Cabin restoration project – Construction nears completion

For the past several weeks, the building contractor has been working hard to get the century-old brand-new cabin into shape and ready for occupancy. Since my last cabin update, all the windows have been installed and trimmed, the door has been installed, the floor insulation and flooring have been installed, the bathroom shell has been largely completed, the loft stairs have been built, some exterior insulation has been installed and covered and a lot of the front porch has been constructed. I imagine all the rest of the work by the contractor will be completed over the next week or two, and then it’ll be my turn to furnish the cabin, set up the kitchen and bathroom, paint the exterior etc.

Meanwhile, my friend Alex and I did some work of our own to the sauna, namely raising it up onto six concrete blocks left over from the cabin construction and digging out the area around and under the building for better ventilation underneath, to preserve the wooden beams the sauna is built on and to prevent mice from finding their way inside through the drain holes in the sauna (the beams/sauna used to rest directly on the ground).

I’ve spent just about every weekend for the last two months out at the future homestead site doing extremely uninteresting things like yard work (no yard work had been done there in 20 years, so you can imagine how much there is to do…), collecting all kinds of interesting garbage from around the property and throwing it onto the mountain of trash which has been accumulating and also fixing up the exterior of the old farm house to make it a little more presentable. After one or two more weekends of yard work, I think I’ll have the place the way I want it. Then I’ll start dismantling what’s left of the old storage building where the new cabin originally came from and sort through the wood to see what I can use for firewood and future building projects (chicken coop, greenhouse, firewood shelter etc.).

I’ll leave you with a picture of a stoat (mustela erminea) which seems to have made the old farm its home. Hope you enjoyed this update!

My DIY canvas pouch for pocket carry

For the past 5+ years, I have regularly worn a pouch on my belt for convenient access to small, frequently used items (and emergency items) while in the woods. While convenience is great, a more important benefit of belt pouches is that they allow you to keep some critical gear items separate from your backpack so that, should your pack be separated from you, you still have a few basic essential capabilities. Without exaggeration, this can mean the difference between life and death in the most extreme cases.

As great as belt pouches are, though, they are not without their drawbacks. Besides getting in the way of backpack hip belts and other things that go around your waist, some belt pouches can get caught on branches etc. while passing through thick brush and sometimes even be opened up unintentionally in the process. They can also get in the way of long shirts and jackets (or create a large bulge if worn underneath).

Wanting to retain the benefits of a belt pouch, but not be bothered with the drawbacks, I decided to try out pocket carry instead. Whatever season it is, and whatever I happen to be wearing, I always have large pockets which can be snapped closed to hold a small pouch full of important items. Although pocket carry may be slightly less convenient, I’d be happy to give up a small amount of convenience in exchange for being more “aerodynamic”. 😉

I put together this small canvas pouch on a lazy afternoon around Christmas:

I have already used this pouch once and found that it works great. There seems to be very little disadvantage to having the items in my pocket, as opposed to on my belt. I’ll continue to carry this way in the future and see how it goes. Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s in the pouch, you’ll have to wait for my overall gear update. 🙂

As a little bonus, here are some recent pictures I took at the old farm. The Woodsboy and I went out with some friends of ours after Christmas. Hope you enjoy!

Cabin restoration project – Finishing the sauna interior, and a new direction for the project

Hey guys and gals. It’s been a while! Since the last installment of this series, I have finished renovating the interior of the sauna building, so I thought I’d give you an update on that, as well as fill you in on the new direction the project is taking.

Last time, I showed that the changing room floor was almost complete. I have since finished the floor, molding etc. and, with the help of the Woodsboy, furnished that tiny room with some items salvaged from the old farm house: a little rug, a cot, a small folding table and an upholstered chair. Normally, a changing room like this would only have a bench or some chairs, but until there is a larger cabin on the property, this is the way it will stay.

As for the sauna side of the building, I’m happy to say it no longer looks like this:

Unfortunately, the nasty rotten floor boards in that room weren’t the only problem with the sauna. Removing the heat-shielding panels from behind the old sauna stove also revealed extensive water (and ant) damage resulting from a leak in the chimney. So I removed all the rotten and damaged wood from that room and enlisted the help of more experienced fellows to help me get the room into shape. We installed new floor boards, new wall boards, special waterproof trim around the bottom of the walls and some profiling along the drainage channel in the floor to protect the wood from water damage.

Next came the most important item in the sauna: the stove! I received this second-hand stove for free, which I was very happy about! Heat-shielding panels were installed around the stove to protect the wall. As you can see, the stove features a hot-water tank which allows you to heat water for bathing.

The final step in finishing the sauna was to sand and treat the benches.

With this, the interior of the sauna building is finished. What’s left is to make new steps out front to replace the rotting ones and give the exterior a new coat of paint. I will also dig out some of the soil under the building and replace it with gravel for better water drainage.

