And then, we started putting the mountainside cabin back together, with the goal of making her better than she ever was.
First up, was our desire to re-use those precious pole rafters that had held up the old roof system for many decades (see my prior posting for a photo of them).
How those skinny poles had ever supported a roof is beyond me. I could easily have seen how the next heavy snow load on top of that roof would have brought the roof crashing in. What a tragedy it would have been for old St Nick the next time he had visited there.
A few of these ancient pole rafters had gone bad over the years so we decided to use the pole rafters from the front porch as replacements. When it came time to rebuild this porch roof we would go into the woods and gather new poles, just like the original builders did. Only, we carried chainsaws.
I miss my dear grandmother. Born in 1900 she used to tell me of how when she was a child she used to ride into Richmond with her father, sitting on the back of his horse drawn wagon, heading to the big city in order to sell his vegetables and on the way home how he would get paid to clean out stalls. When he got home, he would apply this “waste product” to his garden for better crops the following year.
I wondered, with all that my grandmother had seen change in the world during the course of her life, what she felt was the greatest invention of them all. I was so surprised to hear her say “the chainsaw… men used to have to work so hard for so little wood”.
I think of her every-single-time I pick up my chainsaw.
I do get sidetracked don’t I?… sorry about that… back to the roof…
To strengthen the roof we added another layer of new framing members… (these would not be seen once we finished). This new layer would provide an area for insulation and create an exposed painted paneling ceiling in the bedroom loft… that would help brighten that room, and “showcase” the antique rafters.
It’s a process that we have used over and over, always with amazing results. A warmer cabin, a stronger cabin, a more attractive cabin. Win, win, win.
Originally posted 2015-03-03 17:15:05.