Just Workin around Here

We have been working on the cabin for the last couple of weeks. You may have seen some of these pictures before but I wanted to show you the before and after of some of the cabin.


Living in a forest and having so much wood right here it does not make any sense to pay for and haul lumber here. I did receive a gift of a bunch of "Seconds" lumber from Tom and Patty from their lumber mill. It is all 1"x4" edges of the trees that they milled. All of it is rough sawn and odd size and length. I have spent a full day Planing it all to 3/4" thick and getting one side to good quality.


I have also been practicing cutting planks from fallen trees that I seen come down this winter. I cut the planks "free hand" with the chainsaw, then planed them down to usable boards.



We also cut a few saplings a couple of months ago and peeled them. We put them in the cabin for a Month to dry them out so we could use them.


Now I will start putting this all together for you.

These are the rough boards we received from Tom and Patty. Hans is "helping" me with my job site agility by laying in the middle of the work area and making me walk around him with every board. I have to plane every board at least twice to get them to dimensional thickness. I will have to rip every board twice on the table saw to get dimensional width.

This is one of the products of the 1"x4"s. this is a box covering the batteries we use to power the cabin. It doubles as a bench for putting on boots and outdoor clothing and has added storage inside for ATV batteries, boat battery, snowmachine batteries etc. What ever we are not using for a season needs to have the batteries removed and charged occasionally so this works out very well.

The area of the battery box used to look like this.

Then the area was stripped, got a new door and then re-sided with the same wood plus new that was here and already installed all over the down stairs. See the water heater behind the wood burner. That was not there in the previous picture. Oh, neither was the door! (the little white thing in the other picture is the end of the microwave on a shelf in the kitchen)


This is the same area, this morning. The battery box is down to the left under the power panel etc. I still have to build in the power panel and wiring but most of this area is done. This door goes out onto the new back porch. This is our main entrance now. the old door on the front of the cabin is emergency exit only. We don't even have steps to it any more.


We move to the front door area of the cabin now. I needed to make some big shelves for our "Modern" electronics to set on. This is where I used a couple of the planks that I cut and made with my chainsaw and planer.

These planks were cut from a spruce tree that had fallen across one of our trails this winter.

I was able to plane those rough planks into finish boards.

The front edge of both the cabinet and shelf are from the planks. The "post" that go to the ceiling are from the saplings that we cut and peeled. These post support the "electronics shelf" and 40' of shelving around the perimeter of the living space of the cabin. It was 1 year to the day from our Auction when all of this was disconnected, until the day we hooked it up here. We have our real Stereo now! See how we used Burlap material to trim around the Log beams and give it a finished look.


This is the best picture I could find of what the front door area looked like once upon a time. As you can see, it has changed a little bit.
I built this cabinet with the plank wood I made plus 1x4s I processed. Notice the bark edge front. Myra made the curtain for the front.
The shelf is also plank wood plus it is assembled and hung by the saplings.

This is our "New" front area of the cabin. See the self up high? Then the sapling on the wall. This sapling was cut in half length ways then I routered out the back and it is covering wiring that goes down the surface of the wall. Myra is printing pictures to fill this collage frame then we will hang it here. (( HEY Mike and Sharon --- There is an Empty space on the high shelf for Pictures of your kids!!! Hint Hint))
Notice Myras' garden. She has started a bunch of plants that will end up outside. There are more on a shelf above the wood burner. As you can see by looking out the window (these pictures were taken this morning) we are not ready to garden outside yet. The paneling leaning on the wall behind Myra is going to be installed upstairs. Right now the upstairs is just OSB nailed up and un-finished.

AND, while we have been doing all of this, I received word from the Coast Guard on Thursday that my license has been approved and I will be a Fishing Guide this summer. Woo Whoo!

Thank you all for letting us share all of this.
The cabin is becoming Home!
See Ya,
Roger