The cabin was built in 1915, it was perched on about fourteen larch posts set on the bare ground. Larch is pretty rot- and bug-resistant, but after 90 years even larch gives up the ghost, and for a number of years we wondered every summer before we came up here whether the cabin would still be standing. A couple of years ago Bryan Tankersley leveled the cabin and set it on concrete pads, and once the foundation was secure we asked Bryan to go ahead and replace the roof, windows and doors, then refurbish the interior. Some of you have already seen the slide shows of that work. And, as I’ve mentioned, we had hoped to get by without putting on siding, but realized it would not be wise. The exterior consisted of shiplapped cedar planks which are almost, but not quite, as tight as tongue-in-groove, but after ninety years the boards had shrunk and warped to the point that there were gaps that simply couldn’t be sealed with caulk. So we asked Bryan to go ahead and put on the spruce half-round siding that he had originally suggested.
Here’s what the cabin looked like a few years ago, the foundation posts pointing every which way, and the exterior looking pretty tired.
The cabin in 2005.
When Bryan & Co. finished their work a couple of years ago, it looked like the image on the left, square and level, and partially covered with Tyveck moisture-barrier. On the right you can see what it looked like after it had been fully prepared for the siding installation a couple of weeks ago, and the siding is beginning to go up.
In transition...
And then, one day, just like magic, it looked like this!
And voila!
Again, for those of you who haven’t already seen it, here’s the interior before and after Bryan’s work.
Inerior, 2005................................................................and today.
He put in the floor and tamarack paneling the winter before last, and for the past two summers we haven’t seen so much as a mouse dropping inside the cabin! This is a far cry from the mouse motel that it had been in the past…quite apart from the colony of about fifty bats Bryan had to evict when he replaced the roof. But it’s only been this year that we became aware that a new collection of creatures has come to inhabit the place. Two we’ve spotted so far seem to be one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and some variety of elf.
Hi, Michaelangelo............................................................... is that you, Elrond??
Jan has also been hard at work making the cabin more comfortable and homey, one of her projects has been sanding, painting and re-upholstering the wooden chairs that she remembers from her childhood home in Evergreen Park.
You can see the original chairs at the table in one of the images above.
And the work goes on…
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