Building a Timber Frame Front Porch Extension to Cabin

I decided to construct a timber-frame covered porch over the front of the cabin door.  I used a mixture of woods, include Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir, and Black Locust.

The pine beams and posts came from Ponderosa trees that I felled right next to the cabin to mitigate wildfire danger.  I drug these pine timbers down to my mill and milled into squared timbers while still green.   I hauled these timbers back home and cut joinery in my carport.   

I did a test-assembly in the carport using persuaders and ratchet straps.

I poured 6" concrete piers for the four posts:

Then I loaded the finished timbers into my trusty trailer for transport up to the build site:

I joined and pegged one bent on the ground, up on spacer timber cut-offs:

Green Ponderosa Pine post meets fully cured Douglas Fir Beam:

I used octagonal white oak pegs:

This first bent, closest to the cabin, was fully assembled prior to raising day:

On raising day, Morgan invited some of her friends from the UI.  They were amazingly helpful.

I placed the finished rafters on the raised bents.  Each rafter had to be cut on-site atop the raised bents to ensure a perfect fit.   At some point, Gavin Gardner helped me a bit:

I put decking on top of the rafters.  I believe I used a router to shiplap the decking.   I used store-bought 2x10 or 2x12, but sanded with 100 grit sandpaper on my belt sander:

I topped the decking with a thick later of roofing felt:

I put a metal roof on the porch extension that matched the color of the main cabin roof.

Several months later, I passed by the cabin while hunting on the land!

Building the Shed

In 2012, I milled and framed a shed to go alongside the cabin.    I am finally getting around to posting pictures of the shed frame and other work!   I am going to try to revive this blog and keep posting!

The shed sits next to the cabin on an 8x8 concrete perimeter foundation that I mixed and poured myself using left-over pine siding for the forms.   I put simple douglas-fir sill plates on the foundation walls with a moisture barrier between the concrete and the sill plates.   The plates are treated with CWF deck stain on all sides.

The frame is a smaller and simpler version of the frame that Peter and I used in the PCEI Artist's Studio.

The idea behind the shed was that the shed would be divided into half by an interior wall.  The front half would be open and could be used as a woodshed.   The back half would be closed off with a locking door and could be used as a toolshed.

We had an AWESOME frame raising on October 2012 with lots of help from friends and family!

The shed timber frame is made from left-over timbers from the cabin and the artist's studio plus some newly salvaged barn timbers that I collected.   There were Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, western larch, black locust, and hackberry members in the multi-species frame.

 I sided the shed with the same salvaged board-and-batten siding that I used for the cabin.   I had to get a few more boards from Larry Duff out of Deary to finish it off.

I built the door and installed a dead-bolt for the toolshed portion.

 I milled and cut an interesting flashing made from Ponderosa Pine to separate the upper course of siding from the lower course.   I will use this design again, as shown below.

I found a moose shed one day to the North of my land and attached this to the woodshed.   It fit perfectly.  :)

I finally finished the whole woodshed in 2015.   It took 3 years of off-and-on work to complete it.

Now on to finishing the interior of the cabin and building and outhouse and front porch!