Log Cabins Archives - Page 40 of 42 - Handmade Houses with Noah Bradley

29 06, 2019

The Flint Hill house… Part 2

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:30+00:00

I did not build this log cabin. Yet, I was called in to design and build an addition for it. I wondered why.

The cabin had been built “by a nationally recognized expert on log cabins”. Why wasn’t he being called in to add an addition?

The cabin did have some things going for it… nice old logs, not a bad chimney, appealing roof pitches, and a porch located on the side of the house where one could enjoy the views.

There were a couple of things though that jumped out at me that I would have done differently, but I didn’t comment on them to the owner. For one thing I’ve never been a big fan of square windows… I like windows that are taller than they are wide.

Also, I don’t care for board-and-batten siding on a log cabin. In all my years of looking at historic cabins… hundreds and hundreds of them… I have never seen a single one that originally had board-and-batten siding on it. None, at all.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like board-and-batten, just not on, or near, a log cabin… they tend to give a cabin an “outbuilding feel”… If you want your cabin to take on a chicken-coop look, go with board-and-batten. If not use horizontal siding.

I asked the cabin’s owners about their relationship with their previous builder and if they were pleased his workmanship. The long list of problems they began describing was unbelievable, starting with their discovery that the builder had not installed footers under the foundation and that they were forced to hire someone else to jack the house up and build a new proper foundation under it.

hmmmmm. So, his building skills needed improvement but what about his design work?
I’ll let you judge… in Part 3.

Originally posted 2015-03-09 21:21:01.

The Flint Hill house… Part 2Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:30+00:00

29 06, 2019

From disrepair to full restoration

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:20+00:00

Here we have the three stages of the restoration of this antique log cabin…

The first image is of the cabin as it was first seen by me. She was covered in snow and showed the effects of having been abandoned for decades.

The second photo shows the cabin right after we have just finished the restoration work and have done our final sweeping.

The final image is of the cabin a few years later after our workmanship had aged and nature had once again returned to the cabin’s doorstep.

It’s all good.

One final note…

The following winter, months after we had completed the restoration of this special place, the family who owned the cabin held a gathering at the cabin to celebrate it’s rebirth. I was invited to attend.

I arrived at the cabin and noticed that it was very cold and snow once again covered the ground, just as it had been the first time I visited this site. But this time, a year later, things were different.

Smoke was coming out of the chimney. The house was alive again with human visitors.

There were the sounds of many conversations going on, and of laughter, lots of laughter. Upon entering I could see that there were sleeping bags scattered in every corner, a young woman was playing a guitar and singing, and blueberry pancakes were being cooked on a skillet over an open fire. I was greeted with smiles, thank you’s, pats on the back, sincere compliments, and multiple offers of pancakes… I cheerfully accepted them all.

I do love my job. 🙂

Noah

Originally posted 2015-03-06 20:22:05.

From disrepair to full restorationNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:20+00:00

29 06, 2019

A finished lean-to addition on a log cabin

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:17+00:00

I think that the little lean-to kitchen addition turned out well. I’ve always been a fan of this style of addition onto a cabin. It’s commonly found, and aesthetically pleasing.

This added space is very handy to have on any cabin.

We built stone piers underneath it just like the original cabin has under her. Well… I guess ours are more “refined” and we did cheat some… we put footers under ours, and, there is cement hidden within the stonework. If this cabin comes down one day during an earthquake it will not be because of our addition. 🙂

This lean-to is sided with cedar which should hold up well for a long time with little needed maintenance, if any.

This type of addition… framed with siding, I find is very attractive. I think framed additions (or stone additions) add to the beauty of a cabin and save money. It’s one of the many reasons that log cabin kits fail so miserably.

Future log cabin owners are always presented with log cabin plans that feature nothing but logs, after all it’s what these manufacturers process and sell. “If it’s not all log, then it’s not a log home”.

But, that is not what was done for generations.

I have found that if I stick to proven historic aesthetics that I am always rewarded in the end.

Originally posted 2015-03-06 17:52:36.

A finished lean-to addition on a log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:17+00:00

29 06, 2019

A cedar shake roof on a log cabin?

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:11+00:00

As you can see in this photo, we had come far in the restoration of this fine little cabin. The logs are now chinked, the porch has been rebuilt, the chimney has been rescued, and we were ready for the roofing crew to come in and apply the copper.

