Enclosing the porch

While the porch was something that very much attracted me to this cabin, I really wanted some extra space to install a woodstove without sacrificing space I already had, though, as I mentioned before I could have simply eliminated the table and benches and used that space.  Other reasons for doing so was that I wanted a window facing south and while having the loft perform also as a roof to the porch came with a bit of a disadvantage, not only in limiting the height of the porch ceiling, but being that the loft only joined with the interior on one plane (the rest of the surfaces being exterior) I did at times have some build up of ice in the far corners (and it didn't help matters that when the cabin was built they neglected to place insulation in the corner bays of the front wall, perhaps thinking that since those areas were behind the small knee walls of the loft sides they were adequately addressed, but more than likely left to later and simply forgotten when the kneewalls went in).

All in all, the enclosure of the porch only added 12 ft of exterior wall, but it did greatly expand the interior volume.  The fully usable space, though, is reduced due to where the door was, and simply moved 6 ft forward, other than extra wall space, the walking space to the door still needs to remain open due to the steps for the loft being centred on the former front wall, which was eliminated on both sides of the steps.  Extra ceiling height was gained by removing the former porch ceiling and finishing it off as an open beamed ceiling.

What's funny is that despite going from a 2 ft wide window on the front (which was reused on the north wall) to a 6 ft window, is that from where I normally sit, my view out front hasn't changed much at all, just shifted a bit to the left and slightly down due to the extra distance to the window.

The porch is missed, and while it would be easy enough to add on a deck, the overhang really is not adequate to keep rain off the front of the cabin, so at the same time I may also add a small entryway so that I can replace the current door with a standard height entrance door exiting onto the replacement porch, which would also allow me to add a storm door without needing to make a special order or construct one.

The unexpected bonus

Of properties that I considered, though never actually got to the point of seeing in person, only one had a liveable dwelling on it, and another supposedly had something really run down.  On the budget I was considering, what I had planned, and then of course actually putting money down on a cabin, I really did not expect to get a piece of land with a structure on it, and certainly not one that despite all appearances was actually rather sound.

While it certainly was in quite a state of disrepair, most of the windows broken out or cracked, two uncovered openings for stovepipes, two old camp cots, a rear door that appeared to have come from a camper with the window broken out, and junk strewn around, I could see a lot more to the 12 X 28 cabin than the realtor's suggestion to have the fire dept. burn it down.

I didn't do much else to the cabin at first other than to cover over the missing windows and the rear door, and at first chance I got I also put steel roofing over the existing rolled shingles on the main part of the building (the overhang already being steel).  But for some time it just remained a place to store extra that I didn't want in the new cabin or in the shed. 

The job of cleaning it out, ripping up the ancient torn linoleum, and most of the interior wall coverings happened later when I was far enough along with the new cabin that I had the time to do other things, and it resulted in big piles of materials to get rid of, including the old linoleum, ceiling tiles from the front room, and lots of fibreboard that fortunately could be torn and folded into easily manageable pieces.  The actual bones of the cabin were quite well, built out of full sixed rough cut lumber with diagonal bracing at the corners, but what wiring there was in the cabin was more than substandard (although there had not been electricity on the property before, this cabin was moved in from elsewhere) with very old two wire romex haphazardly pieced together in the walls with a simple covering of electrical tape.  The two interior walls were of a different sort of lumber altogether.  Darker milled lumber with rounded corners that suggested it could have been surplus army lumber from wall tents or the sort, and an inscription of one of those walls had the name of someone that was fairly local and the date of 1960.  Putting the clues together it's very likely the two interior walls were a later renovation of the building as there were also two blocked up doorways on the wall facing the overhang that suggested the original layout might have been two rooms instead of three.  From how the older doorways were situated, and the amount of low windows in the front room, along with some other ties I was able to make with the name found in the wall, I often wonder if it had not been the original cafe building from cathedral creeks or something similar (the party in question also had an airstrip not too far out of Tok as well).  Unfortunately I've never gotten past the speculation mode of what history the cabin might have had as I've never encountered anyone that had any better information than a neighbour that remembers seeing it coming down the highway, but has no idea where from.

