Interiors

The interior of a log house is likely to present some­thing of a problem. How to finish it? What built-in features to include? How to make the stairs, if any? The fireplace?

Because a log house must go through a settling and drying-out period after it is erected, the applying of finishing material to interior walls should be deferred a year or so, or as long as possible. Chinking done im­mediately usually has to be repaired the following year. The simplest way of treating interior walls of log cabins is to leave them as they are, with the chink­ing showing. Bark-covered logs appeal to some persons, while others prefer their logs smooth. If you do not mind the extra labor, you can hew the inner surfaces of the logs flat, to produce even walls. This is done as the logs are put into place.
The particular interior finish you select will depend somewhat upon the uses to which the building is to be put and the tastes of the occupants. If convenience rather than picturesqueness is desired, some sort of smooth wall construction should be employed. Some log cabins are plastered, the plaster being applied to wood or expanded metal lath nailed over the logs. Easier methods are available to the craftsman who is not adept at plastering, or who does not associate plastered walls with rustic cabins. Ordinary tongue­and-groove ceiling boards running vertically can be employed, although there is little to commend this type of covering from the standpoint of beauty. Or­dinary 3/8 -in. flooring can be used.

A much more pleasing finish is produced with knotty pine, cypress, redwood, or some kind of plywood ma­terial. These materials can be treated in an almost endless variety of ways to make them attractive. They can be worked into all kinds of panels and other

Rustic pillars find braces and an interesting door arrangement make the interior of this cabin attractive.

forms. Natural wood surfaces such as these finishing materials produce are much more desirable than the various composition boards. Another useful material is log-cabin siding, made of pine, redwood, pecky cedar or other material. This can be employed in an amazing number of ways to make the cabin interior really charming. Its use is considered more extensively in another chapter.

A knotty-pine finish is easy to produce by anyone capable of handling lumber. At any lumber mill you can purchase pine boards that are full of attractive knots. Select those having round or oval knots, when possible. These boards, simply placed vertically and fastened to the logs with finishing nails whose heads are countersunk, are attractive. Or you can bevel the edges for about ¼ in. each way from the corner, and produce a paneled effect. Boards may be of uniform width, say 10 or 12 in., or of random widths. They can be worked into panels and other pleasing varia­tions. When purchasing boards for interior finishing, specify that they be sanded on one side.

In a similar way, cypress, redwood or other inex­pensive lumber can be employed. There is available a veneered plywood material that blends excellently with the log-cabin atmosphere. One surface is covered with a veneer of California knotty pine. This plywood can be obtained with the hard parts of the pine grain treated so that they appear as if darkened by natural aging. The purchaser can then use an acid or oil stain or lacquer to color the soft parts of the wood surface any tone desired. He has his choice of several base colors, and of course there is a wide variety of top colors to choose from. By proper blending of colors, any antique or aged effect desired can be reproduced perfectly. Furthermore, finishing costs are lowered because only a coat of the stain and an application of varnish, lacquer sealer, or other protective material is required, instead of the four or more coats usually specified for ordinary wood. Plywood panels generally are obtainable in standard 4- by 8-ft. sizes, and a special 5- by 10-ft. size.
California redwood, an economical lumber obtain­able from any lumber dealer, lends itself to interior use because of its natural color, a pleasing reddish hue, and its physical properties. It is close-textured and contains no resin, so that paints applied to it ad­here evenly and penetrate readily, with little likelihood of peeling. Although when left in its natural color, redwood is pleasing, it can be stained with any of the standard preparations.

A finish that blends well with log construction, and which can be used for anything from wall surfaces to cabin furniture, is produced by scorching cypress, red­wood, or other lumber with a blowtorch and removing the charred wood with a wire brush. This treatment darkens the hard portions of the grain until they range from a rich brown to a black, and darkens the softer portions to a less extent, at the same time giving them an attractive brown color. The burning and brushing can be regulated so that a considerable variety of tones, all in warm brown, can be produced. The grain of the wood becomes three-dimensional, the hard, less charred parts standing out in low relief. This treatment is known as the Sugi process, and is said to have orig­inated in the Orient. It can be used also on pine, cedar, and any other wood that has a grain prominent and differentiated enough to produce the desired finish. It generally is best to apply two coats of floor wax to Sugi wood, to bring out the colors better and to pro­vide a more durable and easily cleaned finish.

These various types of interior finish stray some­what from the main idea of using materials available in the forest whenever possible. By using, in addition, poles and logs, either peeled or with the bark left on, interesting effects can be obtained. When it is necessary to erect posts and columns for supporting balconies or roofs, these can be of seasoned logs made rigid by knee braces, which are smaller logs set at an angle to the post and extending outward to the surface being sup­ported. The braces can be fastened by mitering and spiking, and perhaps set into shallow recesses cut for them.

