Alaska Lake Cabin

We've been busy working on the cabin six days a week, up to 12 hours a day.  But honestly, I almost dread the one day off a week.  In that one day off, I am busy preparing for the next week, making sure we don't run out of supplies, materials, or food for the next six days of working remote.  

We also are winter camping on site, so I've been bringing home laundry and dishes home.  I'm glad to be heading back to work today.

That's my excuse anyway for going so l

Hi everyone and Happy Monday!

Sorry about getting my latest post out to you so late this weekend (I aim for Friday) - our new smokehouse!

It's just a wood shed or outdoor closet - with a stove pipe plumbed into the back!  We've been enjoying authentic smoked salmon strips, and plan on packing school lunches with them.   Make sure you check out the smokehouse plans here - even if you don't need to process salmon, it would make a perfect outdoor shed or storage

Hello, and Happy Monday!  Jacob here today, with a new post on building our cabin.

We've been very busy working on our cabin, and are happy to share that we've got the roof dryed in.  I'll be posting more about this later on, but wanted to share a quick photo update with you.

Shared via Instagram.  Make sure you follow me on Instagram too - I'm sharing progress photos and other random Alaska building stuff over there too.

None of this work would have be

What is the scariest part of working on a project???

If you are new to building, you'll probably say cutting.

But if you've got a project or two under your <tool> belt, my guess is you'll say painting or staining.

Painting or staining isn't necessarily difficult or expensive.  The reason it is so scary is painting or staining can have the biggest impact on your project.  It can take something drab and make it amazing, or take something amazing and make y

Happy Monday!!!

Can you believe we are just over a month into building and have gone from this -

Into this -

I can hardly believe it myself!

We've been working long hours, and we've got help - two of my husband's friends (pictured on the roof with Jacob) and our Uncle Bill have been vital to progress, and my sister has been babysitting when she can.  

But a big part of the reason this cabin has gone up so fast is we spent a couple

Hi everyone, Happy Monday!!!

We got a chance to sneak down to our cabin this weekend and pick some blueberries, and grab a few images for our DIY Network show that will air sometime this fall (will let you know as soon as we know on an air date!).

I still can't believe we built that cabin in just a couple of months!  Of course, everything was so rushed and under a tighter schedule because of the filming, but still!  So it's fun to get to go back

After a full year of prepping,

Weeks of ordering materials, planning, and hauling in those materials, the day finally arrived when we could actually start building!

It was a cold day in mid-April, with clear skies and an optimistic crew.

We knew we'd only have two days of framing while the film crew from DIY Network was here, and I'd committed to having three walls up in that time.  Doesn't sound like alot - two days to have three walls up, right?  

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Hi everyone!

Well, this is the Monday of all Mondays for me.  I've been off playing for the last two months, building this!

I can't tell you how much we appreciate your patience with us over the last eight weeks, as our time has been consumed with our cabin project that we did for DIY Network.  We are so thrilled to have an opportunity to share what we do with you in a new way, and can't wait ourselves to see how the show comes out.  I'll be sharing as soon a

While I've been making a mess in the interior of our Alaska lake cabin, good things are happening on the exterior. 

It's time to put in windows and doors!

By the time we started hauling in windows and doors, the snow had melted, so we could not haul in via snow machine over the lake ice.  Snow machine is preferred because the snow trails are smoother and the snow machine sled trailer is longer and can haul

Hi everyone, happy weekend!!!  Are you planning on working on a project this weekend?  We'd like to get down to our cabin and take care of a few things before snow falls.  We ususally have snow sticking by mid October, and the mountains are already covered in snow.  Our summers are so short up here in Alaska.

I've really been enjoying getting to go back through all my photos from our cabin build and share the build process with you.  In my last post, I shared wi

Hello and Happy Monday!!!

For those of you new here or haven't been following along, from mid May to mid June of this year, we built a cabin in remote Alaska for DIY Network.  Now that we have completed the cabin, and aren't working such extreme hours, we have been sharing the build process here on the blog.  You can read all the posts here.

We wanted our cabin to be special and unique, so we decided to integate a timberframe roof system into a conventionally framed wall

There's only one surface left in our cabin that we haven't installed the finished material on yet!

The downstairs floors.

I've had my heart set on hickory flooring, either laminate or hardwood depending on budget, from the beginning.  Have you not seen Melissa from The Inspired Room's floors?

Wouldn't this mix of wood tones be the perfect flooring for our Alaska lake cabin?  I showed our crew Melissa's floors, and they even loved it and were excited a