Building the Log House

            I was really disappointed when my husband capped the well to our pitcher pump.  We owned 15 wooded acres.  The first thing we did after purchasing the land was witch for water and drive a well.  My mother-in-law knew how to witch for water, and the water she found was good.  We drilled the well ourselves.  This was in the late 1980s.  You could still rent the tools to drive your own well then.  I don’t know if you can anymore.  You could still buy a “point” and the pipe for the well, and you could still buy a pitcher pump.  A couple of men and half-grown boys can drive a well.  I have photos, somewhere, I think, of driving the well.  I am certain I have circa-1994 photos of the pitcher pump.

 

            The second thing we did after purchasing the land was construct an outhouse, a good distance from our water source.  I think the outhouse may still be standing, but I don’t think it has been used since about 1996.  My now 18-year-old son was “potty trained” using the outhouse while we were living in “the little trailer” and building the log house.  I know I have photos of that.  In case you don’t know this, the way you keep an outhouse sanitary is by pouring lime into the hole from time to time.

 

            Having water and an outhouse, we used our land for camping for several years.  We bought “the little trailer” and set it up on the property.  That was a big luxury after rainstorms when we camped in the tent.

            Over the course of several years, we marked out trees that were tall and straight, and these eventually became our log house.  We felled the trees with chain saws, dragged them with chains, and stacked them to dry for several years.  My brother-in-law had learned blacksmithing, and he designed and made for us the tools to peel the logs.  I may have pictures of peeling logs.  If I don’t have them, my ex-husband does.  Half-grown boys are good at peeling logs, and they even think it is fun to do.

            About a year before we constructed the log house, we had electricity brought out to our land.  The electric company put in a pole, and brought the power to a “box” on the pole.  We ran temporary lines from that box to “the little trailer” and then we could use electric space heaters in the little trailer.  We could watch TV.  We could cook with small electric appliances like a crock pot, and electric frying pan.  Before we brought in the electricity, we cooked over a campfire or used a propane canister camp stove to cook when we camped.

 

            The year we constructed the log house, we pretty much “moved into” the little trailer for several months.  In other words, we were camping all the time.  I would drive back to our house in the city about once a week to do the laundry.

            We drew our own plans for the building inspector, and the county advised us on all the specifications for building our home, but we built it ourselves.  We had purchased an old tractor to drag logs, and an old high-low to lift them.  We bought prebuilt trusses for the roof, and put them up with some rented equipment.  We purchased plywood to cover the trusses and put on our own shingles.  We hired a bulldozer to dig the foundation, but we laid our own cement block, and put in all the rebar and metal flashings ourselves.

 

            I was the “brains” of the outfit, and my husband and boys were the brawn.  It was my job to do the research and find out how to build a house.  It was their job to do the grunt work.

 

            We purchased a portable saw mill, and milled our own floor joists from logs.  We purchased plywood to cover them.

 

            Altogether, the cost to build the log house was about $30,000, not counting the cost of the land which contained all the trees.  We didn’t build the house until we had the money.  That $30,000 also included the cost to have a deeper well drilled by a professional, and the purchase of an electric pump.  We also had a professional install a septic system.  And we paid someone else to do the plumbing and electrical work on the log house.  It was rustic, but modern, and completely up to building codes.

 

            The first winter that we lived in our log home, we heated only with wood.  We had purchased a good-quality brand new wood stove.  I learned to be very good at banking a fire for the night so the house stayed warm and the coals were ready to re-ignite come morning.

            We had propane gas for the modern kitchen right from the start, but we didn’t add a propane furnace until the second winter.

            After the new well and electric pump and septic system were complete, my husband capped the well to the pitcher pump.  When he did that, I was sad, because I knew that we could never be so self-sufficient again.