Mr. Mudd pours the foundation

Triumph Log Homes crew preassembled the cabin

Sub- floor being layed

The first logs being set in place

The main beam & rafters were lifted and set

Last March I wrote an entry in the Timber Butte journal I called “Moving vision from a dream to reality” (See Building projects under categories). I shared how we had finally gotten started on the log guest cottage we had dreamed of building when we had first started developing the homestead here at the base of Timber Butte.  This entry is a progress report on a project that is now well underway.

When the ground finally thawed out enough to set forms we called in a friend of ours who attends the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Brian Wheeler or otherwise known as “Mr. Mud”. Brian’s crew amazingly formed and poured the foundation in one day.

After submitting our rough plans to Triumph Log Homes, a newly established family owned log cabin kit business in the nearby community of Horseshoe Bend our new little cabin began to really take shape. As the logs were milled inside the old Boise Cascade warehouse they were meticulously preassembled on the spot.  Because our little cabin was the first to be built by this new company extra care was taken to work out the bugs. It was a joy to be a part of that process and watch the small crew lovingly figure everything out. In the end we developed not just a working relationship with the folks at Triumph Log Homes but real friendships.

Our good friends Josh and Melissa Fishburne volunteered to help me set the floor joists and lay the sub-floor after the foundation forms where stripped. For the first time we could grasp a sense of the small cabins actual size and shape.

After the guys delivered the log bundles I knew that I needed help not only figuring out how they would go together, but lifting and setting them onto the walls.  For this I called on the faithful ROMEO’s, otherwise known as “Retired old men eating out” to lend another helping hand.  As I have mentioned before in previous entries they have been a huge blessing to Nancy and I on many occasions.  On this new project however they went the extra mile spending two long days lifting and assembling the exterior walls. This phase require extreme accurate measuring, drilling, pegging and driving several hundred 10 inch timber skews. When the walls were finished they ended up being within a quarter of an inch of perfection from top to bottom.

About a week later yet another group of friends and family came up to finish erecting the log gabble ends, lift the main beam into place and cut and fit the rafters. The main beam was a twenty-four foot 6X12 that weighed hundreds of pounds. For weeks I had been thinking about how we might manage to lift it to its 16 foot high perch without a crane.  In the end it happened by sheer brute force. I was more than thankful for the young backs that did it.  This is as far as we have gotten on the project so far, but I feel a sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that most of the major lifting is over.