For a little over a year, starting in September of 2006, I worked in the Adirondack Mountains building a camp for close friends. They had owned the property for 17 years. They named it "Camp Ceilidh" (kay-lee), which is gaelic for gathering, especially for the purpose of celebrating. Over the years this small cabin was the home for hundreds of guests, most of whom had done just that. Unfortunately, the three tiny bedrooms, one bathroom and spartan kitchen were no longer adequate for their needs, especially since the place wasn't winterized. They worked with designer Brian Morgan to come up with a plan to expand without losing the feel of the place. Two elements were key to achieving this: saving the original log structure which was the core of the building, and maintaining the horizontal, almost Asian feel of the rooflines.
I worked with carpenter Steve Waite from Syracuse, N.Y. on this project, and together we managed subcontractors and did the bulk of the carpentry work. As is pretty typical on jobs like this, building around the existing structure proved challenging, even more so in this case because it was a log cabin built sometime around 1915. We decided to tear off one side of the building because we were putting in a full basement there which would also support one side of the cabin.
We stared this project in September, and the weather couldn't have been worse, with seemingly non-stop rain. This made excavation and foundation work difficult. We finally managed to get the footings and poured foundation walls after many delays and no-shows by the concrete contractor.
The basement footings were poured and the foundation walls were formed and poured. This shows the walk-in part of the basement on the lake (low) side of the property. Note that this side of the old cabin will be supported by these walls.
At the same time we poured the foundations for the guest wing at the other end and for the screened porch that will connect the two buildings.
This shows concrete being pumped into the forms by a boom truck. Better not have a serious hangover if you work on foundation crew when it's time to pour.
These are the footings and foundation for the screened porch. The protruding box is the support for the massive fireplace that will become a feature in the porch area.
Having the foundations in was a milestone for us as carpenters because it meant that we could move forward with construction and not be at the mercy of one sub-contractor's schedule. This was crucial, because winter was not far off.
It wasn't long before we were working in snow. We framed the Master bedroom side of the building first, which included a bedroom with a walk-in closet and french doors leading out to a private porch, a master bath, laundry, and study.
The large opening is for the french doors. The most challenging part of this phase was tying in the new construction with the existing cabin. We had also saved a small wing on the other side of the cabin. It was originally two small guest bedrooms (you had to walk through the front room to get to the back.) This was a classic example in construction where tearing something down completely and starting over would have been easier. There was no question of saving the log cabin, as it was the heart and soul of the property, but this wing should have gone. We quickly came to the realization that all the existing support piers, floor framing and roof framing on the old structure would have to be redone. We framed the new kitchen area where the old bedrooms were first, and then moved on to the cabin.
As we tore off the roof we found that the original rafters were 5" round logs. Amazing, considering this area gets 100-200 inches of snow a year! We had the roof completely opened up at the end of a short winter day, and big snowflakes drifted in, lit by halogen worklights, to magical effect. This photo shows the original fireplace. We had determined that the steel firebox was rotted out. The masons, Tanner Construction, did an amazing job of saving the old stone front and building a new box of fire brick.
They moved on to re-build the block work and flue.
The finished block work ready for stone. Meanwhile, we worked on the new roof framing for the cabin...
and the guesthouse...
(That's the boss surveying his domain)
The guest wing was to have three bedrooms, a bath and another small, private screened porch. We continued to battle the elements, not only snow but temperatures the bottomed out at about 35 below zero on the coldest night of the year.
(To be continued...)
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