These are my articles on the preparation to building a log cabin from scratch. It’s the first step in this series on how to build a log cabin.
Everything from finding a place to build the log cabin, getting the permits, preparing the building site and peeling and hauling the logs is listed on this page.
There are also links to building the cabin and what I did for water, food, heat and keeping clean. I’ll take the best of what’s in the six journals I wrote while I lived there and share it with you!
Finding a place to build your log cabin. The first step in building a log cabin was finding a place to put it! I didn’t have land or the money to buy land. So, I asked a few people and I finally found someone who said that his family would let me build my cabin on their land. Here’s the story along with some pictures.
Building a log cabin articles
Building a log cabin by hand. These are my articles on how I actually built the cabin. It includes everything from the tools I used to laying the first set of logs in to putting on the roof. It only took me 5 months to build my cabin, and here’s how I did it.
baskets i made while building the cabin. cabin basket of hazelnut, spruce bark baskets.
laying up the logs
heating, uses of the wood stove, cooking, oven, cast iron pans vs. revere pans
lighting: Coleman, solar power, now I’d use LuciLights
Food storage: canning, broken fridge, corned venison, spring-house, hanging venison in winter
water: spring, roof runoff, system for getting water into cabin and interior water system
hot water system in stovepipe
keeping clean: outdoor shower, indoor shower, snow, sponge bath, creek
baking in woodstove
raccoon fat cookies
toboggan/sled for hauling stuff back to the cabin
poop and pee, tomato plants
Resources on Building a Log Cabin
A book I highly recommend is Thomas J. Elpel’s book Living Homes. I used the first edition of his book when I built my cabin.