Number Ten: the bigger cabin

Work resumed on the interior here today and we are removing t he stair to configure it so a half bath can fit beneath it. No way did I want the only toilet in the house accessed thru my second floor bedroom. This house was literally rotting away before Willie Farrell (Celtic Log Homes) of Brevard, NC took over the project. Its sat 8" above the ground. A concrete patio and other 1970's 'improvements' such as a vestibule with its roof pitched don into the chinked wall had all turned into watery weapons against the structure. The patio in particular did a lot of damage when the gutters failed and hen rather than soakng into the round every drop of water off the roof got splashed against the wall. The sill logs sand the course above them were moist chestnut mush-- yes the entire structure is 14"-18" chestnut logs. Before we met Willie, we had actually explored selling the thing to companies that offer antique wood flooring: they offered an average of $15/board foot for the house. The only other serious contractor who looked at it had wanted to pull the whole thing down and re-erect it with new logs. now- this is a 1750 structure moved to the site in the 1930's and there's a patina to 18th century adze-cut logs that really cant be duplicated. Also, a tear down would have added many months and thousands of $ to this project. Farrel offered a brilliant solution: he when learned i wanted to take out the 6'9" ceiling upstairs and open that room up to the trusses- he hit upon the idea of jacking the house on cribbing, removing the rotten lower portion and building a block foundation with a fieldstone veneer; then move the floors UP inside the structure while the walls remain in place. His masons duplicated the look of the arts and crafts stone chimney perfectly and the plan has worked brilliantly. there's a proper 30" crawlspace now, with room for HVAC, sand the walls are dry.

I have a friend visiting who is one of those treasured house guests who love doing work around an old house and new garden, so i'm spending more time outside this week than in here blogging. If only he wasnt so allergic to poison ivy................

Landscape for the cabins

It's a warm sunny Blue Ridge Saturday and am chipping away on the landscaping here. The 2 cabins sit on 2.97 acres. there were actually 3 but all that is left of the 3rd is its chimney and foundation stones which i hope to harvest and recycle as steps. Am cutting up hosta and such and setting them in a bench cut just made above the smaller cabin. Rather than leave positive drainage around the house, Moss Log Homes (you'll hear more on them) simply dug holes to uncover crawlspace vents. About ten months after the construction was 'finished' i noticed tremendous wicking of moisture on the walls and saw that the 80 year old thin concrete slab that is my porch had suddenly begun to crack. Emergency excavation revealed wrapped pipe simply set into the clay and it didn't empty anywhere. The new contractor took care of it and did it right. Water is the real enemy here. its a complex grade and the structures sit down hill. Am just planting to hold the cuts together right now. And spraying kudzu. The place was covered with this hideous and scary fast growing vine and i chip away at it. Fortunately Roundup mixed at 3 times label strength and a shot of BLUE Dawn dish soap knocks it back a bit. It don't die easy tho. You can see some damage to the stuff in lower pic. Its really fibrous stems are hard to cut- another escaped exotic that ravages our land. Apparently the huge starchy roots are the source of true tempura on Nippon so maybe the only way to be free of this pest is to eat it...might not be so bad--kudzu one redeming feature to my mind is its late season bloom with a scent indistinguishable from grape bubble gum.

Entry One

I'm posting here on a social network site tho am through with internet socializing. It hasnt ever worked out. But i need a blog site to tell this on going story on houseblogs.net swo here 't is.

This is the story of 2 old log cabins bought cheap in 2004--- a total impulse purchase. I AM FINALLY LIVING IN THE SMALLER ONE. That's a long story.

Tthe little houses where part of the Minnehaha arts colony here that existed thru the 1930's to the early fifies. It was held together buy the vision and work of a lady named Evelyn Haynes- about whom i know little except i found a box of her canceled checks in the attic of the bigger cabin and i know she pretty much held the colony together. It didn't really survive her passing, but is amazingly intact: i believe there still stand about 24 of the original one room colony cabins on his mountain.

I am in one of them now- its a 13' square room of southern yellow pine logs built with no bath or real kitchen and only a loft for a bed room. The other cabin (which i think was a least a summer home for Ms. Haynes is a 1750 Kentucky style one and a half story structure built of chestnut and moved here from the neighboring mountain Bear Waller when the colony was realLy swinging in the mid to late 1930's.

So this is a story of creation, recreation, restoration and research. Like any home building story its a story of hopes and dreams- both realized and revised.....and a story of shameless greed and thievery as well. I hope at the least it will serve as a resource for others in this area shopping for contractors or tackling the work themselves. As my legal disclaimer: the names of of people and products i'll name freely speak solely to my personal experiences here and my living in he midst of their work. When i tell you about the guy who truly left no corner uncut here- its just what I see in my house- i don know about the rest of his jobs. I'll close this first entry with plug for the National Parks Services fine series of Preservation Briefs:

Preservation Brief Number 26: The Preservation and Repair of Historic Log Buildings
http://www.nps.gov/history/HPS/TPS/briefs/brief26.htm