Build a Log Cabin with Fence Posts In My Backyard

Description

What happens when the logs need another 6 months to season but I need to get my log cabin built? Build it in my backyard with cedar fence posts!

In this video, I explain what I'm doing with fence posts, what the next steps are and when I hope to get this cabin built before I build another one with the trees I cut down earlier.z

Tags: self-reliance,survival,Cabin,log cabin,off-grid,self reliance,tiny home,small home,shelter,bushcraft,living off the land,homestead,woodcraft,woodworking,gransfors bruk,axe,pathfinder school,dick proenneke,cabin living,alone in the wilderness,joe Robinet,maker,artisan,makers movement

Video Transcription

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

in the pond killer okay thanks for fast-forwarding or thanks for watching that video so what you're going to notice of what you have noticed is that I'm in my backyard building this log cabin which is pretty unusual I'm in a suburban neighborhood in central Ontario and I had to do something a little bit differently so if you've been following along you know you've know that I cut down about 60 trees at my friend's property and they're all theater well some theater and but 90% of them were were white spruce very knotty staff was running through the very heavy and they were green of course they cut them down live so I started a foundation out of out of cedar logs on that property and then I kind of left it to go up to start building a cabin up north that had my own property a property that belongs to my wife and I then of course once I got up there start cutting some balsam fir down a friend I met on Facebook really great guy and his wife Terry Jr and actually they

Adri permission to come and thin out a bush forest on their property that they wanted just thinned out clear cleared out a little bit so I had access to fantastic trees so I got forgive me trees I cut down maybe 25 trees you'll see that you saw that in the video the size of those are some white pine there was red pine and Scotch pine or Scots pine and I got like 900 feet of logs out of there but you saw they were big diameter so two problems with that very very heavy I'm having a really hard time manhandling notes and as you know I'm not using power equipment for this for this build on their property I actually used a chainsaw cut those trees down I loaded up on a rented trailer and I hauled those to the to my property drop them on the driveway and now I'm struggling to get them back to the site but biggest problem with them is that they're green got a storm coming and I think so

use the wind so I built that cabin 25 years ago I had my 5 and 1/2 acres and I only had access to the trees that I had there I didn't have time to dry them they were mostly like black ash bass wood and maple not ideal building materials but anyway I built the thing it lasted so I'm not complaining about what I did then but the notching pattern I use and they and the green logs that I use cause some of that cabin day-shift space it's opened up a little bit more room for the logs to rot some of the logs plotted especially on the end that the notches over the last 25 years so I want to do this one right so I've been doing a lot of research on cabins have been online my wife's been online looking for inspiration for log cabin designs it's got some great ideas we've got some things we're going to incorporate into this one still dedicated to building this thing entirely by hand at all and by myself the the one at my property and at the one at my friend's property so I've got over 20 acres of land that's our own that would be suitable for building multiple cabins so that's the plan and I'm going to get this first one built then I can move on to these other ones but point being long-winded explanation to get to this point the green logs that have been cutting down or the live trees that I cut down I've really really been uncomfortable with the decision to build this year with those those logs without letting them see them shrink check and warp Club to where they're going to end up so struggled with this decision for a while but as I was explaining this to some of my family members a close family member said she's got up to I think it's about a hundred logs and I'll show you these a hundred cedar logs that we're going to be four high fencing so they're essentially fence posts so the 12-foot cedar fence posts minimum diameter is about six inches they go up to some of them are the butt ends or like 10 inches but I would say an average of say seven and a half inch logs so they're actually fairly straight I'm pretty happy with them you know a lot of the lot of the time so far has been used up cutting those trees down shaping the logs and getting those logs prepped for log cabin building so that's D barking that's lemming it's really really time-consuming so these little cedar posts they came about half of them came debarked so they're run through a mill the barking machine that spirals them and take the bark and the high points off like the knot so you'll see this spiral pattern in the logs that I'm building on in my backyard right now on the cabin that I'm building the backyard McNown so I really don't like the look of that of course it's sort of against the principle of building this thing by hand but on the other hand these logs are seasoned they've been cut at least a year I think they've been stored at her place or at least a year and they're probably cut a year or two before that so they're well seasoned like I said I just don't like the appearance of them so I am going to plane them smooth make them into a nice smooth log and I also have to do that anyway at the joints because I can't get a nice neat scribe on that notch until I do that so so that's the plan so again maybe a considered cheating but I have to do what I have to do because I really want to get this this cabin specially the first cabin on the property underway and completed this summer so the only way that's going to happen if I use these season logs they're all cut to 12 foot lengths so it's determined the predetermine the size of the cabin I do have a splice in the middle my wife especially was really not comfortable with me building just a 10 by 10 cabin so what I've done is I ended up notching just six inches or nine inches over over overhang in the corners and that left me with exactly ten feet inside that dimension inside measurement side to side and then extended it double that length so the cabin is actually 20 feet long so it's 10 by 20 I have enough logs to go up at least eight feet on the wall and then I'm going to do the the gable ends will be actually full logs instead I don't like the look of and I don't want to do the after the work of sawing hands on boards out of all the logs to make sort of a stick frame gable end so I'm going to bring logs all the way up kind of like a dick printer can style cabin but I'm going to have a higher peak on it so that I can put a loft upstairs so that's why you're seeing me and you're hearing is road noise as you're hearing right now I'm in my backyard like I said in the suburban small town like the village but this traffic especially today with a nice win with a system coming in so had you'll see grass behind me as well that's my back lawn and then Callie's running around of course helping me of stripping a bark off of off of a log so so here I am that's the explanation why you're seeing some odd marks on the logs that's why you're seeing me work in sort of an urban environment but I am building this cabin up the plan very soon I'll be disassembling this thing I'm going to get it a little bit more up going to get the cabin a little bit more than half built and then I'm going to disassemble it and bring it up so that's the plan that's the explanation appreciate everybody's sticking around and being patient with me again I always say that I think in every video but it's true

