Our Race With Water
Five Maine adventurers built a wooden cabin in three months and for only $400, including diagrams.
November/December 1975
By Richard Holicky
How five manually illiterate individuals constructed a snug Maine cabin in three months and for only $400!
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The building of a house, barn, or garage strikes most people as a formidable task reserved only for professionals (or at least experienced weekend handymen). We were no exception . . . and when our group began to construct a house in September, it was with mixed feelings of uncertainty and youthful exuberance. For five more or less manually illiterate individuals to attempt to fabricate a year-round dwelling in the western "mountains" of Maine seemed preposterous (though, at the same time, somehow natural). Yet, three months later—as I sit at this desk and look out through double-paned windows at the cold, snowy landscape—I remember the job as rather simple. ("Uncomplicated", I mean . . . not "quick and easy"!)
Our intention was to build a survival shelter—one which could serve as a house for a year or two and as a woodshed and workshop for many years after—and I think we succeeded pretty well. The fruit of our efforts is a 20' X 30' building with two 8' X 15' lofts upstairs, separated by a storage area that measures nearly 15' X 20'. That's space enough for two couples and most of their necessary possessions.
No, the house isn't the Ritz or the Waldorf-Astoria, but it certainly is adequate protection against even our demanding central Maine climate. The dwelling didn't take us long to erect, either. The first post went into the ground September 5, and we moved out of our tents and into the lofts on October 16 . . . a total of six weeks. We didn't buy a stick of lumber, and the whole shebang cost less than $400 to put up.
Work actually commenced in July, when two people began cutting balsam firs for framing and walls. Within six weeks we'd felled, peeled, and hauled to our building site approximately 175 poles that averaged 5 inches in diameter and 20 feet in length.
Meanwhile, three more of us were busy scrounging and salvaging lumber, windows, and other building materials from Portland, 70 miles away. The booty included over 600 feet of 2 X 4's, three large sheets of metal roofing, eight sheets of 1/4-inch plywood, a few 8 X 10 beams, 10 doors, and about 25 windows. The bulk of the wood came from a building that was being remodeled . . . and not only was the lumber free, but our crew got paid for tearing it down and carting it away After countless trips to and from Portland in two pickups and a van, we had almost everything we needed. By the first of September, it wad time to start construction.
Our first step was to hand-dig holes 4 to 5 feet deep for tile posts (all of which were treated several times with flowing coats of Pentapreservative to keep them from rotting in the ground). We laid out the locations for our house supports as shown in Fig. 1, with the holes along the long walls spaced about six feet apart. (A few buried boulders that a four-wheel-drive jeep wouldn't budge caused us to place some of the uprights closer together or farther apart.) On the ends of the building the poles were set almost 7 feet in from each corner, and a line of five uprights, spaced 7-1/2. feet apart, was added down the middle. These and the posts of the side walls would of hold up the roof.
