Building an 18th Century Barn: Full Build!

When I first started working on my first cabin, I didn't know what I was doing. I made forks when I was a kid. This is not easy work, and I have aches and pains and all kinds of stuff doing this stuff, and there's days that I can't even do it, but, you know, I think you should definitely follow your dreams. I mean, that's what we do here in America. We're doing a two-pen barn, a 12x12 corral or pen for a horse, and then another 12x12 pen for a horse or cow, either or, and just a simple old country barn. We're using all poplar logs, and we do have some pine that we'll use for some sheathing, but it'll be covered. When somebody comes into a new land, the first thing they're going to do is obviously find out where they want to clear for their structures, their house, first of all, but then they've got to source material other than just your logs that you're going to build with, and that's where a foundation comes in. If you cut down logs and lay them straight on the ground, yeah, that might suffice for a very short time, but quickly moisture and termites, all kinds of pests, are going to destroy the structure you've built. So to stop that from happening, you have to find stone. That's the best thing for your foundation. The first course is really the hardest, and that's getting our foundation plumb and level, and then getting everything square, and that's what makes the rest of it easy as far as the pens themselves. I just like to start building your way up, one step at a time. Well, on these, these are what the people would consider. This was an earlier notch, a saddle notch, and you just lay your logs up there, and you kind of mark the insets on both sides to get where your notch needs to be, and you roll it over, and you start working towards the center. The whole end result is you have a nice scalloped cradle in your log, and when it rolls over, it fits nicely on the one below it. The saddle notch was a lot easier, a more simpler notch. It didn't require a lot of professional carpentry, a lot of extra tools. You could just hew it out with an axe and flip it over and keep going. This is a chute. Hey, that ain't shooting. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Well, with all the people we have, we should get a lot of it done. We're making pretty good progress just for our first day, you know. I'm here with two of my three children, and I'm here because I love history, and I really love learning the skills and learning how people lived and just kind of making things simpler. I'm learning really great stuff. I've used tools today that I've never used before, and trying to do something that I can come back for years and say, you know, Mom helped with that. Thank you, buddy. The tool that we use here to make some pegs is supposed to be the, historians say, the oldest wood vise in the entire world. It's called a shaving horse. It's strictly made to hold wood. You can put that with your lever on there, and you simply cannot pull that out. It's one of the most effective wood vises that's ever been devised. I'll take it down to about this kind of a square. Then I'll take my spokeshave and shave the edges off and make it look like that. And I say that's about two pegs, so when I finish, I will cut that in two. We're trying to secure, you don't put pegs on every layer of logs, but towards the top and, of course, with the roof, they want to have some peg holes and then pegs. The top plates, if you'll notice, they're overhanging on each end. That's called a cantilever. That is to help keep the water away from the foundation, and which helps keep it dry on the inside and not as much disease issues and such as that. Unfortunately, the part they're working on right now, making the plates for the top, which is what the rafters will sit on, it's hard to find a piece that's long enough, so we have to put several pieces together to make up that length. We're doing this by use of a lap joint, which simply means they lap on top of each other. We'll cut out X amount of material from one and cut out that same amount of material out of the other, and we'll just simply peg it together. When you get topped out to your final course, we're putting the rafter seals on. That's when the carpentry starts, because you have to get your pitch right, make all of your rafters. You've got to notch them and peg them and drill them. You know, the whole, it's a lot more complicated. The work really slows at this point. When I decided that I think I'm going to build log cabins for a living, you know, everybody's like, well, you can't do that. You know, nobody does that anymore. And I was like, well, I'm going to try it, you know. Getting to use the same tools that they used with the same limitations. The era that we are reconstructing is the very foundation of what our nation is built on. And you are starting from absolutely nothing. And the tools that they brought with them or could acquire are all that they had. And they had very simple things. We're taking the bark that we peeled off of the trees, and that's what's going to be our temporary roof. You know, at least it'll get a sewer through. A few seasons, and when we have time, we'll go ahead and rive out oak shingles. But to generally get us undercover for the time being, that's what we use. It was fantastic working with this group of guys and gals. Watching them work together, come together on a project. Every day, all over the United States, there are people coming together and working on projects like this. They're working on reconnecting with their history and with our history all together. These projects are important to every single one of them. Watching these people come together on this particular one and getting it finished. Leaving a product that people are going to interact with for years in the future. It was a great experience. You know, I would encourage you to think back and look at history. And look at a simpler time. And just slow down in your life. Connect with our history. Connect with the times past. And try to disconnect with all of the hustle and bustle. I will guarantee you that your mind will be a little clearer when you leave after being in a simpler time like this. This is a view that's very comparable to what somebody could have been looking at. And I was thinking about all the work that it took to do this. And we could have had much more modern means and methods to do it. But what gratification hard work brings when you get something as finished as this. To sit back and just look and reflect on. Look at how it worked out in the grand scheme of things. It's really gratifying.