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<< If you're really looking at yurts, we liked Pacific Yurts and Nesting Bird

Yurts the best. I've heard Pacific yurts are pretty nice tho. >>

Yes, they are. We just received Pacific Yurts information packet in the mail.
They are quite nice. I'm leaning more towards that but DH has been stuck for
years on cord wood. We couldn't do the stained glass effect on the cabin as
you can't cut into the logs but for the cord wood you can cut into it and take
two colored glass bottles end to end, wrap them in aluminum sheeting like a
cylinder and cement them in like log. It's pretty neat and economical and looks
like a stained glass window and not glass end bottles!


<< I'd love to see a pic of your log cabin! That's a lot of work! Did you

really log and notch all the logs yourself?

HeidiWD >>

I don't have any pictures of it yet. We only took a video. With all 3 of us
working on it, nobody even thought of the camera. Once I get a picture, I'll
pass it on to you. It is a lot of work but well worth it! All the logs were cut
down, dried and notched by us. Notching was done mostly by an ax and chain
saw. I'd say taking all the bark off the logs was the worse! We did have a tree
service company come in and take one tree down as it was about 70 feet tall up
against our power lines, wasn't having DH climb that one! We made boards out
of that tree with an Alaskan Saw Mill that took forever. DH purchased building
plans for a larger saw mill that you build yourself and he is almost complete
with that. That will be used for the 6 other 60 feet trees that are down and
drying now. So, yes it is a lot of work which is one of the reasons I like the
Yurt. I know that is a lot off work also but it takes way less time and less
of a mess to clean up. The cabin and garage has taken us 5 years so far, not to
mention the 5 years it took to clean up the woods, put in a driveway, etc. I
think things will go a lot faster now that we'll be there full time. That is
if DH will go with a Yurt instead of cord wood. I hope!

Kim

Heidi Wordhouse-Dykema

>(snipped) but DH has been stuck for
>years on cord wood. We couldn't do the stained glass effect on the cabin as
>you can't cut into the logs but for the cord wood you can cut into it and
>take
>two colored glass bottles end to end, wrap them in aluminum sheeting like a
>cylinder and cement them in like log. It's pretty neat and economical and
>looks
>like a stained glass window and not glass end bottles!

Yeah! It can be really pretty. Our yurt is on a sloping hill and I'm
about to build the deck to surround it (a big circle around the yurt, of
course) and then a bathhouse support (coming off the deck on the downhill
side). This means we'll have maybe 5 feet or so of open space under the
deck on the downhill side at least. So, I'm going to cordwood and
native-clay-mud-cement under the deck and bathhouse to make an enclosure,
create a sturdy door with hinges on the inside (for security - backwoods
vandals are more common than one would hope for) and store stuff inside,
under the deck. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to go cutting glass bottles
out there to make picture windows, as pretty as it would be. Do you have
an easy way to cut glass bottles?

Anyway, there's a way you could have your yurt and he could have his
cordwood! Yurt up top, cordwood enclosure below.

I'm vascillating on whether the bathhouse walls should be strawbale or
cordwood. Cordwood's cheaper (we have lots of winter deadfall and a brand
new chainsaw!) and would leave slightly more interior space but is also
more work. Strawbale would be warmer/cooler in winter/summer and it's less
work, but we'd have to buy the straw and it'd make for a slightly smaller
interior space... That said, the next two or three years will be spent
planning and then building a strawbale house, so maybe I should get some
practice in now. I'd love your opinions.

>Once I get a picture, I'll
>pass it on to you.

Great! Thanks!

>I'd say taking all the bark off the logs was the worse!

I was down at Bailey's the other day (tree-chopping-industry catalog
company) and they had this gizmo that had a set of small chains on a rotary
center, kind of like a small rolling pin with rows of 4 inch chains that
attaches to some sort of powersource (chainsaw? power drill?) and whacks
the bark off of downed trees, supposedly quickly. How did you remove the
bark? ('cause I'm going to have to remove a lot of bark when I do the
cordwood enclosure.) A hatchet?

>We did have a tree
>service company come in and take one tree down as it was about 70 feet
>tall up
>against our power lines, wasn't having DH climb that one! We made boards out
>of that tree with an Alaskan Saw Mill that took forever. DH purchased
>building
>plans for a larger saw mill that you build yourself and he is almost complete
>with that. That will be used for the 6 other 60 feet trees that are down and
>drying now. So, yes it is a lot of work which is one of the reasons I like
>the
>Yurt. I know that is a lot off work also but it takes way less time and less
>of a mess to clean up.

Oh, honey, a yurt's NOTHING like the work involved in felling, ripping and
drying wood for a wood cabin! With good weather, we could have gone front
to end, build the base, attached the SIP panels, install the flooring and
tile and erect the yurt in 5 constant, but relaxed days. 5 days for yurt
or 5 years for wood? (of course, your cabin is likely to have a longer
half-life, so there's that to evaluate. I figure every 10 years I'm going
to have to write off for a new roof at least.) Plus, it's kind of hard to
split off the interior of the yurt for 'alone space'. I'm probably going
to have to make a 'hermit hut' for myself in a few months or so, just to
have alone space for a little while now and then.

Have you (or anyone) used a one-man auger? I hurt my back (doing something
stupid!) and ds wants to auger the holes for the deck, so we were thinking
he could use a one-man auger, but dh said he heard they were more
frustrating than anything else and we'd not get anything done. Any thoughts?

HeidiWD

"Self-reliance is the antidote to institutional stupidity." JTGatto,
Monarch Notes guide to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.