David Lottes contacted me recently about a tiny log cabin he is building and a blog called the House of Fallen Timbers that he is journaling his progress on. I’ll let David take over and tell us more about his project.
The property is located in Central Illinois near the Salt Fork of the Vermilion River. My girlfriend Anne and I have about three acres of woods most of which is at least 60 years old.
Over the last eight years many of the standing dead elm trees have fallen over and gotten hung-up in the surrounding trees. This makes walking in the woods kinda scary on a windy day. I got into the habit of waiting for them to come down and cutting them up but our wood pile is now larger than anything we could hope to burn before it rots.
So I started thinking of other ways to use the wood. At first I was going to build a simple three sided lean-to to stack wood under but once I got a firm count on how many good sized dead trees I had standing in the woods I started thinking why not build a cabin.
I have lots of corrugated sheet roofing left on the property by the previous owner and the neighbor had some heavy duty decking piled up on a fence row. Once I dug the old utility pole up and examined it’s condition I decided to go for it.
I have no experience with this kind of thing so your blog has been an invaluable resource for ideas and links to other similar projects. Right now the goal is to be under roof by August and chinked by winter.
The footprint is 12’x12′ but the enclosure is only planned to be 8’x10′ with a small loft above a three foot porch on the entrance side. It may end up being a simple summer shelter for weekend cookouts or it may end up being a full blown year round guest house.
In any case I have no intention of harming any live trees or my bank account to build it. So far I have spent approximately five dollars on it to buy gas for the chainsaw and the tractor. But it does look like I’ll be spending another twenty soon for a new saw chain.
Be sure and follow David’s progress at the House of Fallen Timbers blog.