Blog - Page 25 of 123 - Handmade Houses with Noah Bradley

My love of log cabins

Several years before I built my first log cabin, long before I ever thought of building them for a living, log structures fascinated me.

If I saw one I couldn’t help but climb them and give them a hug!

I should have seen what was coming. sigh.

I guess I’ve built fifty of them since this photo was taken and performed some degree of restoration on a couple hundred more, and, I have explored and studied well over a thousand. I know cabins.

I wish I could go back in time and tell that young man in the photo what I know today. But, I can’t. So… you all are stuck with hearing me ramble on. lol

Have a great day everybody!

Originally posted 2015-08-04 12:23:20.

My love of log cabinsNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:48+00:00

A log cabin with flair

Here’s one of the two log cabins that make up this home. There are some interesting details to be seen on this home.

Overall she is very appealing, although there are some features that I would have done differently, such as the stove pipe and the odd window in the gable end… but you know architects. 😉

* (there is an unwritten rule that all builders must make a subtle jab towards architects at least once a week lol)

Originally posted 2015-08-01 14:25:34.

A log cabin with flairNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:47+00:00

The use of boulders in cabin construction

For those who love log cabins and stone… HUGE stones.

Originally posted 2015-08-01 13:59:00.

The use of boulders in cabin constructionNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:46+00:00

Three different photos of the same cabin

Which do you like better? The sunset photo. The daytime photo. Or, heaven forbid… the “before photo”?

Originally posted 2015-07-31 12:20:57.

Three different photos of the same cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:45+00:00

Finished interior where timber frame meets log cabin

Here’s the finished room made from that old house. You can see the posts exposed in the corner where it meets with the log cabin, and you can see the antique joists above. (we not only built the log cabin, and this timber frame addition, but also the cabinetry, and even… the kitchen table)

Originally posted 2015-07-31 11:59:05.

Finished interior where timber frame meets log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:44+00:00

Stick-built and timber-frame combined

Okay… it’s time to put the old house back up.

We decided here not to use stress skin panels but rather we would built standard 2by6 exterior walls and then build the old timber frame on the interior of those walls to be seen and appreciated for decades to come. (no real reason for that… I guess there just wasn’t enough of material needed to bother ordering panels)

For all the stone work enthusiasts out there let me point out one feature of the stone that makes it attractive… depth and roughness. Smooth surface stone will never give you the play on light as do rough faced, jagged stone.

Once the walls were all framed up we started with the rafters.

We could then start to get a sense of what the finished kitchen would look like.

Originally posted 2015-07-30 14:18:51.

Stick-built and timber-frame combinedNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:43+00:00

Transporting an old disassembled house

Moving day.
The entire house only took us two trips to move…
chimney and all.

Originally posted 2015-07-30 13:49:27.

Transporting an old disassembled houseNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:42+00:00

The slow demise of timber framing

This is how the addition off of the log cabin started out… with a worn out mid-1800’s home scheduled to be torn down.

She wasn’t much to look at… but her frame was built well (which is why she was still standing) and I needed a frame.

Notice the original siding on the chimney end.

The frame of this home was like nothing I had seen before. It clearly was built in a transitional time of construction.

The timbers were smaller than in the older homes that we had previously experienced but the mortise-and-tenon joints were still each carefully marked with roman numerals, (as seen in the photo above). Each of these joints was held in place with a wooden peg (many of which we had to drill out).

But what made this frame unique, in my experience at least, was the grid type appearance. So many horizontal framing members… hmmm… why would they be there?

The only time I ever install horizontal framing is when I know I’m going to put up board-and-batten siding. And that’s what this house had… but… the board-and-batten found here was a form of underlayment on this house which was then to be covered up with horizontal siding.

This is the oldest house that I have ever seen with a layer of underlayment under the siding. This layer contributes greatly in sealing out air infiltration and strengthens our homes today. And I guess that’s what it was doing here… the timbers were getting smaller and an added layer of wood was giving the house the added strength that it would need.

Soon the timbers of our houses would shrink to the size of two-by-fours and the fancy joinery would be eliminated, replaced by a few nails.

Originally posted 2015-07-29 13:25:17.

The slow demise of timber framingNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:41+00:00

Log cabins are visually powerful

A few months back I shared the construction of this cabin but I just glanced over the story of the kitchen/bath addition off of the end.

It’s time to revisit here.

I have found that the log cabin (or stone) part of a home always dominates the visual impact of the entire home of which it is a part.

I have built homes where the log cabin only made up one room of a much larger house and yet everyone’s comments, and everyone’s memory, with regard to that home was always the log section.

And so it is with this cabin, and it’s adjoining addition which was so overshadowed by it’s bigger brother.

I don’t know why that is… maybe it’s because there is some kind of inner fascination with log structures that lies within us… or maybe it appeals to some hidden gene within us… maybe because a log structure is something out of the normal daily experience of most people. I don’t know.

And so, maybe the strong visual impact of a log cabin is why one that is built well is so appealing, and one built poorly is so, so bad.

Originally posted 2015-07-28 13:13:37.

Log cabins are visually powerfulNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:19:40+00:00