14 x 14 Post & Beam w/ Scribed Log Infill

[Pine Cone]

I hope everyone is having a good holiday season.  Got some Christmas decorations up out at the cabin this year.

I wanted to thank some of the people who helped make the cabin a reality with some extra hands and critical help on some parts of the project where my wife and I couldn't do it by ourselves

Decided to make some clocks using leftover bits from the cabin along with some small clock inserts from Lee Valley.



Here is a closeup of one of them...  Base is a western white pine board from the ceiling and the clock is inset in a piece of sapele leftover from window trim. 

The rough cut on the white pine board is from the huge machine which cut down the trees.  The machine grabs hold of the tree, cuts it off the stump, and then removes the limbs by rolling the tree up and down.  It then cuts it into (mostly) 35 foot log lengths, putting the logs into a stack next to the machine.  Most of the trees I used for my cabin were over 100 feet tall and about 16-20 inches in diameter at the stump.   As you can see, it leaves a very distinctive cut on the stump cut.




Started working on making fence rails today, but it raining too much to get much done.  I will continue to work at this over the winter months since it is too wet to do much of anything else.



Hope everyone has a great and productive New Year!

[MountainDon]

Cool clocks. Reminds me I have some movements I should do something with.   

[Pine Cone]

With Spring finally getting here the 2011 building season has started.  Spend the Winter cutting down unwanted trees and burning slash and debris.  Decided to get serious about clearing potential hazard trees left around the cabin before they get too big.  Also doing lots of plant and garden related clearing as well to get more light to areas where we have planted tree seedlings and ornamental plants.  

Discovered that Don was right about small propane tanks in cold weather.  Almost no heat from the propane torch when it's 20 degrees out.  Same setup works great when it's 50 out.

Here's a look at this springs flowers.


The new porch works great for a little pickin' & grinnin'


Made some hand-carved spoons from maples I cut down earlier.




Finally started some new construction, it started out as a firewood storage area but has since evolved into a small (6x8 foot) storage shed.  Trying to get the basics done before a family camping trip out here on Memorial day weekend...  Tucked into a little flat spot with no stumps!

[Pine Cone]

Been pretty lazy this year, more interested in gardening and playing clawhammer banjo out at the cabin rather than in building much.

Had a bunch of mutant peloric foxgloves this year.  The stem develops a terminal flower that opens up much wider than the normal flower.


Shed work has been slow but steady.  Not enough pre-planning on this one and it shows.  It will be known as the "Crooked Shed" since the walls lean to the east...

Got the roof sheathing on and then used some leftover synthetic underlayment since I knew it would take me a while to get shingles on it.



Building it somewhat backwards, finished the inside so we could fill it with stuff before the family Memorial Day campout.



Got the door on it last weekend and it is now lockable, but still needs most of the exterior board-and-battens put on.  Easier to paint them first.  The exterior is just rough-milled boards milled from our cabin logs.  I'm not bothering to plane then, just brush off the exterior and paint them before installing them on the shed.  FiddleTunes in Port Townsend this weekend so I doubt that I will get the exterior done for another week or three.

Here's what is looks like right now...

[Redoverfarm]

Clawhammer with the banjo is much more relaxing than a clawhammer with nails and boards. Although mine is not nearly finished we sort of rushed the opening of the cabin Saturday.   Started a fire in the outside fireplace, roasted hot dogs and then Steven and a few others musicians provided the entertainment for the evening.  Good time.

[Pine Cone]

We're hoping to have a cabin-warming sometime in the next month or so.  For anyone here who would like to come and visit this project PM me and I'll send you more info.  A little over an hour's drive from either the Kingston or Bremerton ferry terminals.

Almost time to fire up the smoker and enjoy the summer.  Temporary pause on the summer-thing for now, back to rain and low 60s.  Don't know if we will ever get ripe tomatoes or not...  Back to the 70s this weekend.

[MountainDon]

   I'd be signing on if our original summer plans had gone better. We'd planned a west and PNW trip, but I don't feel like it with my jaw being wired shut and all.

[Pine Cone]

  I'd be signing on if our original summer plans had gone better. We'd planned a west and PNW trip, but I don't feel like it with my jaw being wired shut and all.

I hope the jaw-healing is going well.  In any case, if you ever do make it up this way I'd be glad to show you around.

[duncanshannon]

@Pine Cone - awesome story. Just read the whole thread. You've got a good thing going!

@MountainDon - what happened to your jaw? I had mine wired shut once for 6 weeks. Got Mono at the same time which was bitter sweet - suppressed my appetite for 5.5 weeks ... But I lost 30 lbs and had no energy.

[Pine Cone]

duncanshannon - thanks!  its been an interesting project


Finally progress on getting our 350 gallon water tank in the ground.  Have a neighbor with a tiny excavator and we talked about him digging me a hole last year, again earlier this year, and finally he called on Friday saying he was ready.



