Covering the First Gable End

After spending Saturday the 19th stacking up tons of firewood for Grandy, we were able to devote most of the next Saturday to working on the cabin!

After finishing the roof, our next job was to cover the ends. We started with this end because we had the loft to stand on, and because it was closer to the ground on this end.

It took quite a while to figure out just how we would build the framework to nail the shakes to. Nailing the cross strips on was pretty awkward...

The soft iron nails bend easily, especially when trying to pound them into seasoned ash. Ash wood is much softer when it's green!






It's starting to look pretty nice from the inside! I think we have just enough cedar to cover both ends.


These shakes are 32" long -- the length we originally were going to use for the whole roof, until we found that the knots and twisted grain of the cedar tree we cut made it very difficult to get very many shingles of that length. Cutting each of the bolts in half made it lots easier to split enough shingles for the roof.

Fortunately, we had several long bolts left, and some of the first shakes that we split. It should be just enough to cover both ends and close in the whole cabin.





One person stood inside to select and trim shakes, while another stood outside on the ladder to nail the shakes in place. It's looking even more like a cabin!