I find this to be a very pleasing photo of the cabin… it is a sweet spot to stand and take in all of her beauty. If I were building her new, rather than restoring her, this is perspective I’d like to see as I approached home.

The cabin’s roof line… the way that the porch roof and the house roof are connected… is a rarity when compared with all the other cabins I have encountered over so many years. Typically, the two roofs are separate, making the porch roof more shallowly pitched.

We had the option of going with a wood shake roof here on this cabin, and when I look at this photo, I can see that that might have been a more visually appealing choice. That’s hard for me to admit to… I can’t say that is true of most cabins… I often find shake roofs are too “distracting” from a cabin’s other features.

But copper was our best option here. Of it’s many attributes, fire protection made it our choice for this cabin. When you own a cabin in the woods, fire is to be taken seriously.

I have seen a “fireproof rated” cedar shingle ignited using a single cigarette. So, one stray ember from the chimney onto a wood shake roof could have turned this cabin into a smoking pile of ash long before any fire truck could have reached her. If, and that’s a big IF, a firetruck could have reached her at all.

Originally posted 2015-03-04 16:25:21.

A cedar shake roof on a log cabin?Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:11+00:00

29 06, 2019

Cleaning and sealing a log cabin

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:10+00:00

We always give an old log cabin a good cleaning with a power washer and soapy water after we have removed all the unwanted parts of the structure. It is amazing how much dirt and grime gathers inside of an old home over the course of a century or two. (That’s one of a variety of reasons that I personally prefer living in a new re-built old home over living in an existing old home… I am fully aware of what is behind the walls).

I will never forget the time that I and three other strapping young men (yes, there was a time that I was a strapping young man) were all working on taking down an unusually dirty old house. It was a hot day and all of us were wearing boots and shorts and covered from head to toe with a thick coat of black dust. The harder we worked, the more we sweated, the more we sweated the more black streams of goo ran down our bodies. Someone eventually made the comment about ” there is nothing else quite like wearing reconstituted rat turds”. We all paused, and contemplated a career change… then, went back to work.

On this project we didn’t have an adequate source of water to wash the cabin ourselves… the little spring nearby was not up to the task.

So, I hired a “pro powerwasher” who had his own rig complete with a water supply. I met him at the bottom of the three mile road that lead back to this cabin and explained to him the roughness of the road. His response was “no problem, lead the way”. Once we arrived at the cabin I walked back to his vehicle, he rolled down his window and let me know that he was “not getting out his f’ing truck unless I paid him twice what he had quoted me at the bottom of the mountain”. Of course, I paid him the doubled rate… what were my options?

With regard to a sealer… it is extremely rare that we use any kind of sealer on a old cabin. I would think that of the four typical species that are common in cabins in the mid-Atlantic states that only heart-pine would be a candidate for a sealer… and that would be on a case-by-case review.

Sealers frankly aren’t needed on poplar, oak, or chestnut. The fastest way to make a cabin ugly is to seal it. Why just last year we were called in to help someone out who had applied a sealer to an incredibly nice oak cabin out of Pennsylvania. His cabin had turned orange.

It is a lot easier to do something wrong, than it is to undo it.

Originally posted 2015-03-04 15:23:56.

Cleaning and sealing a log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:10+00:00

29 06, 2019

Chinking a log cabin

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:09+00:00

Chinking… filling in the area between the logs is probably the single most important aspect of building or restoring a log cabin. It’s also the least appreciated.

Done correctly it will last for decades, it will keep out the rain and the cold, it will protect the logs from water damage, and it can be an attractive feature.

It is also the most numerous request that we get for our services, and a lot of those calls are because most novices do not install it correctly and as a result problems (mainly rot) appear very soon.

This is an area of log construction that “do it right the first time” is very important. Many log homeowners will pay to have it done wrong, then they will pay more than that to have it removed, then they will pay to have repairs done to their logs because of the improper chinking, then they will pay to have it done right. Yikes.

We use a dyed cement mix. It cost about $5 for a five gallon bucket full of it. We do not use PermaChink which cost over $100 a bucket… We don’t like working with a polymer, nor do we like cleaning up after we are finished at the end of the day with toxic chemicals, nor do we feel it is appropriate to apply a modern plastic product to a vintage log cabin. It’s just not the right way to do things.

We like our Frisbees made out plastic, not our historic structures. Yes, I know PermaChink is warranted to last a long time… but how many plastic products do you know that hold up well out in the sun? How many times has a warranty worked out for you?