Partitions may be built in a variety of ways. Slab or pole construction, as already described for porches and gables, can be employed. Another cheap method is to use wide boards such as 1- by 12-in. knotty pine set vertically, with the cracks between them covered by 2-in. strips or battens from ½, to 1 in. thick, applied to both sides. Still another way of building partitions is to erect 2- by 4-in. studs and cover them with one of the various wall materials, as in ordinary house building.

Although you doubtless will confine yourself to a one-story cabin, you nevertheless may have to build stairs. These may be outside, and lead to porches or doorways; or they may be indoors and lead to bal­conies. In fact, some cabin builders employ a balcony to provide an ingenious sleeping arrangement or a place for storing suitcases and supplies. By building bunks on balconies that are just high enough above the floor to provide ample clearance, economical use is made of space. A gable roof, especially if it is fairly steep in pitch, provides considerable space above the room. A simple balcony and stairs will make use of some of this otherwise wasted space.

The balcony proper is supported by logs projecting from the wall. When there is a porch or other room on the opposite side of the wall, logs supporting the roof or ceiling can be extended far enough through the wall to provide balcony joists. When this construction is not possible, the joist logs for the balcony can be supported by knee braces set into the wall. Usually these braces will not be in the way. Still another method of supporting the balcony is to drop logs or poles down from the roof rafters or beams extending across the room.

On the projecting log joists, lay slabs or split logs with their curved sides down, where they will be visible from below. An ordinary tongue-and-groove floor can be laid over these.

The stairway leading to the balcony need not be very wide, a clearance of 2 ft. between wall and ban­ister being adequate in most cases. The steps are split logs supported, with the flat sides uppermost, on two strong logs set at the proper angle and notched to re­ceive the curved steps. The railing and spindles are made of small poles, and the supports for the railing are larger logs set on end.

Instead of employing a notched log for a stringer to support the steps, a plain log fitted with strong wooden pins can be used. The pins, which should be from 1 to 2 in. in diameter, and split from oak or hickory or made from peeled poles or branch sections, are driven into holes bored at right angles to the stringer and halfway through it. Steps are kept from shifting in the notch thus formed, by spikes driven through them and into the log below. It is best not to make the rise from step to step more than 8 in.

When using small poles for constructing banisters, furniture, and the like, the usual way of fastening the pieces together is with a type of mortise and tenon joint. The tenon is made by reducing the diameter of the end of the chair rung or spindle until it will fit into an auger hole, an inch or so in diameter, depending on the size of the pieces employed, bored in the piece to which it is to be fastened. A nail, wooden pin, or sometimes glue holds the joint together. Hollow auger bits with adjustable cutting blades can be obtained for forming the tenons quickly. They are held in an or­dinary carpenter's brace. A bit for cutting tenons from ¼ to ¼; in. in diameter can be purchased for about $2.25.

For holding round poles and logs while they are being bored, a simple boring jig can be made. This works exactly like the V-blocks used by machinists for drilling round shafting. To make the jig, nail pieces of 1- by 6-in. lumber or 2 by 4's together to form X-shaped uprights, and then connect these by boards 3 to 6 ft. long, running horizontally. This produces a jig resembling a saw-horse of a type commonly found near pioneer (and many present-day) woodpiles. The jig might easily be made of 4-in. poles. An added im­provement, which is optional, consists of two cross­pieces, placed one about 3 in. above the other, and fastened to one of the X-shaped ends. With the bit to be used for boring the round poles, holes are bored carefully through these pieces, so that they will act as guides for later boring operations.

As already mentioned, the interior of a log cabin is naturally gloomy. So watch your color scheme and try to lighten up the general tone of the room. Make all wall surfaces as light as possible without destroying their harmony with the rest of the structure. In the matter of furniture, table cloths, rugs, curtains, and decorations, you can employ color to produce the necessary cheerfulness, warmth and light-reflecting surfaces. You must, of course, use taste in the employ­ment of color. Even outdoors, color can be added in the form of shingle stain, paint for windows and doors, and gaily-colored flowers in porch boxes, if it is done with taste. Delicate, restrained tones are safest. In fact, if you build a cabin in a National Forest, you will discover that there is a regulation against the use of gaudy colors for anything that is visible from the outside.

Further interior details involve the building and use of furniture, kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, bunks, and fireplaces. Construction of such things is taken up in a special chapter on furniture and other built-in aides to a happy vacation, and a section on fireplaces and chimneys.

Continue to Modern Log Cabins

How To Build A Log Cabin