Category Archives: Walden

My shingles and the windows for the inside and outside of the back wall arrived in the mail today! It’s an amazing little box of joy and it smells SO GOOD because the shingles are cedar and there are (literally) 2,000 of them. So I’m sure the shingling process will be over in a snap,Continue reading “Shingles and windows!”

Dear Wikipedia, I must say that your ‘ceiling‘ article is extremely disappointing to those of us who rely upon you for knowledge and instruction in all things, including miniature cabin construction. Please make it better. Yours sincerely, Shasti I had been working on the best method for putting a random-plank wood floor in the library,Continue reading “Flooring and… ceiling-ing?”

Anyone know where I might find a very small (like, 3′ x 3′) piece of roofing felt/tar paper? I can’t justify buying a roll, which is like 100′ long or something, when I only need 3′. I’m thinking of calling some roofing companies to see if they might have scraps that they just throw away,Continue reading “Wanted: a small piece of roofing felt”

The fireplace has been more of a project than I expected — in a good way, because I’ve enjoyed it. I originally thought I’d just sort of burn a marking on the wall where the fireplace was, but then I thought it should be recessed into the wall a bit to at least attempt aContinue reading “Creating a fireplace”

Dear Henry David Thoreau, You, sir, are a wonderful writer. At your best you are inspirational, though you tend sometimes to be a bit opinionated and in person you were probably kind of a bastard. If you were alive today, we would not be friends. But I admire you, I really do, and you haveContinue reading “Thoreau: not really into blueprints”

I’m gaining a new respect for carpenters and people who build things for a living. Do you know how difficult it is to make something square? It seems pretty easy, right? Just put two pieces of wood together at a right angle, add some screws and maybe some glue, and ta-da! You have a corner.Continue reading “It’s tough to be square”

In an earlier post, I mentioned the mysterious cedar stake things that I found at Home Depot and decided to repurpose for my chimney. Here they are in original form, though you can only see about 1/3 of the length: And here they are cut up and assembled into a chimney shape: Last weekend IContinue reading “And also a chimney!”

In ye olden days of yore, when someone (like, for example, Thoreau) wanted to make a simple wooden door out of boards, they put on a top board and a bottom board, and ran a longer board from one corner to another in a Z sort of configuration. Then they took some longer boards andContinue reading “I’m making a door!”