A Little Village
Yet another building is almost finished. Our well house, shower, guest cabin in process. We began by "harvesting" a couple of trailer loads of 2x4, 2x6, and plywood lumber from an old shack behind the dam. We've now salvaged enough from that old structure to build three buildings and have exhausted all the material that was useable. The idea was to rebuild our well house which was very small and not at all easy to do maintenance work in. It needed some work anyway. Rather than just repair it we decided to build something a bit bigger in which we could also put a shower and have some room for storing paint and other items that need to stay warm in the winter. I don't have much room in my cabin to store that stuff and last year kept in a sectioned off part of the chicken coop which is not an ideal place for it. Once we started building it we got to thinking that we had enough salvaged lumber to add on a short second story for extra sleeping space. The only added cost would be the plywood for the loft floor and the exterior siding. We had the old kids' playhouse which was originally built from shipping crates and pallets so that wood has now been repurposed twice! We cut them down to size and put them up. The top floor is now mostly enclosed with roof on, will sleep 3-4 folks though at 5.5 feet it is not a standard height and requires a bit of stooping. With my nephew at 14 he may be wanting to bring down friends then there is my brother and his hunting buddies and I get the occasional visitor so having some extra sleeping space would be good. We purchased the siding and metal roof, all other lumber was salvaged as was the insulation. And yes, my brother in law Greg did come down off the roof eventually. I love the crazy shape of this thing... kinda feels like a tree house or a watch tower. We'll probably be putting a deck/walkway on the west and south facing sides. The view from this top floor is really nice. Not only the lake but the garden and other structures we've put up. It is really starting to feel like a little village.