Over the years I’ve been offered hundreds of old barns, free for the salvaging… each an opportunity for antique materials before these structures were bulldozed or burned down.

On some days there would be multiple unsolicited messages on my phone for me to come look at yet more of these unwanted relics of our past. For years the calls were overwhelming.

But the phone doesn’t ring with offers like that near as much any more… I fear what that means. For certain when I drive the roads of this state I don’t see those wonderful “cow houses” like I used to.

Most of those barns that I was offered… I never went to look at, there were just too many, my resources were too thin, and my focus was more on saving the old houses.

The houses that were in danger of being lost were from a much earlier period and contained much finer and more valuable materials. While most of the neglected barns were “20th century” and were built of materials identical to what one can obtain at any local sawmill.

Likely the vast majority of those barns that I was offered are gone. They are now just memories.

But this old barn still stands today… thanks to a little help from me and my crew… and the barn’s owner who surprised me when he took my advice to let me repair it.

Originally posted 2015-05-14 12:22:13.

Here is the next set of scans from the Country Living magazine article on this log home…

The quality of photography in these photos is light-years beyond mine.

I am so, so, humbled.

The effort put into getting the proper lighting and composing each shot really pays off… not to mention lots of high dollar equipment.

Just look at this photo of the kitchen fireplace!

Sweet!

Back in the 1990’s, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, these photographers would have everything set in place perfectly and then they would take a Polaroid photo through the eyepiece of the tripod mounted camera to see if any further adjustments were needed. I was so impressed with that at the time. Today it’s all done with computers, monitors, and Photoshop.

Regardless of the tools used though, photographers are still artists, and there is nothing better than watching an artist at work. I still stand behind them and watch as they do their magic.

If there was a channel of tv that just showed artists at work… I’d tune in. No drama needed… but maybe, a bit of background music would be nice.

Originally posted 2015-05-13 11:30:25.

Here are the second and third pages of the Country Living article on this cabin… which create sort-of a centerfold… yeah, I know… ooh la la. 😉

I’d like to point out the “summer beam” in the ceiling. This large oak timber runs the length of the first floor, right down the center of the rooms and provides added strength to the joists above.

This summer beam was not original to the cabin and was added by us after the joists were in place and it became obvious that there was too much “bounce” on the second floor.

I’m not certain if the bounce was something the original owners put up with, or if they had some kind of interior framed walls downstairs that helped support it. But, we felt that the situation was unacceptable and that something needed to be done.

It was quite a challenge to install this extremely heavy beam up into place. But, our efforts were rewarded with a greatly strengthened floor system.

I also think that this hewn timber adds tremendously to the look of the room.

So, what do you think? Would you like to kick back on the couch and enjoy the fire for a bit?

Originally posted 2015-05-12 18:23:33.

Page 1 of the the Country Living article on this cabin…

The photo shoot was in a word… “classy”.

This old country boy was impressed.

“Country Living” flew in from around the country some of the best photographers in their field.

They timed their arrival to coincide with the beautiful Fall colors. You can see all the bountiful harvest on the porch… so meticulously arranged… from the orange pumpkins and even a gallon of fresh apple cider… yum.

Their images are nothing like my photos where ladders, mops, and sawhorses are clearly visible. lol My photos are embarrassing in comparison.

Originally posted 2015-05-12 17:57:56.

Remember that song back in 1970’s about how a rock band would know that they had made the big time when they were on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine?

Well, if you were a log builder in the 1990’s the dream was to make the cover of Country Living magazine… and this cabin, made it there for me. 🙂

No, my smiling face wasn’t featured on the cover… lol… but, trust me… I was standing behind the photographers… with a wide smile across my face.

Originally posted 2015-05-12 15:08:58.

“Watcha got in the back of your truck there pal?”

“It’s an eleven-sided chestnut silo that we just took down. I’m on my way to the top of a mountain to put her back up.”

“Oh, I see.”

Originally posted 2015-05-05 11:23:49.

The silo grew shorter…

And shorter…

Until it was gone.

Originally posted 2015-05-05 11:14:13.

This silo is the largest stack of chestnut lumber that I will ever see… it’s certainly, the tallest.

Over two thousand individual boards make up this structure, each laid down flat, one upon the other, just a like brickwork. And every board would have five nails driven down through it and into the course below it, thus securing it tightly. And then, another nail was driven into each end of every board… for good measure.

The two men chosen to take this silo down and re-erect it later, both fine carpenters, would begin to refer to themselves as “wood masons” after working a few days on this project.

They were likely the only two wood-masons in America at the time.

Originally posted 2015-05-05 10:59:45.

Here’s a photo of the original ladder that the farmer would have used to climb up and into the silo. It was located in the area between the barn and the silo.

I climbed that ladder once.

That was enough.

It’s amazing how much harder a truly vertical ladder is to climb when compared to a leaning ladder that those of us in construction often use.

There is simply no opportunity for upper body rest on a vertical ladder. And, to some degree, a person’s knees need to be bent out to the side.

I have often carried something up in my hand when climbing a leaning ladder (a saw or a piece of lumber). Sometimes I’ve used both hands and walked a ladder like I would a staircase… that can’t be done when a ladder is built straight up and down.

The goal when using a ladder like this is to get where you are going as swiftly as you can. Or better yet, get someone else to go up there. lol

Originally posted 2015-05-05 10:38:45.

You likely won’t see another photo like this online today…

Once we got the roof off of the silo it was time to set up a stack of scaffolding on the inside of the silo. We’d pull up each piece by rope on the outside and then lower it down to the bottom on the inside where we would assemble it. We would work from this scaffolding to disassemble the more that 2,000 boards that made up the silo.

But there was a problem.

It was early Spring and at the bottom of the silo there was a frozen slab of ice left over from Winter. It was a deep layer of ice and from what we could tell it was at least a foot thick, there was an odd mixture of things we could see frozen in this slab, from the ladder that can be seen in the photo, to a raccoon that you cannot see.

The thing we did not know is how deep this layer of ice might be. We had this unsettling thought in the back of our minds that this was perhaps a frozen layer of ice on top of a well.

The entire time we worked on top of this ice sheet we had this ongoing concern that at any moment our scaffolding would suddenly break through this layer of ice and vanish into the unknown depths of an imagined well…. carrying us along with it.

It was a couple weeks later, after we had finished taking down the silo, that this slab of ice completely melted revealing a concrete floor about a foot below the ice.

And, for all you animal lovers out there… we gave that raccoon a proper burial.

We did our best to pray him out of purgatory and into those heavenly gates.

Originally posted 2015-05-04 18:38:53.