HOW WE GOT OUR CIVIL WAR CABIN

 Internet pal Robbie asked me to elaborate on our small civil war cabin .....shown in the previous post.

It came about after we moved to NC from a home in WI that had a 4 1/2 car detached garage, and a 2 1/2 car attached garage.  Clearly the now 2 1/2 car garage was not adequate for the lawn tractor, hand mower, plus a zillion other garden and 'boy toy' pieces of equipment.

I had recently visited a Southern Living model home in nearby Sandy Mush, NC.....about 30 mins. as the crow flies, but at least an hr. by car.  (Oh the winding roads through the mountains we have here!!!)  On that property was a stunning shed being errected by a small company that seeks out old log structures.....disassembles them, numbering all the pieces and then sells and reassembles them on customers properties.  This small company was literally about 15 mins. from our house (if you knew where to look).

'The husband' couldn't bring himself to purchase a metal shed or any of the other premade ones available at big box stores and before I knew it....we had bought a disassembled (said to be pre-civil war) small cabin.  The artisan who built it for us was outstanding.  He would not stand for the idea of setting it on concrete blocks.....so he sourced local stones and built the foundation....no motor, all dry stacked.  It was fascintating to watch....like putting odd shaped blocks of a quilt together!!  He even made hinges out of old horse shoes and hung a single rusted mule show upside down over the doors.  He used vintage tin for the roof.   

This is how it looked the day it was finished.....back in 2007.

Note the old piece of leather that covered the hinged door handle!!

This is what our home looked like just after moving in the summer of 2006.  You can see why a log cabin was so appealing to us.  We now wish we'd have found a bigger structure.....though it probabably wouldn't have been afforable as this entire process was very labor intensive.

 

In 2019 we had a complete redo on the front porch/deck/railing and roof.  I had always loved the idea of a log home...though was educated enough by then to know I didn't want a total log home....way tooooo dark inside.  Ours is log sided and that's bad enough.  The amount of maintance & cost is astonishing.  This update was done with material as maintance free as possible.

So there you go Robbie...the tale of our antique log cabin......