Christmas presents and Insulating the cabin roof

I thought I'd show you guys my Christmas presents as I'm proud as punch of them. I'm very thankful for the internet for lot of reasons and eBay is no exception. I chose a pressure canner as my present from mum and we managed to find one that a lady had imported from the States and then realised it doesn't work on her induction hob! Well I have an induction hob but unfortunately I couldn't find a pressure canner that isn't aluminium so I'll have to use a inductor adapter plate or use the gas hob in my barbecue. Either way we got a canner that cost less than market rate that's brand new and we didn't have to pay P&P from the US. 

James got me a second hand Kmix mixer that I've coveted for years. He told me it cost a quarter of the new price and it didn't have a scratch on it. In fact I had to open all of the attachments from their original packaging, the lady must have baked one cake and put it in the cupboard. So I am one lucky lady to have received two lovely gifts and it always makes my day when they're a bargain to boot.

In the last few days I have ordered a few bits to fit out the cabin in the boxing day sales. The irony of the sales is that they're the best time to buy things but the time of year when you have least money. The cabin has really stalled over the few weeks before Christmas and today we started to work on the frame that we're building to place on the roof. The plan is to build a frame, place the insulation within it and then cover and felt the roof. We can then put the bargeboards up, paint them and the structure is complete at last!

When you insulate a cabin you can either place the insulation internally between the rafters and then board it or insulate externally and then cover with felt. We opted for external as we really like the look of the wood internally and we figured a second layer of felt on the roof could only help to protect the structure more. You may recall that when we built the cabin we had a ridiculous amount of excess wood logs. Today we started to cut them down to the same depth as the insulation so that we could make a frame up. It's left us with plenty of kindling for the fire too so there's no waste. We managed to get quite a few cut to size while baby girl was having her nap and we're going to try to get the majority of the insulation finished up this week.