Renovating Gardner

It's been a while since I posted on some of the renovations we undertook last year.  Denny wasn't the only cabin to get a facelift, although it was certainly the most extensive project we did (the lodge notwithstanding).  When we first started moving from the lodge to the cabins, I decided to start with Gardner because the floor was bowing quite a bit, and I figured it would be an easy fix to start off with.  Boy, was I wrong.

The floor was bowing because there is a log joist running beneath the middle of the cabin.  That joist stayed in place as the logs on either side of the cabin began to crumble from years of weather.  We jacked up each side of the cabin, removed the bottom logs, and replaced them with a pressure-treated footer:

Once that was securely in place, we covered our handiwork with two of the logs that were left over from the new lodge.

When we got around to the front side of the cabin, we ran into more problems.  The propane tank (which supplies the cabin's lights, fridge, stove, and hot water heater) sits in the corner between the bathroom and the bedroom, right under the valley of the roof.  It's been there ever since I can remember, and all that time, it's been splashing rainwater from the roof onto the walls.

Bummer.

The majority of the logs that made up the bedroom wall had to come out because they were rotten through-and-through.  Luckily, Gardner had seen multiple renovations over the years (it was an old blacksmith's shop and wood shop at two points during its life), and that wall had a stick-built interior with log facing on the outside.

In the second picture, you can see shingles to the left of the window.  If I have my history straight, that was originally the door they used to bring lumber into the wood shop.  It was boarded up when they turned the building into a cabin.

Luckily, Cary and Kendall are amazing at this sort of work, and the wall is as good as new.  (I thought I had a picture of the finished product, but you'll just have to wait until I get back to take one this spring.)  The other thing we finally did with Gardner was to give it a porch railing.  I'm biased, but I think it looks much cozier now.

I assume everyone realizes that when I say "we" in this post, I had nothing to do with getting this done.  I can't thank the guys enough for all the hard work they've been putting in for us over the past couple of years.  I've given them some tall orders to fill, and they've filled them well.