And now: the new direction of the overall project! Originally, the plan was to renovate all or part of the old farm house for use as a cabin…

…and to set up a small, one-room milled-plank cabin kit nearby which could be used while the house was being repaired and then later serve as a guest house. Unfortunately, it turns out that the amount of money and time required to renovate the old house will simply not be available anytime soon, so I scrapped this plan. While thinking of alternatives, I took stock of the existing buildings at the farm and realized that there might be some potential in the building I always called “the barn” (it’s actually more of a storage building, but one of the rooms does have animal stalls).

Admittedly, it looks like the building is about to fall over, but the log walls are in good condition and the building does have a decent amount of floor space. So I had a professional contractor who specializes in log buildings come out to assess the situation and I told him that I’d like to convert the two rooms on the right into a two-room cabin with a loft (the room on the left is not part of the original structure and would be scrapped). He said it shouldn’t be a problem, so that’s the new plan!

On my last trip out to the farm, I was accompanied by my friend Alex of 62nd Parallel North, who helped me empty the storage building of the junk (and good stuff) that had been piled up in there over the decades. Once we got the stuff out, I was happy to see that the logs were in even better condition than I thought.

Soon I will return to the property and remove the roof of this building in preparation for the contractor to come and dismantle it and reassemble it in a better location. He’ll install new floors, a new loft, a new roof, remove part of the wall inside to connect the two rooms, put in a new door and windows and install a wood-burning stove, among other things. Funding for the project will come from the sale of timber recently harvested from the property. By the way, in case you’re wondering, the total floor space of the cabin, including the loft, will be about 30.5 m2 (330 sq ft).

Seeing as how it’s been over two months since my last post, I’m sure some of you have wondered about the status and future of my blog. I’m happy to say that I have no intention of quitting! As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been dealing with something major in my personal life, but I am moving past this and have lots of plans for future blog posts on bushcraft, homesteading, the cabin and more. Please do stay tuned. 🙂

Cabin restoration project – Making headway on the sauna building

Although I don’t post as often as I’d like to these days (still dealing with some major life changes), I do want to keep all y’all updated on what I’ve been doing in the outdoor/country arena. Though I haven’t been doing anything bushcraft- or woods-related lately, I have been visiting the old farm from time to time to work on fixing up the old buildings. As I mentioned in my last post, we decided to fix up the small sauna building (about 6.7 m²/72 ft²) first because it’s in the best shape. I also mentioned that we had removed the old floor boards because they had been damaged by moisture over time. Today’s post will pick up from there.

The two main reasons for the moisture damage to the floor boards were the building’s close proximity to the ground (essentially, it’s a wooden building sitting directly on the soil…) and the fact that there was insulation and plastic sheeting under the floor which prevented air from circulating properly. Our first job on a recent trip was getting the beams on which the building was built up off the ground. After lifting up a corner with a hydraulic car jack, we dug down a bit into the soil and put concrete tiles (on top of a piece of foam insulation for cushioning) in its place. The last step will be to remove more dirt from under the structure and between the tiles and put gravel there instead, allowing for better drainage and air circulation.

Inside the building, I removed the fiberglass insulation and plastic sheeting from between and on the floor joists in the changing room. On the sauna side, we removed the sauna stove, crappy heat-shield paneling from behind the stove and some of the rotten plywood boards from the floor. Some of the wall panels will have to be replaced as well due to water damage from a leaky chimney. The sauna side is still quite a mess!

Fortunately, things are a lot further along on the changing room side. After sanding the floor joists and covering them with some thin foam strips (to prevent squeaking), we started cutting and laying down the new floor boards. This was the first time I had done any kind of work like this, but I got the hang of it quickly and didn’t encounter any major problems.

Once the new boards were in, I put the floor molding back in place, as well as a few pieces around the doors which had to be trimmed on account of the new floor boards being thicker than the old ones. I also brushed off the ceiling and walls a bit (had to get rid of those cobwebs), shored up a few items here and there (door handles, small pieces of molding etc.) and cleaned and replaced the door between the rooms. Apart from fitting the very last floor board, replacing a small piece of molding on one wall and treating the new floor, the changing room is pretty much done for now.

With the (near) completion of the changing room, a small milestone has been reached: There is now a habitable, albeit tiny, room at the old homestead. It might only be big enough to hold a small bed and a chair or little dresser, but it’s a solid start!

I’ll leave you with a few pictures from around the property and some of the tools and other items I salvaged from the old barn. 🙂

Cabin restoration project – Update for May 2014 and general plans moving forward

It’s been quite some time since I’ve mentioned the cabin restoration project (“Introduction“, “Out with the old“) because frankly, nothing had been happening with it. Well, that all changed this past Saturday, when renovation work commenced once again. Instead of continuing with the old farm house, though, we decided to change tactics and renovate the building which is in the best shape first, the sauna building.