Over the years I have worked on it, replacing the windows, flooring, decking under the overhang, constructed doors for the middle and back rooms, rewired the place, and a number of other things, but that project and most others more and more were put on the back burner when my mother needed more and more attention towards the last years of her life and didn't get much past the back room being brought up to an acceptable amount of finish.  Hopefully this year the other two rooms can be finished out as well as each just need some more attention and time to get them to that stage as well, and at that stage I can get the kitchenette set up in the front room.

It's a work in progress, but it's progress nonetheless.

Tiny home or small house movement

It's certainly not a new thing, just rethinking and re-evaluating old values and trying to regain some independence, sensibility, eliminating many unneeded burdens, and saving some precious coin in the process.

It's really a shame how smaller homes have disappeared off the radar in most places, either being turned into sheds and garages or mostly torn down to make way for larger homes made out of chipboard and staples covered with plastic siding. 

In some places, they never went away, be it a community of second tier and third tier lake cottages that haven't yet fallen to the mc lake mansions sprouting up along it's shore, a small forgotten town that the highway bypassed, or the cabins in the woods that haven't been swept up in some movie star or singer's holiday ranch.  And Alaska one of the strongholds of smaller homes without all the bells and whistles.  Sure, in the cities most of what will be found will be large and modern, but even there, tucked in here and about you will still come across a smaller home or a cabin, some even quite historic, but yet abundant enough and not so noteworthy to call attention to it, make it into an attraction or move it to be displayed in a park.  When questions arise, for whatever reason, to describe one's home, it's still necessary to ask basic things, such as if a place has a full kitchen, indoor plumbing, how many rooms, number, if any, of bedrooms, whether it's heated by wood or not, and even if it has phone service or electric.  While the bulk of the people in the cities certainly live a very modern life, like anywhere else, just go beyond the city limits up here and that is often the exception rather than the norm the farther one goes. 

While I almost always refer to my home as a cabin, that's really just the vernacular up here to how people refer to anything smaller or that which varies from people nowadays consider to be a traditional house.  When most people down in the states think of a cabin, they usually think of some shack out in the woods or in the mountains that has none of the conveniences of the everyday world.  And in some cases they might be right, but there is a whole spectrum from basic shelter to elaborate homes that would often put their own to shame, but it's more the matter of where one lives and how they distinguish it from other places as to what name or label they put upon it. 

How did we ever get to the place that so many think that every child needs a separate room and a private bath, an eat in kitchen in addition to a fancy dining room that might be rarely used, a family room as well as a formal living room that is mostly off limits, a media room, an office or two, a gift wrapping room, and walk-in closets that rival bedrooms of the past (not to even mention bathrooms that are as large as a school locker room that can accommodate an entire gym class). 

Do I sometimes wish for more space, the answer to that is occasionally now and then, but on a weekend like this when temperatures could well hit 50 below, I'm more than giddy that I have very little to heat (I heat with oil and I use less than 200 gallons a year, and by no means do I scrimp on heating).  When I do install the cookstove that will cut that expense dramatically, but I'll still have the oil heat for backup, those times I may just not feel up to feeding a fire, and of course the flexibility should I ever want or need to be gone for the day or longer that I don't need to be concerned about things that should remain warm.

But as for bigger, do I really need a guest room for guests that come so infrequently that I don't even exactly recall the last time someone stayed overnight?  Even if I didn't have other options to put someone up, I could rent a whole lot of motel rooms for the cost of another room, the furniture in it and the heat to maintain it.  As for other rooms, well, let's face it, I can only occupy one space at a time, so where is the advantage to having so many other rooms for different purposes other than space to squirrell away more stuff and encourage spending more to fill those spaces. 

