Posted in February 2011 …

Feb 10 2011
3 Comments
Building, Cabins, Shelter, Video

Build a log cabin with your hands for almost free – Videos

Watch these 3 videos below!
This guy (186282plus1) didn’t build 1 log cabin he built 20! Well not exactly 20 but it sounded cooler. He built 2 on youTube and possibly 18 more not on YouTube? Hard to say… But anyway these are some of the best log cabin videos I’ve seen since they take take you through the whole process of making a cabin from scratch, almost entirely from the forest. He used the first cordless tools aka hand tools and a few battery powered tools that he hauled up the mountain to his remote building site. The captions really help to understand what he’s doing, hope you like the videos as much as me! I wonder where he is located????

Cabin On a Hill

From the builder: This is one of the few spots that I can build a log cabin on the upper section of this land so it seems like a challenge to me. As you may have noticed from the video, this is a one man construction project, hence the size of the log cabin but it’s nice that I get to make all of the creative decisions on the cabin design;) Though, the downfall of that being that I can really only move up to a certain sized log by myself, and if anything is to be carried up to the cabin (it’s quite a hike up the mountainside) It’s on my back. So far I’ve put about 13 weekends into this cabin as well as $140 in spikes, rebar, nails, morter and plumbing parts as well as 9 trees and about 17 sapplings and a burned out old cedar stump (used for the shake roof). What’s interesting is that it’s actually quite therapeutic for me to just be out in the forest working on this log cabin project. I tend to find myself feeling very refreshed after a weekend of doing this sort of thing, I think maybe that I like the creative outlet that this project provides to me, dunno for sure. Though I have to admit that there are times when I really think that building a log cabin is a challenge to anyones limits of perserverance. So since it’s snowing now at this elevation and it’s really hard to work with frozen logs and cold fingers, I’ve decided to stop working untill things warm up a bit. I guess I’ll just go back to my regular therapist until then.

First Cabin he built to gain skills

From the builder: I know this log cabin is small, but it was more of an experiment in remote shelter building for me than anything else. It took about 3 months of weekends to build this log cabin, which was about 100 hours in total. All materials used were found on site or packed in on my back up a small winding foot trail. It took 5 fir trees and a handfull of sapplings plus a bag of screws, a few bags of morter, various concrete blocks and some thick poly for the window and a zinc strip on the roof ridge. The log cabin has had 6 feet of snow last year and the cedar roof held together nicely. This log cabin sits on 4 large rocks, one at each corner of the log cabin and the floor is made of dirt. The wood heater/stove doesn’t actually work all that well, but hey it was my first attempt. I think the notching is called a half notch, and it was chosen for it’s simplicity since this was my first attempt at this sort of thing. The notches require a hand saw an axe and a few sharp bangs from a mallet to make, they were very simple and quick compared with a saddle notch style, though the downside of this style is that they had to be spiked at each corner to keep them secure. Sorry for the lack of tunes, it’s my first vid or should I say slide show.

Notching logs for cabin with saw and ax

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Feb 03 2011
3 Comments
Building, Cabins

Beautiful Shed Cabin on Gambier Island B.C.

10x12 vacation cabin with deck

So I just found this small shed cabin project while surfing the internet today. I realize sometimes my posts are about projects that have been featured on other websites. I’m not really sure if my readers have seen them on other sites but I just blog about what I like and hope it interests you too. This Shed Cabin has been shown on Apartment Therapy and also Tiny House Blog (one of my favorites), check them both out. I couldn’t pass this one up since it’s a shed turned into a cabin like ours is. Also their deck is awesome and on my To Do List. If I was in Vancouver I’d totally get a little piece of land in the Canadian Gulf Islands, like they did here on Gambier Island. I’ve never been to this specific island but I can tell you other islands near the inside passage are amazing. In Washington State we have a smaller island group called the San Juan Islands. Being an avid on the cheap boater, I really dig islands and the idea of being secluded and off the grid.

Beautiful Shed Cabin on Gambier Island B.C.

Name: Tammy, John, Sam, Will, and Dobbs
Location: Gulf Islands, British Columbia
Size: 180 square feet
Years lived in: One (mostly on weekends)Before I get started with this tour, I cannot emphasize this enough: My husband and I are not rich and we are not particularly handy. Heck, we’re not even all that smart. This latter fact was probably the driver behind why two people with little money and even fewer skills would even attempt to build a cabin on an isolated island with no amenities. But armed with a hacked $25 shed plan and an incredibly generous friend with actual skills, we gave it a shot. Here’s how it turned out.

Stylishly simple cabin interior with will of translucent corregated roofing

Stylishly simple cabin interior with will of translucent corrugated roofing

The footprint is 10 by 12 feet. That’s right: 120 square feet. The sleeping loft is 6 by 12, making the grand total 180 square feet. The deck, which was added this past spring, is 10 by 10, and boy, does it make a difference. With both doors open, it feels luxuriously spacious, believe it or not. The materials cost – including salvaged windows and doors – was about $7,000.

Cabin Loft framing

Loft framing

View a slideshow of this cabin

To get started, I’ll answer the three questions we get asked most often:

So how big is it?
Before we added the deck, the footprint was 10 by 12 feet. That’s right: 120 square feet. The sleeping loft is 6 by 12 10, making the grand total 180 square feet. The deck, which we added this past spring, is 10 by 10, and boy, does it make a difference. With both doors open, it feels luxuriously spacious, believe it or not.

How much did it cost to build?
The materials cost – including salvaged windows and doors – was about $7,000. But there were a bunch of big expenses along the way. We realized we needed a truck on the island, so we spent $2,000 on an awesome orange 1990 Chevy Blazer. We don’t use it often, but when we need it, we really need it. The propane fridge was $2,500. We needed two barge trips to haul the truck and our supplies, so that was another $2,500. And we spent about $500 to rent a generator and a couple of power tools we didn’t own.

How long did it take?
All told, about two weeks of work for two guys: my husband, John, and our good friend Stefan, who brought a lot of skill and positive thinking to the whole project. And when I say two weeks of work, I’m talking about hardcore workdays. They started in right after breakfast and worked straight through till dusk. If the weather was good, they hooked spotlights up to the generator and worked till late at night.

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