This small building has two rooms, the actual sauna room on the left and a changing room on the right. It’s by far the newest building on the property and will require the least amount of work. So far, we have removed the floor boards in both rooms, as some of them were moldy and beginning to rot. In a few weeks, some of the Woodsbabe’s relatives and I will return to raise the building up higher to remedy the ground moisture problem. Then we’ll install new floor insulation, floor boards and a new “kiuas” (sauna stove). This, plus giving the place a general scrub-down and exterior paint job, will pretty much complete the work on the building. Although not large enough to be used as a cabin in its own right, the finished sauna building can serve as tiny sleeping quarters for one or two people while other renovation work is being done, so overnight stays at the property will be more convenient.

So that’ll be one job down with only 10,000,000 to go! 😉 A few other upcoming tasks for this spring/summer include:

• Buying and assembling a small milled-plank cabin kit and outhouse kit
• Finish stripping the old farmhouse walls and ceilings down to the bare log frame (so a professional can then come in and help with the restoration)
• Having the well cleaned
• Getting a new hand pump for the well (or fixing the existing one, if possible)
• Clearing some of the saplings, bushes and tall reedy weeds which have sprung up in the farm fields over the years

You’ll notice that I mentioned buying and assembling a small cabin kit. “But isn’t there already a house there, Weekend Woodsman? You know, the one that’s going to be restored?” Yes, indeed there is. That project, however, will take time and money. It was decided that a little 20 m² (220 sqft) one-room cabin kit should be set up in the meantime so folks can already go there and enjoy the old farmstead while the big restoration job is underway. Once the main house is restored to usable condition, the small one-room cabin will serve as a guest house.

Some other future jobs at the old homestead will include:

• Reestablishing the garden plot
• Clearing a trail to the lake
• Getting rid of the dilapidated old wash house
• “Un-tilting” the barn and woodshed
• Going through the collapsed log building in the woods to search for treasure (so far, I have seen a few horse-drawn plows)
• Landscaping and general purdying-up of the place
• etc. etc. etc…..

I’m very excited now that more real work has been done. Look forward to sporadic updates as the spring and summer progress!

(German army) poncho as a bivy bag, and some news

I like rugged gear. I really like rugged and multi-purpose gear. And I really, really like rugged, multi-purpose and cheap gear. Anyone familiar with the German military surplus poncho will know that this item fits all these criteria and more. One use that I have found for this versatile piece of kit is as a bivy bag around my sleeping bag and sleeping pad. I image this trick would work with any poncho that has double-sided snaps. Here’s the poncho in its normal configuration.

To use the poncho as a bivy bag, first lay it out with the “inside” facing up.

Then lay your sleeping pad and sleeping bag on one side of the poncho.

Fold the poncho over the sleeping bag and fasten the snaps, making sure to overlap the top over the bottom, and not the other way around.

Finally, bunch up the poncho at the foot end and tie it off with some cord, making sure it’s nice and (water-)tight. I always keep a short length of paracord attached to the poncho for this purpose.

And here’s how it looks when finished. The sleeping bag I used for this demonstration (EDIT: Swiss army surplus) is extra long because of the hood attached to it. I normally pull this hood into the sleeping bag, so no parts of the bag extend outside the bivy.

I admit that this setup does not provide quite as much protection as a made-for-purpose bivy bag, but it does work quite well. I’ve used it in a variety of conditions and have not gotten wet. Well, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes, this setup works so well to keep moisture out that it also keeps moisture in (evaporation from the body). This is easy to remedy. Instead of snapping all the snaps, snap every second one or even fewer. This will allow the moisture to escape, but will still keep the poncho wrapped around you.

 And now for the news. I don’t usually talk about personal issues here at TWW, but over the past few months, I’ve been dealing with a difficult one. In a significant way, my life has been turned upside down. This is one of the reasons why long stretches have gone by without any posts. Until things settle down a bit more, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to put out new blog posts regularly, but I will do what I can. I will be continuing with the permanent bushcraft camp series and also have some other exciting things in the works. Thanks for reading and being patient. 😉 In the mean time, check out my friend Alex’s continuing adventures at 62nd parallel north.

Bushcraft pyrography plank and a new blog

I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to art, but I do appreciate the creativity, thought and skill that goes into creating it. When my friend Alex showed me some of the pyrography, or woodburning, projects he’d been working on, I asked him if he would make me one with an outdoor or bushcraft theme in exchange for some outdoor items he might be interested in. We haven’t made the exchange yet, as Alex is out of town, and I won’t ruin his surprise by showing what I’ll be giving him, but I will show you a picture of the plank he made me:

The phrase at the bottom is Finnish for “less is more”. The axe is a traditional Finnish design, as is the puukko knife. Between them you can see a firesteel/ferro rod. I really like this plank and am looking forward to getting it and displaying it in my office. Thanks Alex!

To see more of Alex’s artwork, as well as posts about bushcraft and crafting in general, check out his brand-new blog 62nd parallel north.