Log Cabins

[mudflap]

I had to put the chinking on hold today - picked up a load of solar panels:



They are 200W panels / 7.9 amps. I got 24 of them (4800W). A guy I met on Diaspora from Texas just wanted them "out of [his] garage" - so he only wanted the cost of shipping - $310! I saved a lot of money on shipping too by asking the outlet store where I bought my kitchen cabinets if I could borrow their loading dock. The guy was super cool about it, and even loaded the pallet on my trailer with his forklift. Anyway, they are now safely stored in my shipping container while I fry other fish - really close to finishing the outer chinking - probably within days. Then the whole game changes - I'll get the wood stove in there so we can heat the place this winter while we work - it'll be framing and building out the inside from here on out. Home stretch!

[mudflap]

Exterior chinking will be complete today!

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... -chinking/

[Silver Pie]

They are 200W panels / 7.9 amps. I got 24 of them (4800W). A guy I met on Diaspora from Texas just wanted them "out of [his] garage" - so he only wanted the cost of shipping - $310! I saved a lot of money on shipping too by asking the outlet store where I bought my kitchen cabinets if I could borrow their loading dock. The guy was super cool about it, and even loaded the pallet on my trailer with his forklift.

Wow! That's incredible!

[mudflap]

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... -up-leaks/

I'm thinking the posts will become more frequent from my blog, since all the very long time consuming projects (chinking, roofing, stacking logs) are done. Now I'm left with a million (comparatively) tiny projects - framing, electrical, plumbing, flooring.

[mudflap]

The latest: https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... ng-begins/

Framing begins!

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My wife's idea - a small pantry in the corner of the kitchen - it's about 48" by 72" - big enough for some shelves, a walkway, and lots of canned goods. My goal: pull thanksgiving dinner out of this pantry next year.

[bbrown]

That house is beautiful. I’m a little jealous. If we had stayed on the west coast I would have done a butt and pass home too. There aren’t enough trees straight enough on my property here to do it. And the oaks don’t hold well anyway. I had to build semi conventional.

[mudflap]

There aren’t enough trees straight enough on my property here to do it

That's too bad. Mine were pretty crooked:


and


but I straightened them with 9,000 lb chain binders and a lot of sweat.

[bbrown]

I bet that was a lot of work! Our trees mostly do not have trunks longer than 15’ without a major fork.

[mudflap]

I see the problem!

I saw this today:

[mudflap]

Milled some oak stair stringers today. Sanded the one on the left and wet it down so you can see the grain. 17" on the fat end, 15" on the skinny end for the large one. Both are 19' long - cut them as mirror images of each other from the same tree. My neighbor just wanted them burned, but I had the grader guys stack them on my property. Free logs! I made the stringers 3" thick because 4" seemed too fat, and 2" seemed too skinny. Hoping my wife will approve of leaving it as "live edge". Neat, huh? They gotta weigh somewhere near 500 lbs each (wet). The web calculator says they should weigh about 300 lbs dry.

My only "accident" today was when the cant hook slipped and the handle smacked me right in the jaw, making me bite my tongue, which is something I'm well practiced in at church these days, lol....

[mudflap]

Restoring a Wood burning Stove:

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... ood-stove/

[mudflap]

A brick hearth:

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... ood-stove/

[Gadianton Slayer]

My only "accident" today was when the cant hook slipped and the handle smacked me right in the jaw, making me bite my tongue, which is something I'm well practiced in at church these days, lol....

[mudflap]

chimney installed, temps are in the 70's today, and for the next few days. But we lit a fire in it anyway - the cabin stays at whatever the overnight temp was.

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... e-chimney/

[Cruiserdude]

chimney installed, temps are in the 70's today, and for the next few days. But we lit a fire in it anyway - the cabin stays at whatever the overnight temp was.

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... e-chimney/

Love the wood stove. And yes, that chimney piping has more than doubled from when I bought some. Like 10ish years ago.
That's funny though, I noticed you mentioned hearth.com in your blog post.... I have shared/posted a lot of pics in their forum from my wood burning and firewood processing days a few years back.... Good times. I sure miss those days... but hopefully I'll be back at all that fun stuff again here soon
Your cabin is looking great man! Moving right along

[mudflap]

chimney installed, temps are in the 70's today, and for the next few days. But we lit a fire in it anyway - the cabin stays at whatever the overnight temp was.