As it is, I have more than enough taking up space, and it really hit crisis mode when I had to move all of my mother's belongings over to my place when she wound up in a nursing facility and really could not do anything with it until after she passed away and I then had the daunting task of sorting through it, selling off what I could to satisfy the demands of medicare and the nursing home, which placed liens on her house for more than three times the value, and a couple of other creditors that likely will remain just as unsatisfied when her house finally does find a buyer.  But that's what happens these days when care facilities have free reign to charge $500 or more a day with most everything else an added cost, and laws that are ever increasing the noose to grab and squeeze every possible dollar out of a person and their belongings, and often things that a person grew up with or family heirlooms are nothing but dollar signs to the greed of those that profit from the misfortune of others. 

But coming back to the issue of storage, it is one of the reasons why I have remained in stationary accommodations, rather than the dreams I had when younger of having the freedom of life on wheels, and basically being a turtle with my house on my back.  Much as I plotted and schemed how I could live in an RV, I just couldn't figure a way to do so with all the must have treasures that I could not bear to be without.  Not to say I haven't done some drastic reductions in the past.  At one time I was set and prepared to take off for Alaska, down to the point of having everything boxed up and weighed, and pared down to what would fit, space and weight wise, in a box trailer that I had built upon a purchased frame.  That move did not happen due to my awaiting seemingly critical element that never did arrive, and four or five years later when the move actually did occur I did opt for professional moving, which did allow for more (2 seacrates, 8x6x4 foot in dimension) and whatever else I did pack into my 10 ft camper that was a semi-pop-up (but still leaving room of course to use the camper for the week-long trip).  What else that did sour my desire for a life in an RV, though having the camper, was how many of the campgrounds were bumping up the fees to the point where it really begged the question of if it could be done economically, and let's face it, RVs are notorious for being shoddily constructed with very little regard to insulating properties. 

Perhaps if the tiny house built on a trailer concept had been more prevalent than just the park model RV offings at the time, which at the time were rather expensive option, I might have gone that route.  But in reality, I do have those capabilities, it just requires hiring a truck with a lowboy trailer, just as it was brought here, rather than simply finding something with the strength to tow it.

Well, as I finish up this post, I see it has hit 50 below, the dog is in the other recliner taking a nap, the sun will be coming up in two hours (though the sky is already starting to lighten up) and January is half over.  Hard to say what the day might have in store, but I will be in my little home that is all my own.

Running water in a dry cabin

Yes, I do have a conventional sink like most people, with a regular kitchen faucet, sprayer and hot water.  The only difference is that I need to flip a switch to turn on the pump and water heater, and the tank kept filled by water toted in.

So many times in this big box world we seem to lose the sense of creativity or the ability to see beyond the box or the products offered up to us.  Many years ago I had a friend that ran a small coffee house type bookstore and at one point she decided to expand past the simple coffee maker, coffee urn and selection of teas and moved in a coffee cart to do such things as expresso and lattes.  Being that it needed to be self contained, to provide water for the drinks and a small sink to wash or rinse off things, the cart was outfitted with a water tank, a pump and a bucket to catch what drained from the small bar type sink.  Why this seemed novel to me is beyond comprehension, since sitting right outside the door was my truck with a 10 foot camper on it that had just such a system on it (though with the addition of a toilet and a holding tank rather than a simple bucket under the sink). 

Move forward many years to my living in the goldstream valley and as I was to find out most cabins in the interior even when they don't have water, are outfitted with sinks.  In this case, unlike the goldhill cabin which drained only into a bucket, the goldstream cabin's sink was set up so that one side of the double sink drained into a bucket, and the other side drained to the outdoors.  I'm sure one could think of many advantages to such a system, especially if they lived in a cold area where a drain could possibly freeze up or maybe saving clean rinse water to use for another purpose.  In any event, in both places I simply used water from a container set on the counter, and heated water in a kettle on the stove.  And at the gold hill cabin, since I really didn't want to deal with lugging a bucket around to empty it, I instead used dishpans in the sink which I considered to be a bit more handy to take outdoors to empty as needed, and not have to keep an eye on the bucket under the sink (though in reality, if one had appropriately sized water jugs or jerry cans to the size of the bucket, it would be a no brainer that one would empty the bucket when starting a new supply of water).  I did, though also, have an office type water cooler with a heated tap for drinking and cooking, as I would get water from various sources and really did not want to worry about the quality of the water (there were times that a certain spring I would use was closed off after testing) or how the source was used or abused by others (such as people hooking up to flush out a holding tank on a line that is marked potable water).  And in a way I still do that, although I have long ago traded away the water cooler (and not having a source of filtered water here as I did in the Fairbanks area) and instead use a Pur water dispenser that lives in the icebox.

