Cabin Chronicles Part 10

Chinking the inside of the cabin and building the fireplace hearth.   In between the logs there is actually some insulation. It is encased between metal lathe and the chinking compound on both sides. Inside and outside.   I do not have pics of us working on the chinking inside, but you can see how we did it on the outside HERE. It was the same process inside, except we stuffed insulation in between the logs before we nailed the metal lathe up.  

 

(here's a pic of the completed fireplace and chinking)

 

Cabin Chronicles Part 9

More flooring...   We created all of our flooring from lumber. Some purchased, some salvaged from a home remodel.    The upstairs floor was made from 2x4s to create a 2" thick floor and the downstairs floor was made from 1" thick boards.   You can see how we made the flooring HERE.   This is the only pic I have of the downstairs flooring.  

  We used 1x6 inch boards for the back bedroom and bathroom floor and 1x10 inch boards for the living/main room floor.  

Cabin Chronicles Part 8

Moving right along and moving to the upstairs.

 

How do you like our handmade, makeshift ladder staircase?

 

This was our only way to get up and down for most of the construction process. It was a little tricky when your hands were full of tools or lumber, but it worked.

We decided to create our own wood floor from 2x4 boards. This saved a lot of cash. Buying 2" thick wood flooring was pricey. The floor had to be 2" thick upstairs to meet building codes because there is not a subfloor up there. Normally, when you have a subfloor already down you can use 1" flooring.

 

 

So, how did we turn regular old 2x4 lumber into flooring?

 

We set up a table saw downstairs and set a guide on it at 1 inch. The blade was also set at 1" deep. We placed a 2x4 board on the table and pushed it against the guide and ran it over the saw blade, which made a 1" deep cut along the length of the board. You can see this cut in the picture below. It is marked with a black arrow.

 

 

Then we would turn the board on it's small edge and push it against the guide again and run it along the blade. This created a 1" square cut out of the corner of the 2x4. The red arrow points to a corner that is finished.

 

We made these cuts on two opposite corners of each board. This created a "lip" so that we could overlap the 2x4s when we nailed them down as flooring.

 

 

Hopefully, you can kindof see what I'm trying to explain.

Here's a diagram, just pretend the black areas are the ends of two boards. 

Each board can slide together and create a floor without gaps.

 

Boy did this take FOREVER and it wasn't without tears. The table saw totally freaked me out because the blade is exposed and I was certain we would not get through this project without losing an appendige. The boards were 12 feet long and it took patience to guide each board over the blade the whole length. Each board had to be cut four times. I just knew something besides the board was going to get cut, but it didn't. Whew.

 

But wait, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Once we were nearing the end of our HUGE pile of boards and all of them where cut so nicely and ready to be nailed down, we realized they didn't fit together very nicely after all. At some point the guide that was set at 1" had moved to less than 1". The cuts we had made were not going to be deep enough to overlap the edges of the 2x4s.

 

It was late and we had been at this all evening. I was tired and in tears at this point. I really wanted to get up the next day and nail the boards down and be done with the upstairs floor, but that wasn't going to happen. We had to recut at least half of the boards before we could proceed to the nailing part.

 

 

There's my husband, looking in digust at the boards. That pile was only a small amount of the 1000s 100s we had cut. I'm plopped on the sawdust covered floor crying in the corner.

 

What else do you do at 1am but go to bed. We got up Saturday morning ready to tackle this again and recut the boards. By lunchtime we were ready to start carrying boards upstairs and nailing them into place. This part went pretty quickly. He was upstairs nailing and calling down the measurement for the length of the next board so that I could cut it and hand it up to him. We staggered the lengths so that the seams between the ends of the boards weren't all in the same place, creating a funny looking line across the floor.

 

 

Again, this part went quickly. It was only mid afternoon and we were done. I think a shower followed by a nap was the next thing on my todo list that day.

 

The floor turned out great and it created a cool looking ceiling in the downstairs area too.

 

 

These pics are a little farther along in the construction, but they give you a better idea of what the floor looks like. (covered in sawdust)

 

 

You'll have to check back later to see what the ceiling downstairs looks like. I'll show you that when we get closer to the end of the construction.

 

If you'd like to see the pile of logs we started with,

you can follow along the whole construction process here.

 

 

'til next time,

Adina

 

Part 9

 

Cabin Chronicles Part 7 - Starting on the Inside!

Yay - we're finally working on the inside of the cabin!

 

We were winging the floor plan as we went, which made for a few misplaced electrical outlets, lighting fixtures and windows, but overall, everything worked out alright. We had a general idea of how we wanted to design the layout of the rooms and we just went with it. As you walk through the front door the stairs will be immediately to your right.

 

 

The stairs consisted of a handmade ladder through most of the construction process.

(sorry for the dark photo)

 

The kitchen area begins under the stairs and continues in an L shape around the back right corner. We insulated between the logs and framed this area out with plywood first. This saved us from having to chink between the logs in that area. It also provided a way to measure and mark where the stove, sink and fridge would go. This was pertinent so that we could run the electric and plumbing to the right places. We went to Lowes and picked out an apartment size stove and a small 15 cubic foot fridge that weekend. We joked about how our Saturday night dates always consisted of a trip to Lowes. It seemed as if they knew us by name there. Anyways, we weren't ready to purchase the appliances yet because we did not have a place to store them, but we needed the dimensions to proceed with construction. Here's the rough layout of the kitchen area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fridge will sit under the stairs, the stove will go next to the fridge with a small counter in between them and the sink will go on the back wall. As you can see, we built temporary counters to help us with the measurements and design. We also left a few logs exposed around the top.

 

To the left of the kitchen area there is a doorway into a small hallway to access the back bedroom and bathroom. This doorway is directly across the cabin from the front door.

 

 

 

Here's a pic standing in this back doorway looking torward the front door.

 

 

Now around to the other side of the cabin. This area is to the left as you walk in the front door and it will be an open living/dining area with a fireplace in the middle of the wall. The fireplace opening is framed out in between the two windows.

 

 

 

 

Through the back doorway, we created a small hallway with two doors. A small door straight ahead will lead into the bedroom and another door on the right leads into the bathroom/laundry room.

 

This is the bathroom.

 

 

Notice the boards on the floor. I used them to design the space. They were representative of the toilet, sink, shower and stackable washer dryer unit. Again, we had another date at Lowes to get the dimensions of everything. We decided on a 48" shower stall. We intended to go with a smaller one, but I have really long legs and didn't want to be cramped while shaving.

I can't tell you how many times I rearranged this space before making a final decision on the placement of everything. The bathroom is roughly 6 feet across by 12 feet deep. We decided to place the 4 foot shower along the back 6 foot wall and create a small closet area with the remaining space. You've got to love closet space, even if it is small. This closet is accessible from the bedroom side. The toilet and sink are directly across from each other in the middle of the room and the stackable washer dryer unit is in the corner opposite of the shower, right in front of the door.

 

Now that we know where everything is going we can begin to run the electric and plumbing. We are blessed with wonderful neighbors and have one who happens to be a retired electrical engineer. He helped a lot with the plumbing and electric. He also helped a lot with passing the inspections too!

 

Here's a few pics of the electric and plumbing phase.

 

 

 

 

Check back next week, the upstairs floor is next and it was a real challenge.

 You can see how we made it from 2x4 lumber.

 

If you've missed any of the construction up to this point, you can start from the beginning HERE.

 

Thanks for following along.

 

'til next time,

Adina

 

Part 8

 

 

Linking to:

designdininganddiapers