The actual work, buying tired cabins and bringing them back. Before-and-afters, gutting, off-grid systems, wood stoves, and the renovation calls that paid off (and the ones that didn't).
$3,500 to $7,000 all in, and the chimney is half of it. Five installs, one failed inspection, and every number here is there because someone's cabin burned.
Four jobs on a calendar, $300 a year, and a cabin lasts a century. Skip them a decade and it's $2,800 a log. Here's the whole routine.
I bought a falling-down A-frame with a sleeping bag and a circular saw and no real plan. Here's the whole renovation.
The fastest way to wreck a log cabin is to renovate it like a normal house. Here's how I update a log cabin interior without killing the thing people came for.
An off-grid cabin is a different animal. Here's how I bring one back, power, water, heat, and how you light a place with no grid behind it.
A small cabin doesn't have to feel cramped. Here's how I rework a tiny cabin interior so it lives a lot bigger than its square footage.
My first cabin gut was equal parts education and disaster. Here's what it taught me, so your first one goes better than mine did.
When there's barely any power to wire to, lighting gets interesting. Here's how I light an off-grid cabin warmly without bleeding the battery bank dry.
A cabin without a good wood stove is just a cold box with a view. Here's how I restore one and build the hearth that becomes the heart of the place.
Cabin floors live a hard life. Here's what I put down so they survive muddy boots, wet dogs, and dropped firewood and still look right.
Most cabin lofts are wasted, too low, too dark, reached by a death-trap ladder. Here's how I rework a loft into a space people actually want to be in.
The cheapest way to make a small cabin bigger isn't an addition. It's a screened porch. Here's how I build one that becomes a whole second room.
Seven cabins in, I've earned some scars. Here are the renovation mistakes I'll never make again. So you can skip them.