When outfitting this cabin, though, I did want a better system, so carefully measuring the space I would need for drains, a pump, and a small water heater, I ordered the largest tank I could fit into the space from an RV supply store leaving just a bit of extra room around it for air circulation.  As I didn't want to deal with a 12v converter on the system, I elected to get a more expensive park model 120v pump, but the reality there is this does limit one to only a handful of different choices and sources, and my feeling as per not wanting to be powering a converter all the time really turned out to be unfounded since it is on a switched outlet that only needs to be on when wanting to heat water or to use the faucet.  The fist pump I had also required an accumulator (much like a pressure tank on a home system on well water, but only about the size of two large oranges) to even out the flow and keep the pump from cycling on and off rapidly, but this was easily mounted on the wall next to the pump (when I did replace the pump with another brand this had to come out of the system as the new pump controlled this issue by itself).

As the heater is not an instant type, this does mean if I want hot water I do need to switch on the power (above the sink I have a switch with a pilot light in it so that I am aware of when the system is powered and to remind me to shut it off when not needed), but it really only takes maybe 10 minutes for the heater to cook up a batch of hot water, and if I don't use much, the hater does retain the heat so there is often hot water hours later, and often still somewhat warm up to 24 hours later.  I do, though, have the hater set on it's hottest setting, so for some that would be a major issue for scalding, but in this way I can temper it with cold water and make the limited amount go much farther without needing to heat more.

This kind of system could most certainly be expanded to include other things, such as a toilet or a shower, but if a shower was included, it might be wiser to go with a 4 or 6 gallon heater depending upon what a person uses and what demands they put on a system.  For me, it's just the sink, and I do now also have a small dishwasher that actually saves water over making a sink full of wash water and more to rinse the dishes.

As for the water tank itself, it comfortably holds in excess of 20 gallons, it's filled via the green and white hose that fits over the spigot or spout on the water jugs (which are placed on the counter top to drain into the tank) and in winter I do leave one of the cabinet doors open to provide some warm ventilation, just to avert any problems with it getting too cold in the cabinet (though I could easily just replace one of the door panels with a stamped sheet metal type grill to the same effect) and as this was a box store assemble yourself sink cabinet (in other words made out of sawdust) I did also beef up the support under the tank by using some threaded pvc fittings that I could simply unscrew to the proper height needed (but wood blocks cut to the right height would have done just as well)

The saga of the modern icebox

I'm of the generation that grew up with people purchasing an appliance and taking it along with them if they moved since large appliances often lasted 20 years, and if something did go wrong, a service call did not place someone in the position of for just a little bit more, one might as well just throw it out and buy new.

Or better yet I can look back on the first electric appliances that my grandparents bought, for instance a 1956 Philco refrigerator that when they did move to a smaller newly built house in '68, those appliances wound up being a part of a second kitchen in the cellar only because the new house came with appliances, and couldn't accommodate the older style full sized stove (by this time stoves had shrunk to a 30 inch standard).  Up until the early 90s that Philco was still running down in the cellar when my grandmother sold the house and moved in with my brother, and the stove had continued to be in use whenever large gatherings required more cooking space, it was simply too hot to heat up the kitchen on the main floor, or during canning season.