I've got a lot of things on a lot of things on the go I've got a canoe trip that I'm doing a couple of weeks of canoeing and fishing in the boreal forests I know people that are here for more of the self-reliance and the tiny home move and the cabin and so on are probably not interested in that but to me self-reliance also includes you know acquiring food from the from nature and connecting with nature and you know a self-propelled watercraft to me is like the ultimate form of self align so that's why I'm doing all these all these side trips as well while I'm in the middle of this so still on the same agenda so if you came for the log cabins and you're getting a little bit impatient please be patient lots more coming up once I get back from this trip so sometime in July I'll be dedicating all my time to the properties of getting the cabin built getting some workshops underway and just creating that whole camp atmosphere up there or the homestead atmosphere at the property so I'm really looking forward to that and I'm getting some criticism various criticisms I'll dress it on in another video we'll be interested to do a sort of a question and answer video and address some questions concerns and criticisms for one point I do want to make is anybody who thinks I'm taking a little bit too much I in the truck today and I again heard listen to a country song called a time by 15 Brody and says problem is you think you have time and that's really the truth so when I get up in the morning I really want to get to work

I want to we have 47 now I don't want to be 60 and say I wish when I was 47 when I was young that that's I had done some something more with my life so here I am trying to get as much done in a day and as much done in a week month in a year as I can and you know that means taking on a lot so I don't regret that one minute people think I'm going to burn out I hope I burn out doing this I don't just stayed away I want to live my life to the fullest and I want to burn out at the end of my life I want to say I'd lived it right to the bitter end and and got a lot of accomplished and I was very proud and and had a good time so so that's a little bit of explanation what I've been up to so hope you hope you enjoyed that and I hope you stick around if you have any questions again please comment check out so my wife and I on Facebook and Instagram she helps me with a lot of photographs does all the takes a lot of photographs and does all the video for photograph processing I do all the filming 99% of filming and all the film processing so by film processing I mean video so check us out there and if you haven't subscribed that would be great I'm enjoying watching the numbers go up to summer of subscribers go up and kind of motivated me to keep going so if you are interested in watching more if you wouldn't mind subscribing I'd really appreciate that so that's it I'm going to wrap that up and like I said thanks again for watching I'll see you in the next video

[Music]