter. We bolted out of the house and down the mountain to the shelter in record time. Thirty minutes more, and we had a dog!

She came into Chattanooga’s main shelter as a stray, so we know nothing about her history. They named her Layla, and adopted her out, but the family who took her quickly realized they didn’t have enough time for her, so back to the shelter she went. Then for some reason, she got moved over to this other, smaller, shelter and renamed Lucile.

Alas, she’s now back to Layla and she’s all ours, for almost two weeks now. She’s very smart, with good food motivation, so she has taken quickly to training and building trust/loyalty. But she also has a strong predator instinct, which adds challenges when you live, without fencing, among all sorts of wild animals, from squirrels to deer to bobcats.

She seems a bit more like a dog's dog than sweet, timid Nick. In one week, she's destroyed several toys that Nick had for a decade. Still, she seems new to toys, but we're thinking a Frisbee may be in our future.

As for Australian Shepherd, we’re doubtful. Australian Cattle Dog more likely. She’s got beefy legs and thick short hair. Eventually we will splurge on a DNA test for her. But, of course, it really doesn’t matter. She already has our hearts.

She’s just over a year old, so we have lots of good years ahead of us.

Our Itty Bitty Bunkhouse

We had to make a temporary pathway out of plastic.
It's muddy out there. (Until I get all those new plants in!)
We also have to build a small bridge along the path.

We’re all bunkhouse, all the time! Unless it’s too wet, or too cold, or the bank account is empty that week — all three of which occur frequently. 

Of course, we usually don’t get started until after 11 a.m., because we’re “retired” and really enjoy our morning ritual of lapping up the (awful) news and a hearty breakfast. 

And of course, we have to stop working by 5:30 p.m., because it’s dark.

Still, we’ve made major progress. The walls are all up. The windows are all framed. Some were even framed twice, because we built them wrong the first time. (Hey, it’s been a while since Mason played carpenter, and I’m just the fetch-and-hold helper on this job.) It all worked out in the end, because when we rebuilt them, I changed my mind on exactly how many and how big I wanted them. Luckily these change orders only cost me some verbal harassment from the job boss.

Reframing windows: These are two huge windows that will look out over our woods.
A wood stove will sit in between them in the corner.

The next few days, if this rain ever stops, will be our greatest challenge: raising the roof. The cabin will have an open cathedral roof, which sounds complicated but it’s a really small cabin, so it should be manageable. Mason already has a Rube Goldberg-like plan that I’m certain is fully baked.

The 8-foot window view from the built-in couch/daybed,
assuming we build it as planned.

All of this has proved good therapy, filling our minds and hours that used to be dedicated to Nick. Every time we’re in town and see a cute dog, we get sentimental for everything that a good dog provides. 

But for now, our minds are on that bunkhouse roof. Gotta get her dried in.

Rejected Xmas Photo 1

Rejected Xmas Photo 2