I guess these days most people don't even give it a second thought, though, since many as a matter of habit and keeping up with ever changing trends simply always buy new every few years as they move and with all the renovation mania that television is constantly serving us up, but there are a few of us that are finding out that lifespan of these newer appliances is creeping downward at an alarming rate, and through this sour economic time, many more are finding that out as well.

With more and more frequency it seems to be sheer luck to get more than 7 years out of a refrigerator, and looking at the tons of complaints posted on the internet, it seems like many are even experiencing major repairs or units going out already by 3 and 4 years.  When my mother had replaced the original refrigerator in her condo that was very likely going on 20 years old, the new one didn't even make it 2 years before a $300 circuit board needed to be replaced. 

Of course for me, I bought a fairly expensive model, which in the past, and reputation of the brand, one would have expected to last at least 20 years as well.  I even went so far as to get one with a door freezer rather than a pull out drawer thinking of long term reliability, with less to break or go wrong in the future, but with all the mergers and buyouts, and corporations constantly striving to cut costs and increase production, I should feel happy now that I actually got 8 years out of it and had the privilege of paying twice the price of a bare bones model?

And of course the big question remains, just how green is it to buy a supposedly energy efficient model that is supposed to save you money when it's a throw away item with a marginal lifespan?

It's really making me think and rethink about getting off this merry-go-round of consumerism.  Though even in this, some of the old methods of saving money and energy are becoming difficult.  For instance, where people may have once used freezers outdoors, or in an unheated garage (refrigerators as well), more and more the allowable temperature range of operating these appliances is narrowing.  In fact I have seen some that should not be operated lower than 50 or 55 degrees, and one that even said it could be run in an area with no higher than 80 degrees in temperature, so in other words have a heat producing appliance in a carefully climate controlled environment and should summer come along, as it invariably does, you better have air conditioning running as well.

It really is a shame, especially since I live in an area that for half the year I could get away with keeping frozen things outdoors most of the winter, though these days it's not as consistently below zero as it used to be, and for refrigerated items I could likely do with just something that had temperature controlled fans to bring in cold air as needed.  And in that it does also beg the question of why in all this supposed move towards greener technologies that some major manufacturer can't come up with some easily installed unit that takes advantage of sending the extra heat a refrigerator produces to an outdoor coil where it doesn't add heat to the home, and in winter takes advantage of the cooler temperatures outdoors resulting in less use of the compressor, and certainly components could be made in a modular fashion so that they could simply be snapped out and new ones plugged back in so one didn't have to trash an entire unit when a major component failed.  But let's face it, corporations aren't interested in selling less, nor do they care how much the landfills are filling up with perfectly serviceable items that have one problem that should have been able to be fixed or made sense economically to be fixed.  And too, we have lots of people that have been greenwashed to the point that they think they are saving the environment by throwing away items that may still work because they believe in the hype over energy efficiency.  For example, how many people didn't throw away still usable incandescent light bulbs to replace them with labour and material intensive compact fluorescent bulbs that often didn't last near any of the claims of durability, and then had toxic garbage to throw away to boot, instead of at least waiting until the lightbulb they wished to replace actually burnt out?  The old depression adage of use it up, wear it out, make do or do without was a whole lot more environmentally sensitive than most of the green schemes of today.

Well, I'm  really not at the point where I can comfortably do something radical, or willing to just yet try something on the order like many are now trying by converting a freezer into a refrigerator with a simple thermostat change as there are still a few issues to be worked out on that front, like proper ventilation and some are raising some durability issues that are yet to be seen.  But I am really considering going to a compact refrigerator (which most unfortunately are notorious for energy consumption and very minimally insulated) and a separate chest freezer.  The combination of the two very likely would exceed by some the energy usage of a traditional combination unit, and I would have less refrigerated space (yet how much of what we keep in one isn't just taking up space and eventually is tossed out) but at anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 the price of a combination unit (to replace what I have with a similar model which the low range seems to be around $900), the possible extra cost in electricity may not be an issue, and certainly would not if I then also did move things outdoors when temperatures warranted and shut off the freezer (and here would be a great reuse for the current one, if I made some vents in it, I could put it outdoors and just load it up when it was cold enough outdoors and only bring the frozen stuff back in if the temperatures got too high or at the end of winter when the chest freezer indoors would be restarted again)

