My project for the next couple days

[begreen]

That part is a very basic log house. The main house is larger but still all log. The summer kitchen is currently completely gutted. It needed a new floor downstairs and a few bottom logs replaced. From outside it is hard to tell it is all covered with aluminum siding. It is a pretty typical old farmhouse for our area.

OMG,an aluminum siding salesman talked then into alcoawrapping the house at some point. This sounds like an original pioneer build where the basic cabin was constructed and then as they made progress, the full house was built.

 

[bholler]

OMG,an aluminum siding salesman talked then into alcoawrapping the house at some point. This sounds like an original pioneer build where the basic cabin was constructed and then as they made progress, the full house was built.

Yes that was typical in this area. The space we are working in was the original house. Very small 2 story single room per floor. When the main house was finished the small one became the summer kitchen. It has multiple layers of siding on it as most log homes in our area do as they tried to reduce drafts and modernize the house through the years.

Houses like this are not uncommon at all in our area either made of log or stone. The first house my wife and I rented when we moved back to the area from Philly was a log house originally built pre revolutionary war and we rented from a member of that original family. It had been added to but you could still tell what the original footprint was. It had been burnt out 3 seperate times but the outer log structure survived

 

[weatherguy]

I remember reading that the wood consumption in colonial days was obscenely high. Open fireplaces for heat and no real insulation. Must have been a really tough life.

I thought I read it was something like 20 cords a year for an average house back then, not sure what the average size was but 20 cords all by hand would keep you in good shape.

 

[bholler]

A few pics of the interior

 

[begreen]

That is very coarse and wide chinking. I can see why the place must have leaked like a sieve before adding the siding.

 

[bholler]

That is very coarse and wide chinking. I can see why the place must have leaked like a sieve before adding the siding.

Yeah. Most of the houses like these were built fast and generally not by experienced builders

 

[begreen]

Yeah. Most of the houses like these were built fast and generally not by experienced builders

it might also have been built with green timber that shrunk over the years, but that only partially explains the wide gaps.

 

[bholler]

it might also have been built with green timber that shrunk over the years, but that only partially explains the wide gaps.

I am sure some of it was green.

 

[moresnow]

Makes my old place look like rocket science comparably That place is historically remarkable but a efficiency nightmare, by the looks of it. Neat stuff!