A Low-Cost Cabin Built with Womanpower!
(Page 2 of 4)
September/October 1979
By the Mother Earth News editors
The upper perimeter of the foundation was lined with 2 X 8's . . . which were held in place by a continual strip of 2 X 4's that ran along the larger planks' inside surfaces. Then the joists (again, sturdy 2 x 8's) were toenailed in at 16-inch intervals. (Once more, we could have saved money by using smaller joists and/or by placing the boards farther apart . . . but we felt it worthwhile to build the sturdiest structure we could afford.) When the deck was completed, it was time for the most difficult task of all: raising the walls.
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THE WALLS
When we designed the cabin, we had faced the fact that two women were not going to be able to muscle fifty 16-foot-long logs up onto the three-foot-high foundation. So we !d included a window or door on each wall . . . and utilized a "zigzag" shape instead of the conventional rectangle. (See the diagram accompanying this article.) Wed also decided to frame up the doors and win dows first, and build around them rather than cut out all the openings afterward.
This method would not only save timber, but would—after the first two or three "rounds" were up—guarantee that the largest log we'd have to lift would be 8-1/2 feet long.
The sill logs, of course, had to be flattened along their entire length in order to sit securely on the foundation. This was accomplished by hand-hewing . . . with the help of an axe, chain saw, and chisel. Then, somehow, we managed to push and shove the sills (the thickest and straightest logs we had) and the first two rounds onto the deck. (Contrary to the advice of many people, the sills were not bolted to the foundation . . . but there's no doubt in my mind that even the most violent of Adirondack winds and storms will not budge the structure.)
We chose a tenon notch to join the corners, using the chain saw to make the cuts and then chiseling out the pieces. Before we laid one log onto the next, we placed a square of fiberglass in the notch in order to reduce air leakage in spots where the joints didn't exactly meet. (And, believe me, it was almost impossible to make them fit perfectly!) For extra stability, the joints were nailed together with 40- or 60-penny spikes, depending on the thickness of the particular logs.
THE ROOF
The day finally came (less than two months after we began to install the floor) when the walls were up to our planned 6-1/2foot height. The roof was next on our agenda, and we decided to build a nearly flat "cover" over the half of the cabin that would house the airtight stove. This design would make for easy chimney cleaning . . . a job which we knew would be regularly required.
We were warned about using a flat roof because of our area s heavy snow falls, yet during the first winter I only had to shovel the level "top" off once. The rafters are so close (16 inches on center) and the surface area is so small that the flat portion of our cabin's roof is capable of holding a large snow cover.