Didn't need anything fancy, just a roundish hole about 5 feet in diameter and 4 feet deep with a drainage ditch running downhill out of the hole to keep the tank from floating.



Here is the end result.  Cost me a whopping $40.  Best money I have spent all year.  When I am ready he will come back again to help get the tank in the hole and rebury it.  He will lift it up with the excavator which should take all the hardship out of it.  Then I just have to fill it.

So for any of you who have done this sort if thing in the past... is there any good way to clean the tank inside before it is burried?  Do you need to clean the inside?  Haven't come up with a good method yet, but I am open to suggestions about what we might do.  The only constraint is it can't take more than 10-20 gallons of water to do it.

[Redoverfarm]

PC being that you do not have an outlet low in the tank you are only left with one option.  I would put about 10 gal or so of water and about 1 pint of bleach.  If you have got a flexible brisstle brush like a car wash brush you can lay it on it's side using the brush to clean a side portion, roll and continue until you have went around all the interior.  The tank is probably not that heavy that you can't tilt it up to pour out the water.  I use 350Gal square tanks which have a low outlet so it was easier to dump the water.  I also used a high pressure sprayer.  But I only had a 6" top hole to manuver through.

[MountainDon]

Looks like our tank.      I washed it out with a hose at home before hauling it up to the mountains. Not sure if it wash necessary as it was clean in appearance.    The first water I stored in it was all chlorinated from home as well.

That probably didn't help you out much did it?

[Pine Cone]

Got a nice Christmas surprise. 

My copy of Lloyd Kahn's almost available "Tiny Homes - Simple Shelter" book.

My cabin project is on pages 30 and 31.



Haven't had time to do more than glace at it, but it looks like another great book from Shelter Publications.

I even got a copy of the very tiny 1 15/16"x 2 5/8" Tiny Homes book.  You can actually read it with the help of a magnifying glass!

The text and pictures used in the Tiny Homes book came from this website.   Thanks for everyone's encouragement and advice.

Extra thanks to John Raabe for hosting the Country Plans website.  It is a valuable source of info and support as well as some great house plans!

[Redoverfarm]

  congrats PC.

[Pine Cone]

Not much progress lately, too many other things going on.

Ended up getting a new house which is actually closer to the cabin, but now we just have unfinished projects at more places...

Working on making a rustic kitchen worktable for the new house.  Bought a 3'x6' maple butcher block workbench top from Grizzly.  I was going to make a maple base, but got side-tracked.  Finally decided to make a prototype using 2x4s and 4x4s from Home Depot, and it looks the part so we may stop here.  Still needs to be sanded and my wife want to paint it white with a white-washed, distressed look.



Assembled with Kreg pocket screws.  The best quick and reasonable joint I know of.



Next major cabin project is to finish the cistern.  My drain ditch isn't working as well as I wanted so we never got the tank in the ground.  I as afraid it might float up out of the hole, so I need to get my teenaged son or my neighbor with the backhoe to dig the drain ditch deeper.  right now it has about 18" of water in the bottom.

My neighbor logged the property across from mine last fall so I now have a filtered water view.  Won't last though, the trees grow too fast around here.

The not-so-new shed is almost finished, but it got too cold to paint the remaining boards, so we are waiting warmer weather.  Boards are mostly up, just need to put the battens on.  The roof overhang is large enough that the walls never seemed to get wet, and there is tarpaper whch won't get too damaged with a bit of blown in moisture.

Really nice that the cabin is finished enough that we finally get to go out to relax, rather than finish the latest project.

[waggin]

Congrats on being included in Lloyd Kahn's book!  Looks like he used a nice spread of photos of your place.  Enjoy that view while it lasts.  My new place was selectively logged around 2004 and never replanted, so I'll be thinning alders in the cleared areas for as long as I'm here.  Thankfully I've still got some nice cedars, big leaf maples, hemlocks, and a few areas of big doug firs, some in the 3-4' dbh range.

[Pine Cone]

Not much cabin building going on these days, but I have been getting setup for poultry again.  Haven't had ducks or chickens in over a decade.  Nice to be back raising birds again.  Still have to wait a few months until we get some eggs.

Still needs some paint, but the chicken ark is finally done!




Got a batch of mixed bantam chickens from Murry McMurray


And some ducks from our local farm supply store






Still need to build some nest boxes, but they won't be ready to lay until mid-August so there is no real hurry

[Yonderosa]

Awesome, just Awesome PC!

[OlJarhead]

Pretty cool   I need one of those!  Probably make my lawn look great!

[Pine Cone]

Got some ducks a week ago and now I need to build something for them.  Different food than the chickens at least for the next few weeks.  The Pekin's more than doubled in size in a week.  Khaki Campbell's are growing a bit slower.  So far the chicken tractor/ark is working well.