Sunday, October 21, 2007

I have finally finished making all of the pine ship-lap planks for the interior wall. My new router can rest now. :-)



I also finished two more loft floor joists and placed them between the tie beams. One of joists had twisted enough that I need to do some work on-site to get it to fit. Man, they sure do look nice, though!



Here are some higher-quality pictures of some of the joinery, now that the frame is enclosed:




I've got only part of one wall to finish now. Its going to be dark in the cabin soon, and since I won't be adding the exterior framing and windows until next year, I'll need a battery-powered light to do any interior work.

Here are a couple shots before I enclosed that Eastern wall and immerse the space into darkness:





Progress is slow, but steady. I won't be able to get my trailer up to the work site anymore. The ground is too muddy. Soon, the only way I'll be able to work on this is to hike up with tools in a backpack. :-)

Monday, October 15, 2007

For the interior walls, I decided to go with horizontal wood planks instead of drywall or plaster. I prefer the natural qualities of wood instead of drywall or plaster. Properly painted drywall against timbers can look fantastic, but drywall seems somehow out-of-place and synthetic for a little primitive cabin like this. I've seen some pictures of nice timber homes which used painted horizontal wood planks for the interior, and it can often look great. So, I decided to go that route.

Originally, I wanted to go with 1x10 or 1x12 cedar ship-lap siding planks, but I could not find any place in town that sells ship-lap wood siding anymore! I could custom order it online, but it would not be cost effective to ship it for a tiny cabin like this.

I decided on 1x10 #3 pine planks. I bought a hand router and a single rabbit bit. After some training from my friend Joe, I was making my own ship-lap pine siding in my shop in no time. Since this is the interior wall, I don't need to worry about exposure of the pine to the elements (untreated pine siding wouldn't last long around here).



The idea is to enclose the cabin with the pine planking and then cover it with home wrap. That should hold up to the elements throughout the winter and spring and keep things nice and dry. I'll come back in the late spring when things dry out a bit and build-out the walls and windows and exterior siding, etc.


I sanded the interior face of the planks before bringing them to the site. They are quite whitish compared to the frame in front of them. Ultimately, I'd like to apply paint or a whitewash stain to the interior walls to increase that contrast.



I've got the cabin 75% sided now. I also (finally) cut a loft joist and placed it in the frame between the 2nd and 3rd tie beams as shown below. Only 4 more to go! :-)




If I can finish the interior walls and wrap the cabin, things should winter well. Its already mid-October.

The clock is ticking before the snow settles in...