Archive for the ‘Cabin’ Category
Putting Electricity On Property.
Posted: May 16, 2019 in 2018, Adding Electricity, Cabin, Electricity
Rachael, Bonnie, Janice, Rob and I 
Posing by the WA ocean at Klaloch Beach. 
In back is a huge cedar tree. 
One of the many deer that live next to our cabin. 
There she is!! The roof is complete, but not all of the windows are in and it isn’t completely chinked yet. 
All of us eating in Seattle before our Alaskan Cruise. 
Emily is popping up in the background. 
A sockeye salmon making its way up this small creek. 
A train out of Skagway AK up into the gold rush mountains. 
Glaciers in the background. 
WhooHoo!! 
The three girls up on the balcony doing something??? 
Emily and Liz helping screw in the 2×6 on the loft. 
We use mortar mix with a little bit of glue for our chinking material. We also add just a little bit of dye to color the mix slightly brown. 
I have yet to come back and add finish trim to the doors and windows. 
Here you can see the Butt n Pass method of log home building we used. 
Look at the posts I used for the future deck. I choose logs that were beautiful with the curves and burls. 
Sam and Elliot out chinking. 
Hannah joins Sam and Elliot chinking. 
We just cut this window out. As we were securing logs on the walls with rebar every 3-4 feet…we left spaces open without rebar for the locations of the windows and doors. 
Bonnie and Hannah chinking here. 
Here Jill mixes the mortar mix to be used in the chinking process. 
If you figure out how long you have to chink…the cabin is 34×28 feet…14 logs on the long sides…around 20 logs x28 feet on the gable ends….that is close to 4,000 feet of chinking…almost ONE ENTIRE MILE!! 
Building The Stairway Up To The Loft.
Posted: May 16, 2019 in 2018, Cabin, StairwayTags: log cabin, off grid, self build, Stairway
We cut a long log with a mill in half. Then cut a few inches off one side. We then began to add 3′ steps up that long log in order of a set of stairs. 
Here we are done with the stairs and making an effort to raise it. 
Here I am drilling holes to add the lag bolts to attach the stairs to the other side. 
Looks like both sides are lagged and John is working with our metal lift in raising the stairway. 
Wow…it was sure heavy…but the metal lift was more than up to the job! 
John, Cory and I show off in front of our new set of stairs. 
Here John is doing the brain work on the stairs. 
John is cutting the stairs to fit. 
Elk down below by the road! Pretty darn close for wild Elk!! 
Look at all those Bulls!! 
The big guy still has his velvet on his antlers. He’ll be a nice four point! 
Getting ready to lift the stairway up on to the loft log. 
I am sure happy at this point…it’s almost there! 
Jack is cutting off the extra log. 
In this photo you can see a lot. The big cedar center post we will be using in our cabin. Our gravity fed septic tank. The forms of our cabin foundation and in the background our pop-up trailer and car port we lived in for two years.
I ran across this 18′ Red Cedar log at a local Port Orchard mill. It was ‘love at first sight’! All the gnarly knots where the branches
had been…the way the bottom part folded in and out the way Red Cedars do. I had to have it! Instead of mill it down to a table top I decided to use it for my center post in our cabin. It will be the center post that holds up our ridge pole. Smack dab in the middle or our cabin! I decided to use a Tong Oil on it to bring out its natural color. I spent some time peeling off all the bark I could reach. At the end of the summer of 2015 I pulled it myself…with the help of my jeep and winch…over to the garage and stored it inside the garage over the winter. 
had to 
hook up a snatch block on the far side of the garage to pull it in. Thank goodness for winches and block ‘n tackle.
SOLAR POWER. Got your attention? We purchased this piece of land knowing it had power lines literally crossing our land at one end. So naturally we thought we had power. What we didn’t consider was the cost of getting that power up the hill 1500′ to our build site. Later we found that cost to be 37k! If I was to tell you one thing that may save you the most money, it would be…consider and research your UTILITIES! Power, water and septic. With that said we still love our purchase of land and its ‘curveballs’. We actually are appreciating our ‘off the grid’ situation with power. We do have a wonderful well and now have a gravity fed septic tank. So power will be dealt with in three ways…solar, generator and propane. I will wire the cabin with grid power in mind, mostly for resale value but also for using a generator when needed.
Here are the four golf cart 6volt batteries we use. Connected to create one 12volt battery.
Our two 160watt solar panels. Enough to feed our batteries and power our trailers evening lights, router, converter and charge our devices.
For the first two years we have used two 160watt solar panels with four 6volt batteries, a 7000w generator and a handful of small propane tanks. This summer I am hoping to add solar panels, a better converter and possibly more batteries. Also we will invest in a more permanent generator and a large propane tank.
logcabinfromscratch 