Log Cabin Tales - Interior Ta-Dah!!

The inside of the cabin is all complete and I'm moved in!!

Having shifted all the stuff from my sewing room to the bottom of the garden (in the pouring rain) we have decided that we are never moving house - just that one room was more than enough Thank You Very Much!!

I've been hoping to take some photos with our proper camera, but I've lost the thingummy to download them onto my iPad and so I'm afraid these phone shots will have to do.

Would you like a peek?

This is the right hand side as you come in through the doors - under the window there is going to be Mr G's desk. I've won a lovely vintage dressing table on eBay that fits the bill perfectly. The plan is for Mr G to work out here. All along he said he'd work out here all the time but now he reckons it'll just be when he needs peace (i.e when the boys are off school).

My jars of buttons and trimmings are on my shelves, painted with my own mixed blue shade of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

We plan to oil the floor eventually but daftly didn't decide that until we moved everything in *rollseyes*

The sofa bed was an eBay bargain (£16!!) - I plan to cover the checked cushions and the footstool. The mirror was £4 from Gumtree. These are getting harder to find at such bargain prices as they are now so popular - another reason I'll be glad when vintage goes out of fashion!!

The suitcases were another eBay find, £10.50 for four of them. I intend to decoupage them in fabric eventually but I love them as they are. They have my larger pieces of fabric in and the top one has my scraps - I was a bit ruthless and threw a lot out for the move.

The pin board I made using an old frame I found in a charity shop, I added stiff foam to the back (from a child's foam floor jigsaw) and covered it in patchwork fabric.

The captains chair was yet another bargain (gotta love eBay!!) - a pair for £13.50.

My desk is my Dads old dining table. I love the fact it's his old table that we always sat at when we visited him. I made a skirt for it using my nieces old curtains and the top is covered in Cath Kidston oilcloth.

The lamp is one of my few new purchases for the cabin - I just love it as it not only looks like the Pixar lamp, but its pink!! And at £20 I thought it was a good price.

The thread rack I made using an old kitchen cupboard door and pink plastic lolly sticks!! I painted and decoupaged it and the Mr G drilled holes for me to add the sticks, secured with a blob of PVA glue.

The stool was from the tip - £4!! Painted in my own mixed pink shade of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

We don't have the electric connected yet hence the extension lead, we need to run an armoured cable from the house and that should be done soonish.

Of course there has to be fairy lights!! And paper honeycomb spheres....

So, that's the inside, more or less done.

The exterior still needs work as the rain has meant we haven't been able to finish painting it yet, but I'll give you a sneaky peek so you can get the general gist:

It was getting dark so you'll have to excuse the poor photo and wait until its revealed in all its glory once its done!!

Thanks for reading....

Hugs,

S x

 

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Log Cabin Tales Continued....

It's up!! This weekend we (well Mr G and W, my back is only up to minimal labour so I had a more supervisory role!!) have worked really hard and the cabin is erected!!

The base was only finished late on Friday but we decided it had gone off enough to start and so Saturday was spent laying the foundation beams and the first layer. That took virtually all day as we had to make sure the structure was square and positioned exactly where we wanted it before we added further layers.

The cabin had arrived last week in possibly the biggest parcel we'd ever seen:

After the first layer was complete it was pretty simple and quick to add the layers. Back, front, two sides, repeat....

The windows slid in. The door frame held us up a bit as it had to assembled with virtually no instructions.

Then the gables and roof joists. Our eldest H had to be enlisted to help at this point as I was too short.

Before long it was virtually done!!:

Today the cabin had it's roof insulation & felt and it's first coat of wood preserver, tomorrow it needs a second coat and then the fun bit - making it pretty with paint!! Duck egg blue, of course!!

Hugs,

S x

 

 

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Log Cabin Tales - Part V

Today the log cabin was delivered. All very exciting, except for the fact the concrete base is not ready and the weather is looking iffy.

Our builder/friend is a bit, um, relaxed, about a days work and as such things are taking a bit longer than we anticipated. We had hoped to erect the cabin as soon as it arrived but it looks like it'll probably be the weekend before we can make a start. It's a bit like a Grand Design - over budget and behind schedule!!

In the meantime the garden is looking a bit of a mess:

Mr G and W have been doing a bit of the donkey work and over the weekend they broke up the old hard standing (it was way too small). W is being paid an hourly rate - in this photo I think he's supervising!!:

It's all coming along now and the brickwork is looking good. Hopefully tomorrow the concrete will be poured and we'll be on the home straight with the base:

The house currently looks like a junk shop as I've been collecting furniture for the cabin and the boys new bedrooms. I got a sofa bed on eBay for the princely sum of £16 and a pair of wooden captain style chairs for £13. W wanted a sleigh bed and having thought we sold his high sleeper (none paying eBayer) we splashed out on a secondhand one for £60 - that's pretty expensive as far as our furniture goes!!

