Alaska Lake Cabin

Hello, Jacob here today, with a cabin post update.

I have to admit that when we started thinking about building our cabin using a timberframe roof system, I was hesitant.  Up here in Alaska, where we have extreme cold winters, one side of your roof (especially with heat trapped at the peak) could be 100 degrees, and on the other side, it could be -60 below.  If not done right, this could become a condensation nightmare.

When it comes to building, I like to go the tried a

Summer is winding down for us here in Alaska.  We spent the weekend fishing for silver Salmon off the coast of Alaska, and broke up our trip home by staying the night in our cabin that we built earlier this year with DIY Network (will be airing later this year, will let you know when we know!).

Each time we come to our cabin, we fall in love all over again with it.  It was a ton of work.  There were long hours, long days, long weeks of hard manual labor, building remote a

We've been busy working on the cabin six days a week, up to 12 hours a day.  But honestly, I almost dread the one day off a week.  In that one day off, I am busy preparing for the next week, making sure we don't run out of supplies, materials, or food for the next six days of working remote.  

We also are winter camping on site, so I've been bringing home laundry and dishes home.  I'm glad to be heading back to work today.

That's my excuse anyway for going so l

What is the scariest part of working on a project???

If you are new to building, you'll probably say cutting.

But if you've got a project or two under your <tool> belt, my guess is you'll say painting or staining.

Painting or staining isn't necessarily difficult or expensive.  The reason it is so scary is painting or staining can have the biggest impact on your project.  It can take something drab and make it amazing, or take something amazing and make y

Hi everyone!

Well, this is the Monday of all Mondays for me.  I've been off playing for the last two months, building this!

I can't tell you how much we appreciate your patience with us over the last eight weeks, as our time has been consumed with our cabin project that we did for DIY Network.  We are so thrilled to have an opportunity to share what we do with you in a new way, and can't wait ourselves to see how the show comes out.  I'll be sharing as soon a

Hi everyone, happy weekend!!!  Are you planning on working on a project this weekend?  We'd like to get down to our cabin and take care of a few things before snow falls.  We ususally have snow sticking by mid October, and the mountains are already covered in snow.  Our summers are so short up here in Alaska.

I've really been enjoying getting to go back through all my photos from our cabin build and share the build process with you.  In my last post, I shared wi

There's only one surface left in our cabin that we haven't installed the finished material on yet!

The downstairs floors.

I've had my heart set on hickory flooring, either laminate or hardwood depending on budget, from the beginning.  Have you not seen Melissa from The Inspired Room's floors?

Wouldn't this mix of wood tones be the perfect flooring for our Alaska lake cabin?  I showed our crew Melissa's floors, and they even loved it and were excited a

We've been done building our cabin for a month now, and are finally back to full rested.  That was quite an experience, and a whirlwind of long hours and back breaking work.

Why, then, could I be itching for another project after seeing all these photos???

Hey, we are all a little bit crazy, right?

In this post, I will show you how we put up the main rafters for the cabin, and finished up all the timber work.  This was my absolute favorite part (besides the fu

Hi everyone!  Hope you had a great weekend!

We've been busy with projects, and will be sharing those with you shortly - can't wait, there's some good ones coming soon!

In the meantime, we'd like to get all of the cabin posts out before the show airs this fall.  We don't have an air date yet, as soon as we do I will let you know.

In our last cabin post, we finished up the timberframe raising.

Today, I'll show you how we did two things - enclosed the ups

Hi guys, Jacob here.  

If I write a post, it's gotta start with a cool picture of Alaska.  

We spotted these big bulls on the drive to the cabin site.  They are going to be some nice bulls by hunting season.

So about that cabin.  It's sure coming along!

We did get a ton done last week!  Make sure you follow Ana on Instagram - she's been sharing live progress photos.

But none of this would have been poss

Hi everyone and Happy Monday!

Sorry about getting my latest post out to you so late this weekend (I aim for Friday) - our new smokehouse!

It's just a wood shed or outdoor closet - with a stove pipe plumbed into the back!  We've been enjoying authentic smoked salmon strips, and plan on packing school lunches with them.   Make sure you check out the smokehouse plans here - even if you don't need to process salmon, it would make a perfect outdoor shed or storage