small rustic cabin

Here's an option. . . :D

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-- FLIX
 
gunknifenut said:
I don't know if they are still available, but I had a book when younger called "Firefox". There was a whole series, and they had one on building a cabin the old way...very cool stuff. Gene
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You're thinking of the Foxfire books. Must be a dozen of them now. Good info, not always practical.
 
Dr. Mudd said:
You're thinking of the Foxfire books. Must be a dozen of them now. Good info, not always practical.
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I found that the format of the Foxfire books was not always the most helpful. To me, it seemed more like a cross between an archival project and a documentary of a bunch of unskilled kids "giving it a go." For many of the skills described, such as cabin building, there are now countless better books.

--FLIX
 
FLIX said:
I found that the format of the Foxfire books was not always the most helpful. To me, it seemed more like a cross between an archival project and a documentary of a bunch of unskilled kids "giving it a go." For many of the skills described, such as cabin building, there are now countless better books.

--FLIX
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The Foxfire books started out as a class project by a bunch of North Georgia mountain kids led by their English teacher if I remember correctly. The object, besides learning how to write, was to record and preserve the old ways of their elderly relatives and neighbors who they interviewed extensively. I used to have the first half a dozen of them. You're right about the format being somewhat disorganized, but they were still fun to read. They date back to the days of The Whole Earth Catalog and the early days of The Mother Earth News. So do I! :D
 
We're in the process of building a small log cabin on 200 acres as a weekend get away. We're using Honest Abe log homes...you can find them at www.honestabe.com

We bought one of their Sportsman Series packages. There are several other log home companies that offer smaller weekend packages...just search online.

Good luck on your quest for fun and relaxation!
 
ceiw said:
We're in the process of building a small log cabin on 200 acres as a weekend get away. We're using Honest Abe log homes...you can find them at www.honestabe.com

We bought one of their Sportsman Series packages. There are several other log home companies that offer smaller weekend packages...just search online.

Good luck on your quest for fun and relaxation!
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I think I just found my bug out location. :D Congrats ceiw!
 
We're on 32 acres in the SW Virginia mountains.

One problem we have is deciding were to put a cabin. One up in the woods would be great , but it would sure be nice to have one somewhere along the 1200 feet of riverfront. :D

One of each :)

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River front would be nice, but the possibility of flooding should be considered for a long time. We live close to a river, not close enough to worry about unless there is some sort of crazy record breaking rains lasting weeks with out end. Still I worry a bit in the back of my head.
 
when i was young, i helped my uncle build an a-frame cabin. he used old barn beams for walls up to 3-4 ft before running the roof up. he went on to make oposing lofts. it was a pretty simple design and still looks good years later.
jd
 
:cool:I was over at my pals for a gathering of local homebrewers so I thought I would snap some pics of his cabin.

The first section was made maybe 30 years ago when he and a bunch of people moved there and the whole property was sort of a commune. Gradually a lot of people moved from "back to the land" to "back to the city" and while the large tract is still communally owned everybody that still lives on it has their own house.

Anyway here's a pic of the house. The taller portion to the right was the old section. It has one central room and then sort of a loft, attic where you sleep. The addition my buddy built a few years back and is an expanded kitchen area. You can see the solar panel on top.

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This is the right side of the house. You can see it has a foundation of creek stones and notice they didn't spend a lot of times fitting the logs together, they just used a lot of fill.

Another thing you can see as they went up and didn't have the labor to hoist huge logs they moved to smaller logs for the top:thumbup:

Also notice the floor and loft/ceiling joists sticking out of the chiinking.

See the addition sticking out a bit further. he excavated under a bit for a celler and a shower area and area for a hot water tank when he bought the gas well on the property. By making the shower area well below ground level the whole thing works on gravity feed.
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On the addition rather than do a full foundation like on the old section the kitchen addition is set on concrete piers. You can also see a bit of the styraform insulation they use between the logs before they chinked them.

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Above the house sets a 500 gallon plast tank buried in the ground to insulate it for the water source. The logs stacked behind the tank are shiitake mushroom logs.

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Now my friend Kate, who lives up the hill has a 1200 gallon tank that is filled from her gutters after going thru a series of screens and filters. But Warren uses a 12volt pump that runs off the solar panels hooked into the old dug well to pump water periodically uphill to fill the tank. He's just 1 person living there but he's never run out of water.

In the pic you can see the tank uphill, the old dug well with the hand pump on it and then the pump is in the ground to the left below the sqare of styrofoam insulation you can see there.

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Finally you can tell when somebody owns a gas well. Check out the outside lighting and inside the house is lighted by gas lights. Used to be he used Kerosene and heated with wood, and run his fridge on propane.

The brewers gather to party:thumbup:
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Now that is wilderness living!

How available are gas wells? I'm guessing that this isn't like water, where you can just dig anywhere deep enough and hit...
 
You don't dig them. They are on the property when you use them usually.

Back in the way back when when a lot of people sold their mineral rights for a song. But the one thing they got was free gas.

The way it worked with his place was there was a gas well on it but it could only give free gas to 1 house by the contract.

The gas company decided to shut it off cause the production went down.

They sold it to him for $1 but I think he had to put down like a $4000 bond to pay for it to be environmentally capped off when it goes completely dead.

But the well is still producing more than enough gas for all the houses on the property.

They are pretty available. I have a friend buying a new farm just cause it has it.

We have 200,000 cubic feet of free gas per year also.
 
Lots of good reading here :thumbup:. I too hope to do something like this when I get older and hopefully wiser :p. The only thing I'm wondering is, how the heck is the roof put on :confused:?
 
There is a book entitled "travel trailer homesteading" by Brian D. Kelling. Kelling put a travel trailer on his land and set it up for solar electricity, water cistern, septic and wood heat. This is a must have book even if you do not want to go the travel trailer route. The book is out of print but can be found on Amazon.

Good Luck
 
Ever look into steel studs? Very easy to use, cheaper than wood, and no warping. I love them!
 
Chuck buck, how big do you think want to go and how much ya want to spend? Are you planning on doing it yourself or with the help of a couple friends? Will it be away from the prying eyes of building inspectors? Can the supplies be delivered to the site or do you have to carry the stuff in yourself?
 
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