Hard to say exactly what I will do, and for the time being the current icebox is limping along with the compressor giving me it's warning clicks of death, sometimes starting right away, other times taking 3 or 4 tries with long pauses in between before finally catching, and those occasions where the only remedy is to turn the unit off for up to 2 hours and then turn it back on.  Being winter I do have some options to make do if and when it goes out completely, but the decision is going to be made soon as to what it is that I'm going to do, and more and more it seems unlikely that I will simply plunk down $900-$1400 just to have this same conundrum in a few or several years again.  (and yes, there would always be the option of a much cheaper top freezer model, that likely my beagle would soon figure out how to open and help himself, but I really do appreciate the convenience of what I access the most to be at reach in height and away from a pesky nose that I'd really consider a smaller unit set on a countertop  before a traditional top freezer combination unit, plus then I'd only be facing the replacement of a single component in the $2-300 range when and if one or the other decided to give up the ghost).  For now at least, it will be weighing out all the pros and cons and seeing if any of it will be moving me towards a plan that has much more durability and overall cost savings.

The back counter

After deciding to use the loft, instead of having the back wall be floor to ceiling cabinets (like a pantry unit) I decided instead to put in the extra counter (and in this picture temporarily the computer was set up on it, now only the printer lives on top of it, the other pieces have different homes)

I also placed the centre cabinet higher to provide a much easier accessed area than having that space on the top if the cabinets were in the same line. 

While I could have used full sized wall cabinets on the lower tier, I elected to have greater usable counter space by using bridge cabinets instead, which at this time works out very well since where the monitor and the printer are on this picture I now have a 4 place setting dishwasher (which is about the size of a full sized microwave oven).  That is something I really do appreciate having, and it uses less water than I would with a sink half full of water and rinsing the dishes, even on the heavy cycle.  (I do have running water in my sink, but only because I have a water tank, pump and small water heater in the cabinet below it.  The tank does have to be filled with water brought in from elsewhere)

Evaluate what you use and how you really live

I'll repeat that again, evaluate what you use and how you really live.  In other words, don't just put in something because it's what everyone else has and therefore you should as well.

The table for me was a nice idea, and the storage in the benches was very nice, but the fact of the matter was that I hadn't used a table to eat or work on for years, and having one didn't change that.  It and the benches just became more flat surfaces to set things on and stack them up.  Even later on, when I enclosed the porch to gain room enough to put in a woodstove (which actually could have simply been accomplished by abandoning the table and benches) I still moved the table into the extra space gained by the expansion.  Only fairly recently that the table was taken down and put out in the shed in anticipation of moving the cookstove in have I finally come to the conclusion that it may very well not be reinstalled once the cookstove is in it's proper place. 


As the plan for the other cabin is that the front room should be more on the order of a community room with a kitchenette, (and I do have a table to go in there), for the few times that maybe I would find reason to use a table, I could just very easily use that and rethink what I really want to do with that extra space the porch provides.  Either way, enclosing the porch wasn't a waste by any means, for example, what if at some time I needed to have the bed on the main level instead of up in the loft, I could do so without giving up any of the present living area, or what it I decided to get off the "you're lucky if you get 7 years out of a refrigerator these days' merry-go-round and elected to instead get a chest freezer and just a small countertop model for those things I don't want frozen and stop me from keeping more than I can use up before I throw it away as being too old (and it would be a whole lot cheaper to replace a small unit when it decides to give up)

Really do think through if you do need something, or is it because everyone else has one or you've been simply trained to think that way..  And if something doesn't work, or your desires or needs change, have the foresight to install things in a manner that they could be eliminated or moved in the future without creating an entire makeover (such as installing your flooring first instead of after things are in place)