An Oregon Log Cabin
By Bill Hudson of Eugene, Oregon

Well we've just barely begun.

Yes the cabin is standing up again but it is also showing its age. The falling down of the cabin has caused some racking of the log frame. Another problem is that logs taper over their length. No where in the cabin is there a square or level place.

The original floor was supported by smaller poles (floor joists) running crosswise to the house. These poles had sagged over the years and probably were never level to start with. Now laying a floor over them would result in a very badly rolling floor. To solve this my dad and uncle sawed some new rough sawn 2 x 12 foot floor joists. These were notched into the side logs we had just installed in the last segment. Where they crossed the center support logs they were also notched in. Then they were spiked to the old joist poles. All the new floor joists were leveled to each other as they were installed. This give us a level starting place.

New 2 X 10 foot floor boards were laid over the joists to make the sub floor. On top of the sub floor we laid felt paper and then 3/4 inch plywood. This ended up being our finished floor as time was against us to install a finished floor over the plywood. This made a very stable floor and in all the years living there it never squeaked. It also stayed quite warm in winter. (later my mom shellacked the plywood and then put a very nice wax finish on top).

Unfortunately by installing 12 floor joists along side the old pole joists which were only about six inches in diameter we raised the floor height by about six inches. Consequently also it lowered the ceiling height to about six feet to the bottom of the ceiling joists. The ceiling joists were never removed form the cabin. The ceiling joists had been set in on top of the log wall making it nearly impossible to tear out without taking the whole roof off so we had to go with them as is. This posed a real problem for me, a growing lad who had nearly reached a height of 6 feet 4 inches.

For a second story floor we first installed finished 1/4 inch plywood, face down on top of the joists leaving them as exposed beams. It was designed that way just for me. It was decided that it would ruin my posture if I could not stand up straight once in a while. I could walk across the room with my head between the ceiling joists or duck to walk the other way. There were many times I forgot to duck when getting up from a chair forgetting there was a beam above my head. I ended up crashing down on the floor many times. To finish off the upstairs floor again we put in a layer of felt paper topped with 3/4 inch plywood. But I am now getting ahead of my story.

Okay, let's step back to where we had just finished the main floor. The next order of business was to install windows and a door.

The original door was just a plank door hung on a flimsy frame with leather straps. It didn't fit now that the cabin logs had shifted from all the moving and raising. The raising of the floor meant also that we need a shorter door. My mom insisted we have a real door but none were available locally. Then I remembered several doors in the old falling down homesteads on the place we were leaving. My dad and I drove the old model A back in to the best of the two houses to see if we could salvage one or two. We found a couple of old doors still in pretty good shape. We also found some windows and even some with glass still in them. We hoped to use them in the cabin. We loaded the windows in the back seat and tied the doors on the top of the car to haul them to the cabin.

My dad and an old logger friend of his hue out a couple of 4x6 timbers to install vertically for the door frame. He also hewed and fitted a header to support the log above the door. These were mortised and tennioned in place. The new door had to be cut off at the bottom and rebuilt a bit. It had a nice detail below the window. The original glass had been etched but it was broken, in our haste, too badly to use so I got my first lesson in installing and caulking glass into the door. Uncle Robert showed me how to remove the old glass and putty then how to cut a new piece of glass to fit.

Then we placed a light layer of putty in the frame and pushed the glass in until it almost all oozed out the inside. Then we pushed some little brads in to the frame to hold the glass in place while we puttied the glass in place.

The cabin had only one small window beside the door and one way up in the back gable end. Mother of course stepped in insisting on more windows.

Again Daddy brought in his logger friend to cut some openings for windows. One large one was planned for the South side, for light and view, in the living room. The little hole in front was enlarged to a much larger front window in the dining room. A little one was cut in on the north side where the ladder went up to the second floor. For a while we had a screened box on the window to keep food in. later it was turned into a window when we finally got electricity. The final window was in the my parents bedroom just off the living room.

They had to chop out the first part of the opening with an ax then used a small cross cut saw to cut out the rest of the logs. Then a heavy frame work was built for the windows. We learned right quickly that the cabin shifted almost daily. The first windows we installed cracked by the next day. To solve the problem my dad used a product that was made for chicken houses. It was a cloth mesh covered with a plastic coating. It was quite flexible. Mother of course would not have that stuff in the living room and dining room where guests would see it. Finally Daddy figured out a way of making a smaller frame for the glass that floated inside the main frame. He packed in rubber gasket for car windows between the two frames and then covered it with molding. It worked and my mom got her nice large windows for her living room and dining room. For the little window behind the ladder (which was soon taken out to install a cool box in its place) and in their bedrooms and upstairs they left the mesh windows in.

Our next order of business was to finish off the inside. First we needed to seal out the outside form coming in between the old logs. We did this by chinking the inside. First we stuffed heavy moss between the cracks. Then we mixed clay and straw to make the chinking. This was the job for me and my sisters. Daddy dug a large pit then filled it with water and mud. Betty, Anita and I tromped the straw into the mud with our bare feet.

Anita didn¹t last too long. She was quite little then and was recovering from a bad bout of rheumatic fever. The mud mix was pushed into the cracks to fill the voids. Then it was smoothed out a bit. On the outside we pushed pieces of bark into the mud to slow down the attack on it from the rain. But it started raining the next day and it set in hard and wet for the rest of the winter. As you can see in the photo, it still washed out. We had to re-chink it once in a while.

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