So this weekend we didn’t get to make too much progress again. It’s not as much fun when we don’t get to see as much change over a weekend. But we do have a log cabin restoration specialist scheduled to come out and meet with us on Wednesday morning. I’m excited to hear what he has to say (and also pretty nervous – there’s definitely some major damage in areas). So this weekend, we just worked on getting every log free and visible so that there wouldn’t be questions or work that needs to be done while he is here (or another visit needed). Luckily for us, one full wall was already free due to the addition removal. So we just had 3 bottom logs to expose – one on each wall.
We decided to work smart and got the John Deere out with the nifty dump trailer that my father-in-law was recently given (awesome find!!). It was a fun little break to drive the (albeit slow) mower/trailer set up between the exhausting work of clipping and ripping out old overgrown plants and shoveling up dirt and rocks. Here are some before and after pics of everything we removed:
The picture on the left is back from last September, so there were no flowers out yet, but we had to cut back the bushes like crazy (though I’m sure with all the root systems we found they’ll be back with a vengeance!). The bottom log on almost all three walls look like they are going to need to be removed and replaced with either a foundation or new logs. We’re leaning toward a foundation to prevent any future issues.
This is the West facing side, and looks to be the best bottom log of all four sides. We had to cut back all the plants again to be able to see it, and it will help when we clean up the logs for resealing as well! The South facing side was by far the worst to clip and clear – it was full of bushes, vines and blackberries. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to not take a single picture of the back of the Cabin throughout the whole time we’ve had it! Which is pretty sad, because when we got that side done and took a look from a few steps back it was definitely the one gratifying moment of the weekend. Oh well. Here’s the best I’ve got to show you!
While the before image doesn’t give you a very good idea of everything we cleared out, you can see the plants were pretty overgrown and thick. There were lots of prickly rose stems and blackberry vines – it was nice to get rid of them!
It didn’t feel like we accomplished much, but it was something that was hanging over our heads and neither of us wanted to do. It’ll be nice to talk to the log restoration specialist and talk over all our ideas to find out what is feasible, what is advisable, and what we can do next!
The Homestead Journey 