L.Higgs

[Lorraine Higgs]

Hi bit of a long shot but does anybody have any experience or contacts for somebody who can build a log cabin using my own felled logs? Any idea what this might cost?. Many thanks Lorraine

[openspaceman]

3 hours ago, Lorraine Higgs said:

Hi bit of a long shot but does anybody have any experience or contacts for somebody who can build a log cabin using my own felled logs? Any idea what this might cost?. Many thanks Lorraine

@Billhook had one built from poplar years ago

[Lorraine Higgs]

Bill hook how much did this cost ? Did you get someone to build it for you or did you fo this yourself ?

[Billhook]

On 09/07/2024 at 21:09, openspaceman said:

@Billhook had one built from poplar years ago

 

On 10/07/2024 at 10:14, Lorraine Higgs said:

Bill hook how much did this cost ? Did you get someone to build it for you or did you fo this yourself ?

Hi Lorraine

Yes it is still there twenty four years later and has survived storms and flooding without damage.  It is the go to place by the lake when we have company especially if they bring kids

 

 

Inside I cut the floor from a Copper Beech with a Lucas Sawmill 

 

After a huge rainfall last year!

 

 

 

I was lucky in 2000 in that our UK government was giving a grant to help educate people into projects like this.  I had gone on a full scribe log course in England run by Dan Franklin.  This was because my dear father had planted several acres of Poplar for the match industry in 1960.  He told me that with the projected amount of smokers in the year 2000 I would become very rich

.However come the Millennium most people had packed up smoking and those that did used butane lighters!  So I had all these trees looking for a home

Poplar is not very good firewood .   A chance remark from a friend in Oregon who told me that there was a Church there made from Poplar in the full scribe method that was 120 years old 

Anyway I started this course on our farm having felled forty trees and we had a ream of about ten people and built the basic cabin in about a fortnight

What was worse was that we had to build it in a barn due to restrictions with Mad Cow Disease which prevented Dan from coming here in the summer

My wife and I were able to put it together like Lego with no nails but a 360 15 ton digger did help a bit!

So it cost me very little money but quite a bit of time, but worth every moment!

I will post Dan’s Wooden Ways web in a bit

[Billhook]

Log Cabins | Woodenways

WWW.WOODENWAYS.COM

 

 My cabin is in the first picture in the snow

[Billhook]

And third photo with swans

[Billhook]

Found a whole load of old photos to bore you all with, but the cabin is such a rewarding part of our lives as well as the lake.  The field corner was always a pain to farm as well as flooding occasionally.

My father had a serious heart operation in 1998 and was having difficulty in finding enough incentive to go out and exercise to aid his recovery.  So the lake was a big incentive and he spent a lot of time down there with help from various people directing what and where to plant various shrubs and trees.  The cabin was up and running as a shelter later.

So this was the part of the field drilled with wheat and a puddle after some not very heavy rain 

We first dug a trial pond around the Ash tree in the middle

Then created a small pond to see if it held water

Then started work on the lake with Dozers 

 

 

Cabin to be built at extreme far left.  I diverted the ditch feeding the lake at right angles to slow the water down and act as a silt trap which I could clear with the digger. 
Middle photo shows overflow back into main beck and black pipe sticking up behind is the drain to keep the level of the lake which can be adjusted slightly 

 

 

Log cabin course in Devon with Dan Franklin, here with some pine

 

 

JCB here very handy for putting it together.  My wife adjusted the strap to find the centre of gravity for each log.  The logs were all marked and fitted perfectly 

 

 

Relief!

 

 

Rafters covered firstly with 3/4” ply sheets then corrugated tin

 

I was thinking of having a grass roof but it did not happen

 

Aerial view pre cabin which is now in the top right corner by the road

 

Our neighbours daughter and new husband spent their first night there after the Wedding with the cabin suitably decorated 

 

Hope all this may help

[openspaceman]

Good story @Billhook

However it doesn't look like @Lorraine Higgs has been back so far this month, we do know she has some mature chestnut of coppice origin in Kent.

[peds]

1 hour ago, Billhook said:

 

 

Good god man, that's fantastic.

 

Have you ever considered offering that sort of thing to the fabulously wealthy? They'd pay through the nose for it.

[Billhook]

23 minutes ago, peds said:

 

Good god man, that's fantastic.

 

Have you ever considered offering that sort of thing to the fabulously wealthy? They'd pay through the nose for it.

Just look at Dan’s other work on his website, mine is quite ordinary in comparison.  If someone is hugely wealthy they would be better to contact him and have one built to their own specifications