Sunday, June 26, 2011

A Homestead


Hi! I'm back. We've been busy working on the place. Here's what it looks like now. A true homestead!!!!


The blue barrel is our rain collection system. It is gravity fed down to the garden. We kinda lucked out with the garden being downhill from the house.
The lean-to has been a great place to hang out in the shade! Our plan is to close it in before winter.

The Garden

It is made of leftover cordwood material. I am even mulching with cedar bark from the cordwood. I hope to add two new garden beds a year. That's enough to keep me busy for a season.


Compost bins
The outhouse.
The interior
Upstairs tongue and groove finished!! Even the trim around the windows!
The ladder to the loft. Cory milled it out of jackpine.

Now we're ready to spend some much needed time on the water in the breeze!

11 comments:

  1. Looks terriffic! Can't wait to see you both.

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  2. Hi Heather and Cory! Thanks for updating your site..I look every now and then to see what progress you 2 have made. It looks so pretty and fun. Congratulations.

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  3. What do you estimate the total cost of this build to be? Will you provide drawings? I'm dreaming of doing this myself. Your home looks lovely.

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  4. Beautiful place! Good work.
    One thing i've wondered about cordwood buildings is do drafts blow through the cracks in the logs, of do you carefully fill all the cracks with mortar?

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    1. As new cracks, often called checks, appear I fill them. We haven't had many to fill because the wood we used was bone dry!

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  5. Lovely place... Just a piece of advice: Hope you seal those walls really well on the outside as you are using the side of the logs which are most easily infiltrated with moisture and insects. The ends of the logs will, by their very nature, want to absorb moisture. The ends of the cedar logs on my cabin are what usually suck up more sealant than any other part of the structure... and I've sealed it every single fall since 1991!

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    1. The idea is for the logs to breathe. We don't believe in the theory to seal everything and most cordwood builders would agree. Cordwood construction is much different than the typical log construction. The log ends are constantly breathing along the end-grain and moisture is never trapped. Our overhangs are almost 4 ft. Very rarely does it rain directly on the cordwood walls.

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  6. Since 1991? Hmmm. Maybe that's why this blogger hasn't updated in over a year and a half. She's been feverishly sealing her ends from dusk til dawn just trying to keep up! ;-)

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