Cabin restoration project – The final episode!

I thought I’d begin this post with a brief explanation as to my lack of posts here this summer. Besides keeping my nose to the grindstone at work, I have been working hard on the cabin and old homestead. Truth be told, it hasn’t been all work and no play, as the Woodsboy and I were privileged to enjoy a month-long visit to Finland by my parents in July. Before I get any deeper into this blog post, I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to my parents for the many hours of hard work they put in at the cabin while they were here. If not for their multiple weekends of laboring in clouds of mosquitoes and horseflies, this post would not have been possible, because I would have been much further behind in my work there. I promise I’ll go easy on you the next time you visit, guys! 😉

Now to the business at hand! I entitled this blog post “The final episode!” not because it’s the last time you’ll see the cabin (far from it), but rather because it has reached a stage of completion where the remaining work is minor interior work, such as figuring out the final layout of the kitchen, decorating, hanging curtains etc. Before I show you the completed cabin, I thought I’d share a little of the history of the building. Based on an inscription in pencil which I found on one interior wall, the original structure (a storage building) was built from aspen logs by Herman Kröger in 1918. Herman and his brother Ville first established the farm at that location in 1880, when the old farmhouse was built. Several roof replacements over the years fortunately kept the logs in good condition, which made it possible for me to have the building disassembled, reassembled and finished by a builder almost a century after its original construction.

Without further ado, may I present to you a few pictures showing the progression of the building from a dilapidated storage outbuilding on its last legs in the summer of 2014 to a 22.3 m2/240 sqft (or 33.5 m2/360 sqft if you include the loft) 4-season cabin in the summer of 2015…

The middle and right-hand parts of this building would become the cabin, whereas the left-hand section was discarded because it was in in bad condition.

The final appearance may not be what some of you expected, as it looks less like a backwoods cabin and more like a traditional Finnish farm cottage, but to be honest, that’s exactly what it is. I plan to build a rustic cabin in the woods myself someday, but until then, this place will have to do. 😉 You may have noticed that the sauna building behind the cabin hasn’t changed since last summer. Rest assured it will get new front steps and a fresh coat of paint before the winter.

“And what about the inside of the cabin?” you ask? Well, I have not managed to do too much work on the interior because of the sheer amount of work still drawing my attention outside. Every time I go out to the cabin, I scramble to get done as much as possible, because once the snow falls, a lot of outside jobs will be nearly impossible to do. When the winter comes, I’ll focus more on finishing the kitchen, decorating etc. Since I have made some small additions since my last post, though, I’ll include a few pictures of the interior. You’ll notice in the first few pictures that the woodstove is near the loft stairs. This was only temporary, as it had not yet been installed when I took the pictures. It has since been installed on the opposite wall and used both for heating and cooking.

Living room area with mostly vintage furniture.

Kitchen area also has older furnishings, including the vintage propane stove.

Besides working on the cabin itself, a few other projects have been in the works at the old homestead site. Since there will be nowhere near enough time to clean up the wood pile where the storage building and wood shed once stood, I covered it over with a huge green tarp to make it a little more pleasing to the eye.

I also had a backhoe operator demolish an old sauna building which was literally falling off its foundation and could not be salvaged. The demolition debris is under the green tarp in the second picture and will be disposed of this fall. The building used to stand directly to the right of where the tarp is now.

The old sauna is the little red building on the left.

Finally, I got rid of the biggest eyesore at the old homestead: a huge pile of garbage that accumulated over a period of two years as I cleaned out the old house and storage building, demolished the old outhouse, cleaned up garbage I found in the woods etc.

As I mentioned above, my parents were instrumental in helping to get the cabin to where it is today. Besides doing a lot of grunt work clearing piles of heavy branches and garbage and also handling many other odd jobs, they helped tremendously in painting the exterior of the cabin. This blog post just would not be complete if I didn’t show them in action!

So what’s next for the new-old homestead? I’m hoping to get an electrical hook-up and indoor plumbing before winter so I can do my day job from there, but these things might have to wait until the spring. I will build a few structures to house firewood, continue repairing the facade of the old farm house and do some autumn landscaping as well before the winter hits. I’ll work on the cabin interior and clean up inside the old house during the winter and then work on a greenhouse and garden in the spring. Now that the cabin work is winding down, I will be able to spend some more time on my outdoor pursuits as well. 🙂

Thanks for reading!