I didn’t have any more photos of the owner-built cabin to share with you yesterday… just those two “in the box”. I thought you might like to see how she turned out… and, I was a bit curious how she would look today. So, yesterday I hopped in my truck and went over to take a look.

I had a great time visiting with the owner and sharing stories that I had long forgotten. It’s great to go back and see something I haven’t seen in years too. I get that same feeling as the father of the prodigal son must have felt when that boy returned home after years of absence.

Originally posted 2015-06-26 17:52:18.

Here’s the side view of this owner-built cabin showing the framed addition.

The cabin porch faces the lake. This photo shows what would be the entrance view that the homeowner would see upon arriving home. All visitors could choose whether to go to the kitchen porch ’round back, or the cabin porch with it’s porch swing… but either choice would ensure a view of the chimney and the log cabin to greet them as they entered.

There would be many cost savings measures taken to keep this cabin on budget… the chimney would be stone veneer, the wood work inside would all be new pine, the cabinets were pre-made units, the bathrooms featured the basic minimum, etc… but these cuts and some sweat equity by the owner allowed him to have his dream come true!

Originally posted 2015-06-25 13:59:07.

I once met a very kind man who greatly loved and admired the homes that I build, but he simply didn’t have the money needed to hire my firm and have us build him his ultimate dream cabin from start to finish, with custom woodwork throughout.

At the end of our first meeting it appeared likely that this man would end up living in some kind of manufactured kit cabin, styled to look like a brick rancher… or worse.

That bothered me.

I really liked this man. If there was some way I could help him, I was going to do it.

So I came up with an idea… and it worked out well.

I drew up some plans…. for a cabin that would be attractive, that would fit his site, and that would meet his needs. I found some antique hewn logs and my crew set them in place for him. And then I taught this man how to finish the cabin, step by step… where to find materials, how to hire the subs, etc. I would stop in every once in a while and check on progress and give him a few more tips.

The cabin’s owner had to work hard and put out a lot of effort to make this dream home happen… but in the end he got his cabin.

And he is, to this day, one happy camper.

Some friends of mine worried that I was being too careless in sharing my secrets, that I could have created a competitor. I wasn’t worried about that. I wanted to help a kindred spirit.

I’m not worried about my sharing here either. I don’t want to carry to the grave what I’ve learned over the decades of my career. I also like the idea that maybe a few homes will go up that will look better and last longer as the result of my ramblings.

I’ve thought about putting together a few sets of plans of various home designs that I’ve built, or dreamed of building, along with instructional videos on how to build them… do you think anyone would be interested in a product like that?

Originally posted 2015-06-25 13:34:57.

We once put up an old log cabin for a local best selling author on a far corner of her rural property. All we did was set the logs and frame out the roof… that was all she wanted at the time. We never heard back from her with regard to finishing the home.

Her next novel, a mystery, spoke of the adventures of the main character, while living in a log cabin.

Originally posted 2015-06-24 11:55:11.

I once took down a double-pen hewn barn.

I used one of those pens to build the completed log cabin that you see in the photo below. (I shared the story of that cabin with you all months back). It was a great cabin and I and the cabin’s owners remain close friends to this day. They, were a joy to work with in building their dream home in the woods.

The other half of that barn went up at the same time as an addition off of a local farmhouse. Those folks were pure misery to work for, yet they had the same builder and the same logs.

Originally posted 2015-06-24 11:27:00.

Here you can see that we are pouring concrete to create the foundation of a future stone kitchen off of the back of this log cabin.

There are a few other things to observe in this photo as well.

As you can see we have taken the old chimney down. The original was build with nothing but rock and dirt and most of the dirt had washed away. The sun would shine clear through the chimney.

After the chimney came down we could see the cabin’s original gable siding… no board and batten siding there!

If you look close enough you can see an occasional horizontal seam on the roof panels where one roll of roofing ended and the next roll was seamed together with it to avoid any left over scraps. You don’t see that done today done by roofers. They just save shorter pieces for shorter runs such as porches and dormers.

And one last thing (this is for you Larry Lamb) notice the logs to the left of the chimney and how the sun is hitting them… it appears these logs were adzed!

Originally posted 2015-06-23 14:04:47.

For every project that I designed and finished from concept to completion I probably had five “filler jobs”… projects for people that did not want us to build their entire dream home (generally due to lean wallet syndrome), but these folks were in need of enough of our help to get them headed in the right direction.

I enjoyed most of these smaller projects a great deal and from a business perspective these projects were also ideal in filling in our schedule between the larger ones.

I have a few of these old project photos piled up here that I’d like to share with you, bare with me, there might be a nugget of wisdom or laughter in all this for you.

Let’s start with this cabin.

Clearly she is an antique structure and in pretty good shape. Her metal roof is worn out though… 75 years is the most you can expect out of a steel roof, especially one that has not been properly cared for.

The chinking also needed to be replaced as it was installed improperly by a previous contractor (our number one job request).

It appears that the previous owner’s of this cabin had contracted with a beach-cottage-renovator based upon the design of the front porch and the board-and-batten siding on the gable ends. The cabin’s current owner wanted to keep all of this work, ugly as it was, after all, it was “paid for”.

My client wanted a small kitchen added to his cabin, but did not want the addition to come out this end of the cabin… which is the side of the cabin best suited for such an addition. In my humble opinion, or course.

The only option we were left with for the future kitchen was to build something out of the back of the cabin… which, due to the site’s steep grade, would cause this addition to immediately plow into the hillside.

I visualized a “stone root cellar look” for that future kitchen, and then, went to work.

Originally posted 2015-06-23 13:41:10.