High Mountain Musing

Here’s a simple way of looking at small building projects – what do you have, and what do you need?  As you can figure, we’re not the type to think “what do we want, and what can we go out and buy?”  We’re very practical here. We’re also very far away from stores.

In our attempts at simple living, being frugal, and being responsible for our environment we do our best to “build green.” By that I mean, we consider what can we do so that we don’t have to buy anything.  At the end of the day, that’s still the “greenest” option, isn’t it? Homesteaders and folks who live or have lived far off the beaten path are good at living this way. We learn it by necessity, and then creatively grow in our talents to make do.

Rather than run out to the Home Depot or Walmarts when we need furnishings, we enjoy seeing if we can build it ourselves.  And rather than buying materials to build with, we turn to our beloved Junk Piles: our piles of recycled materials, scraps of building materials, and materials stock piled from bargains picked up at farm auctions.  Quite amazing what we can find in those piles…

At times, the junk piles look chaotic, and our projects overwhelming.  But we manage to make order of things, and without discussing it, we tend to follow this three step program:

1.  what do we need?

2.  what do we have on hand?  Check those junk piles.  Take stock. 

3.  what can be built to satisfy our needs with what we have on hand?

Seems to work for us pretty well.  I suppose you have to throw into that mix a fourth point:  what can you do?  We are not advanced carpenters.  Our work is what you might call “rustic.”  Between Bob’s ability to sculpt quite finely with the chainsaw, and my wielding a mean hand with the electric grinder, together we can turn a pile of junk into some pretty neat things.  We also have no shop. We do our work outside in the snow, mud, wind, and sun.  We rely on saw-horses and insulated work boots.

After the basic floor plan of our cabin was completed, we found ourselves turning our attention and skills to the interior. We had been making do with a little old table that had been moved around from cabin to cabin, and kitchen cabinets that had been handed down from other guest cabin remodels.  Come to think of it, we were keeping our pots and pans and plates in wooden crates stacked sideways.  I remember doing that with plastic milk crates when I was college age. Part of our growing up and leaving our bachelor/bachelorette days behind us was to accept this as “home” and start to plan for things like furniture, shelving, cabinets, and a kitchen table. 

From building the cabin, we had gotten quite handy at chain sawing logs, grinding and shaping them, so we figured we could do that on a smaller scale and build the furnishing we needed. Between the remnants of logs left over from the cabin building, and refurbishing wood from old walls or previous uses, we had plenty of material to work with.

So, with what materials were left over from buildings, our minds did churn. 

the kitchen table

First, I needed a kitchen table large enough so that there was always room for one more.  Big and thick and rustic and friendly.  I got it. The top was made from two huge slabs of pine wood (found at an old farm auction) bolted together, and mounted on four logs used for legs.  Bob and his dad put the table together, and I worked the grinder on the top and then finished it with a polyurethane (we did buy that).

Then, I needed some cabinets in the kitchen.  On the right in the below photo is my “pastry counter.”  I bake a lot, almost daily, so we mounted the old stainless steel counter top with below cabinets (this Bob had found at a hospital’s going out of business sale) at a lower height which is perfect for kneading dough.  Then we used scrap oak for the shelving, recycled tongue-and-grove wood that had been in the old walls of the remodeled cabin for the backing, and of course, more logs to bring it all together.

the pantry and the pastry counter

On the left in the photo is our pantry.  Again, it is built with scrap oak for shelving, re-used tongue and groove walls for the siding, and the logs holding it all together. The door we built with more of the tongue and groove recycled wall, and the cross braces are the same material with the tongue or groove cut off to serve as a regular one-by. Most of the hardware we use is salvaged from previous projects and uses.  Sometimes just a quick blast with the matt black spray paint makes it good as new again.

Right now, I have a new list of little projects.  For one, I would like a little bench to go in front of our sofa so that when the three of us squish into the love seat to keep warm on nights we sit by the fire to have dinner, we have a place to rest our plates and tea cups, or at least our tired feet.  However, this project will have to wait another month.  For now, most of our junk piles are still in hibernation beneath a couple of feet of snow.