My new Vermont Casting wood stove!

Burr it's cold.  Cold at the cabin too.  Ah but not for long!!!  John has a brand new Vermont Casting Stove. Where was it made? In America, of course. In these videos you will hear about the installation of the wood stove and more.
Stay warm. I will be adding wood to the fire. Sooon. Off the grid!

In this video: The floor has been installed in the main cabin and we are making preparations to put in the stove. 

This video shows the Trot access door and transom. The siding is recycled from a school house south of Hermann Missouri.

Next to come is electrical wiring to be put in place in case we get soft and decide to connect to the "grid" one of these days.

Log house access road improvements

Bret Martin, a local Silex contractor and close personal friend, is grading and graveling the lane to the log home.  He will also be doing the drain curtain around the foundation.  In these two videos, Bret shares a few tips on the process!

doing the prep work for the lane and the parking....

dirt work prepping for the gravel - Bret is removing the topsoil in the area where he wil later dump gravel. This will be for access and parking.

Harvest time on the farm

Jim Kirtlink, a farmer from Ralls county who farms my ground, is busy in the field this time of year.   Here are some action shots!

in the field harvesting corn ...

unloading corn on the farm ...

Great news - we found an outhouse!

The cabin (really log home) is shaping up. I put a temporary propane heater in the main room this past weekend. It was a great feeling to imagine what the finished project will be like.

I got a bit of good news Monday evening. John Ming (the log cabin specialist), called me about his finding an outhouse!  For those of you who do not know, this is the outdoor bathroom facility you will be able to use when you come up for a visit. To stay in step with the time period, corn cobs will be available for cleaning. White and red cobs.  I will explain later.

History of the find - On his way to the job site Monday morning, John noticed one of my neighbors was getting ready to demo several buildings. John with his sharp eye for opportunity, stopped and asked if he could salvage the buildings. The owner agreed and this Friday, Roger (the camera man) and I will be assisting him in the process of tear down and/or removal of the buildings. We will remove the little one (4x10) in one piece. The larger building we will tear down, denail and transport.

We will have to determine the right spot for the outhouse. Something down wind for sure.

In North American English, an outhouse (sometimes also called a backhouse or a privy) is a small enclosure around a pit that is used as a toilet. Most outhouses have one or two holes. One well-built example had four large holes and one small hole, for a child.

Roof is on!

Sorry for the absence of my updates on the Log home. I had to take some time off to do a bit of deer harvesting. That’s right- we harvest the deer on my place. No killing allowed.

Winter is almost here and there is a push to button up the cabin.  In this photo the exterior walls have been chinked. The roof is on. The interior floor of the main cabin in insulated and the sub floor has been installed. We are getting water underneath the main cabin. Water is coming in under the footing. I will have a contractor out to put in what is called a curtain; it will drain the water away from the cabin.

I had many options for the roof. Went with tin.  Decided to go with the brown - a color close to the original shingles, maintenance free and sound great on a rainy night.  

See Video 7: Tin Roof and Chinking done

Front and back porches are done!

Things are really progressing on the cabin. Front and back porch are done. The roof sheeting is on. This past Friday cousin Billy Baragiola came out and sand blasted the interior and exterior of the logs and the underside of the second story floor.  The wood grain really shows some detail. If you look close you can see the hardware cloth is in place between some of the logs.

Monday the roofers will be on site. I have a crew of 4 men coming up from Owensville. It will be a one day job. I ended up going with a tin roof. It will be brown so as not to take away from the rest of the building. We had discussed going with cedar shingles and decided against it. Due to maintenance. There will be insulation under the tin. I can rest easy once the roof is in place.

Coming up ... frame out of doors and windows and finding a wood stove that works for the time period.

See Video 6: Ready for new roof!

Putting up the roof and second floor

These photos show the finished stone work on the west side. This stone will be around the entire building.

I made the decision to have a solid stone foundation under the porch. The other option was to use piers and have open space between the piers. The solid foundation will keep the area closed off. The critters will have to stay out. When finished, I will have used 10 tons of cut sand stone!.  

• The second floor will have windows on all sides. The siding you see was from the original cabin.
• The overhang you see will protect the timber wall from rain.
• The porches will be covered and are 10 foot in depth
• The roof pole rafters are original.
• The roof sheeting was taken from the exterior walls of a nearby barn.  Here's the barn - before and after the sheeting was removed.

The rebuild begins!

As the rebuild begins....
Notice the reuse of the pole rafters on top of the plate and the original grey door.

Phases

1. The cabin was leveled. The Corners of the foundation were put in place. We used sand stone replacing the original foundation which was made up of small creek stones.
2. The height of the cabin was raised by three logs.
3. Windows were added to the second floor. Their location was determined by the available length of logs. We were able to use a short timber on either side of the window.
4. The windows and doors were framed out with treated pine. The original doors will be reinstalled over the treated pine.

The tear down begins

Take one last look before we get aggressive about the tear down!

two pens and a trot

In these shots you will see one lonely cabin.   :-(

The East Pen and Trot is gone.

Do not despair. There is more to come.