I’ve been chinking cabins for 30 years… and every cabin I’ve ever chinked is still just as fine today as the day I installed it… not one single chink joint replaced… ever.

Chinking for the most part is a miserable job. It’s painstakingly slow, and the installer is prone to getting painful cuts (I carried one crewman to the hospital to get stitches in his belly from a piece of the wire mesh that he was working with). Even my dentist can tell when I’ve been chinking from the grinding damage to my teeth that I mindlessly do while installing.

I’ll have to see if I can put together some kind of YouTube video and show people how to install chinking properly. My dentist would be happy about that.

Originally posted 2015-03-04 14:27:55.

Chinking a log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:09+00:00

29 06, 2019

Adding a window to a log cabin

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:08+00:00

We added a window to the front of the cabin.

It’s hard to believe that someone would build a log home and not put a window on the front. In the case of this cabin the front is where the incredible views are… and it’s where the morning sun comes in.

So why didn’t they? Were windows that expensive? Did they want to keep wild animals (or wild men) out? I don’t know. Maybe, they were patiently waiting for me to show up? If so, I apologize for being so late.

I don’t like to change old houses any more than I have to. Even in a case like this where a window would add so much to the cabin. But, I had “an extra motivator” to make the change.

You see some idiot, years back, had thought it would be a great idea to carve a swastika in one of the logs on the front of the cabin.

Now I did my share of stupid things in my youth, but I’ve never understood the pleasure some people get out of vandalism, especially hateful messages… and, on historic structures?

Anyway, I cut out that piece of meanness and threw it in a fire, and in the process I gave this cabin’s new residences a wonderful view of the sunrise coming up over the neighboring hills.

Originally posted 2015-03-03 18:24:33.

Adding a window to a log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:08+00:00

29 06, 2019

Framing a lean-to addition on a log cabin

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:07+00:00

I framed up a new kitchen addition off of the back of the cabin.

It’s a bit smaller than what the cabin originally had on it. Visually the old addition looked too big and I was afraid that this new addition, with all it’s “newness”, might be too distracting from the natural beauty of the old cabin.

I made sure and added plenty of windows to this addition to bring the outside in, and to add as much light to the interior of the cabin as I could. Cabins are naturally dark… getting enough natural light is always a challenge.

Originally posted 2015-03-03 17:51:02.

Framing a lean-to addition on a log cabinNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:07+00:00

29 06, 2019

Log cabins age well

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:04+00:00

This is first view I had of the mountainside cabin as I approached her.

This is the back of the cabin.

The well-worn addition off of this side was at one time the families kitchen.

I’m standing about where the spring is located that supplied the cabin with fresh water.

Before bottled water, heck, before running water, having a spring nearby was a handy thing to have.

I still clearly remember this moment. I stood there in awe of this place. I spent the next few months restoring this cabin, and I think I did a great job of doing it… but sometimes, when I look at this photo, I think that perhaps she was more attractive as she was. (I’m weird in that way)

I don’t believe many would disagree with me that log cabins age well. I wonder if the same will be said in the future about the vinyl homes of today.

Noah

Originally posted 2015-03-02 16:41:40.

Log cabins age wellNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:04+00:00

29 06, 2019

The first step in restoring a log cabin is carefully looking it over

Noah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:03+00:00

The cabin’s owner told me that I was the eighth person that he had brought in to see if the cabin could be restored.

All of the previous builders had told him that the best thing that he could do would be to bulldoze the place and put up a new cabin.

I told him that it was the prettiest cabin that I had ever seen.

And, it was.

And, he hired me.

Now don’t misunderstand me, the cabin had “issues”, no doubt.

I had never seen a chimney in worse shape. For some unknown reason the bottom of the chimney had experienced tremendous aging… a loss of mortar, a loss of stone, even an erosion of some of the stones… to the point I was concerned that the chimney could fall at any moment.

And the front porch… well, let’s just say that I’ve seen more inviting places to savor the day. My wife, seen in the photo, just walked on by.

But the logs, they were beautiful. Large poplar logs… one of my favorite species. All in great shape. If you have really nice logs you have the potential for a really nice home.

This cabin restoration was going to be a treat.

Originally posted 2015-03-02 16:36:56.

The first step in restoring a log cabin is carefully looking it overNoah Bradley2019-06-29T10:11:03+00:00