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... e-chimney/

Love the wood stove. And yes, that chimney piping has more than doubled from when I bought some. Like 10ish years ago.
That's funny though, I noticed you mentioned hearth.com in your blog post.... I have shared/posted a lot of pics in their forum from my wood burning and firewood processing days a few years back.... Good times. I sure miss those days... but hopefully I'll be back at all that fun stuff again here soon
Your cabin is looking great man! Moving right along

yeah, everyone was saying, "go to hearth.com, they'll answer all your questions"..... but they didn't. that quote I shared was exactly from a comment. unbelievable. not asking how to build a rocket to go to the moon.....just asking about a chimney that goes through a second floor....

I hate it when forums get taken over with legalese.....folks afraid to give advice because they'll get sued. Sorry, but I wear big boy pants - I can take care of myself. I have a bunch of parts now that I don't need, so...they'll go back on ebay, lol...

[Silver Pie]

Even though I don't have a builder's brain, I really appreciate your step by step posts here and on your blog. And thank you for making a parts list.

[mudflap]

Making my calculations in LibreCAD for my stairs - live edge oak slabs





Online stair calculators assume you are cutting the stairs into the stringers and nailing down the boards on top of the cuts - I'm leaving the live edge and making my calculations from a center line - so the online calculators don't work.

[keeprunning]

So are you living in a trailer on your property while you build this? Looks so awesome. I'm just imagining the amount of tools you've had to buy to build all this!

[mudflap]

So are you living in a trailer on your property while you build this? Looks so awesome. I'm just imagining the amount of tools you've had to buy to build all this!

Thank you! But no, city won't allow us to live in a trailer while we build, otherwise we might. A lot of folks do from our group.

The tools - I had a chop saw already. Needed a chainsaw, borrowed some of the ladders. Bought a jackhammer. Other than that, it's been mostly just replacing tools I already had as they wear out. Oh - and a sawmill - that was $2,000, and the tractor was $3,000. But I had levels, squares, hammers, stuff like that. I made most of the pulleys - that's the secret to lifting heavy logs - pulleys and the Army Rigging Manual.

Table saw- it's 100 years old, going on 101 this year - got it for free from the guy who lives in the old fire station just off Harrison Blvd in Ogden. Still makes exact cuts.

I have a rule - if I can buy the tool for less than it will cost me to have a repairman do it or to rent the tool, I go ahead and buy it. We budget about $300 / mo. for this project. If we run out of money for the month, we usually just wait till next month to keep going. Some things you can't wait for - like the $8,000 for the roof decking - so I put it on a credit card, and then just pay it off as quick as I can. Still on track to finish for about $60k.

The organization I learned it all from (LHBA) used to say on their website " build a house with tools that will fit in the trunk of your car", and that's true.

[mudflap]

for your drooling pleasure...

https://www.realtracs.com/listings/2635205

This is the first one we looked at when we were trying to decide if our crooked logs would be any good in a log home. It's the real deal, they built it for cheap - less than $100k. Look at what it is about to go for. This is a "quit your job and retire" idea if there ever was one.

[mudflap]

Got the stair stringers in place:

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... stringers/

[mudflap]

Stair treads from a "curb find" oak tree:

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... ng-treads/

Some videos:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/HZZaEKvhOpCP/ ripping slabs into strips
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ps4P8RcjaBPA/ planing strips
https://www.bitchute.com/video/AtigSiOGXphk/ edge gluing and clamping
https://www.bitchute.com/video/AtigSiOGXphk/ planing treads

[Cruiserdude]

Stair treads from a "curb find" oak tree:

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/20 ... ng-treads/

Some videos:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/HZZaEKvhOpCP/ ripping slabs into strips
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ps4P8RcjaBPA/ planing strips
https://www.bitchute.com/video/AtigSiOGXphk/ edge gluing and clamping
https://www.bitchute.com/video/AtigSiOGXphk/ planing treads

Very freaking coolI'm jelly bro