The Main Cabin: A Pictorial Update

"The Doctor is in"

Me and my "posse"

Adirondack Sunrise

Front elevation, thus far. Log stairs and railing to be added. Shrubs will be planted below wood siding.

Home made solar rack for 400 watts total. That's at least 1200W daily! Who says we can't watch TV?  Trench is now dug the 55ft to cabin. Controllers, invertor and batteries will be located in basement.

Creek? What creek? Oh yeah, the one visible from all the rooms. Love it!

General layout of the main area. All furniture pieces are adopted and refinished as my side hobby.

Stovepipe is in but still needs to be set straight once I'm done sliding the stove back and forth and flooring is in. I'm glad I used single wall pipe. Like the stove, it throws off lots of heat and costed less.

Side elevation

Frontal view. Two rear vertical logs missing. Also still missing, log rails and stairs.

Heat proof stone wall I'm making. 

Getting the boards planed and ready for the walls. I stained 34 of them that evening.

The stones roughly laid out the way they will be put up. Some stones were swapped out for better blending.

Using a float, I'm pushing wet cement into the wire lath to make a scratch coat.

Finished scratch coat will allow bonding of river rock to the wall. Behind the wall are metal beams and a 3 inch space that exceeds building codes for fire safety.

Insulating well is worth all the itching. I'm only half done but ran out of insulation batts.

One Year Later

Here we are again, at the tail end of fall. I remember walking around in the forest this time last year. As I recall, the lot had just been cleared and I was making plans for how the cabin would look. Since then, it's been a great year. Many things yet to do, but so much accomplished. Happily, insulating the guest cabin made a world of difference. It's now possible to sleep comfortably in 60 degrees while outside drops below freezing. It also made it possible to get more work done while saving money on all those nights I used to spend at the motel.

Added floor joists to close off the cathedral ceiling. The ceilings are very high to begin with and frankly, in a cabin this small, space is more important. This will double the loft size and add two more bunks.

Nice to have dad along helping. I always learn from him and the job goes from being work, to being a pleasure. The wall on dad's right shoulder will feature a glass door to bring in light and take you out to a small veranda. Beds will be positioned to either side of the door.

I added insulation and felt an immediate change. Even the small propane heater warms the cabin up nicely.

In anticipation of electricity in the next 6-8 weeks, the guest cabin will have all the creature comforts. Thanks, Mom and Dad for the white stove. It's a birthday gift.

Hunting season has been fun. I've only thrown myself into it half-heartedly as there's been so many things underway. I haven't seen a single buck, bear, or anything else for that matter. Only a few red squirrels. But it's been fun anyway. I learned a lot about nature, spent great sunrises and sunsets outside, from inside my deep woods blind, or up in my tree stand, and made friends doing it. It's not about the kill. For me, it's about knowing I could live off the land if I had too. It's also an activity that takes us back to our very roots as hunter gatherers. So while I sat around the woods waiting, and waiting, and waiting, it's been great. Next year for sure.

20ft to the platform offer the best view in the house!

Up in the stand just after nightfall.

In the dark, it's easy to forget you're 20ft up!

A wonderful thing to see on the trails. Those aren't Nike's!

Just after sun up at the guest camp.

23 degrees left a frost on the ground. With sunrise, all traces of it will be erased from the eyes of  late sleepers.

I was walking across the camp as the snow came down. Silence in the forest broken only by the sound of low flying geese. What a nice feeling to be in nature, any time of year.

Finished Roughing In! The camp is up and the money is out!

The basement windows were installed at the camp marking the official completion of what was originally paid for. As the building season comes to a close, so too does the building budget. Fortunately, all was done that needed to be done. The result? Beyond expectations! The siding change from "live edge" to vertical board and batten worked out wonderfully. The color, great. The increase in porch from 8ft to 10ft made a huge difference. Now, with my garage cleaned out and the furniture and odds n ends moved up north, I await spring, when the project can continue.

Gearing up for hunting season. A deer runway winds through the back of the camp but a wildlife cam set up two weeks ago turned up nothing.

I asked the builder, John, to install my stovepipe. He does it all the time and frankly, I don't have the ladder to do it with. It will be a straight vertical shot 19ft up through the roof.

My brother making short-work of a fallen hemlock. This will be in stove come next year.

Some furniture rescued from the trash heap and rehab'd. Others are hand-me-downs. All will make themselves at home here.

Come spring, a log stair set will be placed here. Also railings, a rustic cabin sign above, and maybe a couple benches to sit on when we're taking off our boots.

The kitchen ended up small so part of the bathroom was used to accommodate the refrigerator. That meant no tub. Instead, a large shower.

Big Changes at the Little Camp

So dad, Island girl, and me, Adirondoc have spent some weekends up at the camp doing some work on the guest camp. Seems like not much gets done with a time we have, but with my brother father and me spending four days, we took a leap forward. It was nice to get the big stuff out of the way so Island girl could put some effort into making it more "cozy". Some artwork up. Some mess put away. Ah. Now it's beginning to feel less like work.

Itchy insulation!

Pine boards are up. Hurray!

So then we moved from putting boards up on the walls, to making to floor ready. I had originally wanted real pine flooring, but I was told pine is much too soft. Hardwood was available at around $3/sq ft. and still had to be sanded, stained and poly'd. I got laminate at Home Depot on special at 69¢/sq.ft. 

Instant beauty!

Cut in the sink and made things ready.

Shower plumbing is hidden by a paneling facade. Made some shelves from pine boards. For now, toilet drains to a 55 gallon dry well. Come spring, I'll switch it to a bonafide septic system.

Cabin progress, end of July

Dad and I spent the weekend in the guest cabin and had a chance to put partition walls up for the bathroom, and    and top row of cabinets against the kitchen area wall. Bought a few hundred dollars of knotty pine boards from the builder and boxed in the bathroom.

Hickory cabinets on knotty pine wall covering.

Bathroom as seen from living area.

site of future toilet

Now to show a few photos of the main camp project.

view from creek

view from yard

view from front. missing is the log porch covering the front door

dad looking past the partition walls

kitchen 

view from porch down to creek

view northwest, on side of house, towards future shed.