It evened itself out though - H needed a double and I was delighted to score one on Freegle - vintage 1930's too!! No pictures yet as we have no room!!

In the meantime the sewing room is a big mess as I've mentally moved out!!

Hugs,

S x

 

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Log Cabin Tales - Part Two....

So after what seems like an a-g-e of inaction (which has in fact only been about ten days) today things started to move with the cabin in that we had the tree surgeons out today to remove the dead trees at the bottom of the garden.

It's sad really, this tree was about three times that tall and had two friends, but sadly they have died of (ash dieback we think) - one of the things that "sold" this house to us was the mature trees. However, they would just have become dangerous and so needed to be removed before work starts on the base for the cabin.

Our friends R and O share the horses and my field and as O works for a tree surgeon we naturally had the company he works for in to remove them - Adam Gibson Tree Care.

They did a fantastic job and ably assisted by Mr G (who I thought looked rather sexy in his hard hat and steel toe-capped boots!!) within a few hours had the trees gone.

And so the area is clear for the base to be started (which is supposed to be happening today).

These two areas of existing hard standing are going to have to be broken up, a retaining wall built and back filled and then the concrete laid.

Whilst waiting for work to start I have been busy collecting pictures on Pinterest:

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I got my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint out this week and made a sign for the cabin:

Before I sign off I must just show you this I came across - it did make me chuckle (particularly as Mr G is called John!!):

Just change "gazebo" for "cabin" and that'll be it....

Hugs,

S x

 

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Log Cabin Tales - Part One....

As you know I am very lucky to have my own sewing room. However, we only have a little 3 bed semi and so by having my own space it means the boys have to share a room.

Initially this wasn't an issue, they always shared and didn't want their own rooms. In fact up until they were about 10 & 12 they shared a double bed - it started when they were really little, we would go to check on them and they would be sharing the one bunk and so we had to buy a triple sleeper with a double bed on the bottom for them!! 

The spare room was a huge mess so when I started crafting I claimed it as my own which meant that when (typically!!) H and W decided they wanted their own space they had missed the window of opportunity.

We briefly considered moving but to make it worthwhile we would need a B-I-G mortgage and we always maintained we would rather have a smaller house and more money than stretch ourselves for a big/fancy home. Our neighbours raised four girls in their house and so we should be able to manage our two!!

A loft conversion is impossible as the pitch of our roof is so low and so I am super excited to tell you that we have decided to put a log cabin at the bottom of the garden. It'll be my sewing room and also somewhere Mr G can work when he needs a bit of peace (i.e to be able to do conference calls without the kids fighting, dogs barking and parrot squawking in the background!!) This means W will move into the third bedroom and everyone will have their own space.

Our budget is pretty small (about £4000 total) and out of that has to come the complete cabin and concrete base so I was delighted (after a LOT of research) to find the Parijs log cabin by Tuin:

Ignore the nasty orange woodstain - ours will be my favourite duck egg blue....

Our garden was what sold the house to us being approx 75ft long and having four beautiful mature trees at the bottom:

Unfortunately, 3 of the 4 trees are ash and sadly in the last couple of years they have died. 

We rarely use the area under them and have in fact moved the table and chairs (partly due to bird poo!!) onto the grass and so that area is going to be perfect for the cabin:

The trees need to be removed and so some of our budget has to go on tree surgery. I'm sad the trees have died, but they now need to come out cabin or not as they will become dangerous if the weather is stormy.

Our (builder) friend J from my stables is going to lay a concrete base once the trees are out.

To the right if the area was a shed that was full of C-R-A-P and barely has a floor anymore so yesterday Mr G and W set about clearing the area - they made a pile of scrap metal for J; a pile for the tip and last night had a fire with the wood - we ate our dinner by the light of it and toasted marshmallows so now the area is ready for the trees to go:

What a mess - still, it always looks worse before it looks better!!

Those areas of hardstanding have to be broken up, a retaining wall made and then infilled before the concrete is poured to create a perfect level base.

The cabin is 5m x 3.8m and will come to about 30cms before the railway sleeper, but we will still have plenty of garden left:

So, the cabin has been ordered, the tree surgeon booked and work on the retaining wall and concrete base begins on Monday!!

In the next few weeks I'll keep a record here of all the goings on....

Hugs,

S x

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