We were able to save material from the east pen. It is either stored near the site or in a garage. All of the rebuild will be done with recycled material from the cabin or nearby structures.  We in the country call them out buildings.

Prep for tear down

From the front - last time we'll see the whole thing!

Notice in this picture of the East pen, the lower logs have been damaged by termites. They came - they ate - they left. Look closely near the windows and you will see a vertical mark. This is where a board was nailed to the hewn logs, thereby providing a nailer for the clapboard siding - and easy access for termites to travel up the side of the cabin!

In this photo of the West pen, all but the sill log is in good shape. Under closer inspection it was determined that these logs were hickory. A very hard wood. Typically used for tool handles.

Videos on YouTube of restoration process

Be sure to check out my YouTube videos!  Search on perrobuck1!

Video 1:  Rehab of a 1857 Dog Trot Cabin:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp5ocrKviic
Video 2: The Foundation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEY6lWWGUw
Video 3: The Root Cellar:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSadD65DjGE
Video 4: The Upstairs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1D4VaxSfVU
Video 5: The Stairs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdr8SkJJBi8
Video 6: Ready for new roof!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBzxGUwMSbI
Video 7: Tin Roof and Chinking done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWkb3jN2Jk
Video 8: Wood stove and inside floor: http://www.youtube.com/user/perrobuck1#p/a/u/1/RSZluePea68
Video 9: Outside trot siding and door: http://www.youtube.com/user/perrobuck1#p/a/u/0/iGaTbwz9cyE
Video 10: Inside Chinking and windows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sIGTPLzcKI
Video 11: Shallow spring fed well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72IKIts_r0

Inside and Outside "Before" Shots

This is what what we started with! 
These interior pictures show the plaster finish on the walls and ceiling. This was done to help seal the walls and give a modern look to the cabin. 

 

Notice how the roof trusses were pinned together. No ridge board was used. This dates the cabin as before sawmills were in wide use.  Look closely and you will see an abundance of nails in the sheeting. They are square nails that were used to hold the orignal shingles in place. Square nails date from 1820 -1910 which is consider the peak manufacture and use of this type nail. After about 1920, wire nails came into use. They were cheaper and much faster to make since they could be completely made by machine. Interestingly, the old square nails can hold more than four times better than the more modern round ones. Some of the old square nails were so valuable that old buildings were burned down just to retrieve the nails!
See Video 2: The Foundation
See Video 3: The Root Cellar
See Video 4: The Upstairs
See Video 5: The Stairs

And in the beginning .....

Several years ago I purchased property in Northeastern Missouri. I soon learned that the property came with a log cabin. I decided to see if this cabin could be salvaged and returned to a livable state. My goal is to share this project as it is develops.

See Video 1: Rehab of a 1857 Dog Trot Cabin

The hard part was finding a contractor that had the experience and was willing to travel to Northeast Missouri for this type of project.

It took me several years to locate the right man for the job. A fella by the name of John Ming. He lives is Swiss Missouri, exactly 100 miles from the cabin.

We met several times to discuss the project. John let me know that the first thing we would need to do is to strip off the exterior and interior siding to determine the condition of the underlying logs. Then we would do an evaluation and John would layout my options.

So John began the stripping and determined that the east pen had termite damage up to the top of the windows on two sides. All but one of the sills was gone. The west pen was in relatively good shape. There were two bad sill logs but the floor was in good shape.

The chosen option was to completely take down the east Pen. We would salvage material from this take down to replace the sill logs on the west pen and to raise the second floor. Currently the upstairs usable space is limited due to the height.

As the west pen stands now, it is 16 x 18 OD. On the top is a 28 foot beam that cantilevers out extending the 18 foot section allowing for an additional room in the center of the building. This is called the dog trot.

We will tear down the east pen, front porch, back porch and roof and we will either reuse or store the good material for a future project.

After the tear down the cabin will be leveled and a wet laid foundation will be installed.

The finished cabin will be two story at 16 x 28 with porches on the front and back.

Log Cabin, built in 1857 — Restoration begins in 2009!

Stats:

Location: Northeast Missouri

Built: 1857

Abandoned: 1935

Style: Dog Trot, Story Plus

Size: 1086 Square foot

Type construction: Hewn log

Foundation: Dry Laid stone

Basement: none

Heat: Wood

Plumbing: none

Electric: none

Access: 1/2 mile from gravel

Room Size outside dimensions:

• East Pen 18 X 16
• West Pen 18 X 16
• Trot 10 X 16
• Porch Front 46 X 6
• Porch Back 46 X 9

Condition of structure:

• East Pen – Termites have destroy lower two thirds of the structure
• West Pen In salvageable condition.
• Foundation – Must be replaced
• Front porch – concrete is cracked and will need to be replaced
• Back porch – floor is gone
• Roof – good condition as in it has kept out the water. It will need to be replaced.
• Trot - Floor has no salvage value
• Staircase - 100 % salvageable
• Doors - All door are original and in excellent condition
• Foundation - will need total replacement
• Plumbing – none existing
• Heat - Wood Stove
• Electric - none