For some reason, when you say “Cabin”, lots of people still think of the hunting camp. They imagine a stereotype of a cabin. You know, a moldy, dirty shack. Out house only. We still get people asking if we have running water. Even after they’ve seen our brochure or website.
I don’t get it.
That is not what we offer. Just sayin’.
Cabins 1 and 2 especially are “showcase cabins”. They’re over built for sure. From the ground up, we over did it. The question is, why?
We have a “grandfather clause” at Opossum Creek Retreat. That just means that, when we build a cabin or a table or whatever it is, we want to be able to show our grand children, and they can show theirs. It’s not the traditional meaning of “grandfather clause”, I know. But hey, being able to show generations what you built? That’s a good legacy.
Because the cabins are tucked in the woods, we didn’t want to dig a trench in the ground, cutting all the tree roots in the area. A tree is actually bigger underground than it is above. To minimize the impact of our
foundations, we dug small holes straight down to the bedrock, drilled into the rock, and tied the steal in the hole then poured cement. We still cut some roots, but only a fraction compared to standard perimeter foundations, and all the trees are still healthy.
These two were framed in conventional stick building style, with a lots of insulting and vapor barrier. All of the siding was sourced locally. We found a saw mill making pressure treated siding from poplar trees. We asked them if we were to buy enough, would they sell it to us before the pressure treating process (highly toxic arsenic)? They agreed, so we pulled a batch out of the production line and we hauled it home. We stained it with some nut oils, which was way nicer than arsenic pressure treated. It’s still in great shape, and should be for a long long time.
The interior trim is from the same mill. Poplar is not as knotty as aptly named knotty pine. It has all the shades and character. We tongue-and-grooved some of it, used it on the ceiling, and used some on the wall (not too much, I think). It’s still mostly drywall for that crisp, clean, this-is-not-a-hunting camp look.
The screened porch came from a different mill nearby. Back then, at the right time of year, mills cut hemlock for tobacco barns and that’s what we got in on. Beautiful golden hemlock wood, sawn post-and-beam with some
Japanese’s timber frame joints that one of our builders, Craig, did just for some style points.
You get the idea. A lot of thought and sweat and creativity went into these vacation cabins. You’re going to love them.
Your grand children will too.
Good stuff. A visit to Opossum Creek many years ago inspired me to build with local wood and seek out local saw mills. I even wrote about a post about it titled “Do Your Travels Inspire You?” http://trav.li/84c25