Cramming them in at the Kids’ Kabin

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Ian Kinross

Around 2007, my father-in-law Claus was under the gun to squeeze even more grandkids into the little log cabin he had completed in 1998.

Claus and Ann were lifelong learners, enjoying courses at Haliburton’s School for the Arts in summer. Ann honed her pottery and art skills, while Claus learned about the fine art of woodworking — including a course specializing in the use of the router.

Another course that caught Claus’s eye was memoir writing. During that one-week course, he told stories about his childhood in Manitoba, school days, his volunteer work in Africa — and about the little problem he was having fitting all the grandkids into the log cabin.

The title and story are his original; I have added a few subheads and photos. I would add an editor’s note: I recall Claus joking that there was sometimes an excess of emotion when his memoir-writing classmates read their stories — tissues had to be close at hand. Claus, by comparison, shared stories of his life and family with his own sense of humour, and carefully crafted details, without shedding a tear. The emotion — his love of family and pride in his craft — was implicit.

Here is the story he titled: “Cramming them in…”

By Claus Wirsig:

While large and rambling, our log cottage has only two bedrooms and a bunkie. Though a huge living room also lends itself well to accommodation of a pullout double or twin bed in one corer, the growing family size signalled trouble ahead.

All four of our daughters, scattered across the continent, wanted to gather at the cottage for their annual get-togethers. There were also friends to accommodate and the two oldest, Denise and Nadine, were married and already had three children between them. The first grandchildren were aged four and two in the summer of 1996. They liked to romp in the woods, play house, of course, swim when possible, and so on. Their mother, Nadine, suggested what they would really enjoy was a playhouse in the bush they could call their own.

Scouring the hills for cedar

Someone guessed they might even want to sleep in such a house. An idea started to take shape in my mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to build a small cedar log structure with a proper roof, door and real windows? I spend the summer scouring the Haliburton hills and found old, very old, Harvey Macintosh with a fence-post cutting business and a small sawmill operation. Perfect. A descendent of Macintosh apple creator, he had stacks of eight-foot cedar posts and 12-foot brace rails. I picked out about 80 posts of the rather small size I needed and a dozen brace rails of similar diameter.

Peeled, sawn on two sides to a uniform thickness of three and one-half inches, another long story, and dried over the winter, they were ready for my construction project to begin the next spring. In the meantime, I had built a solid full one-inch cedar floor in my garage workshop. It was the exact size, nine feet by 11, to fit within the hundred square feet exemption cut-off for a building permit in the county. The floor boards were solidly mounted on four pressure treated four-by-fours. I also prepared a site behind the cedars quite close to the cottage and hauled in a solid crushed gravel base. That was year one.

The logs fall into place

First thing in spring of 1997, after gardening was properly underway, we hauled the floor to the building site. Then, one by one, the logs were put in place with spaces for the door and four windows, all of which were installed as the building went up. The door I constructed of solid cedar planking. The windows were recycled from an old fruit packing shed in B.C. which my dad had demolished many years earlier and I was able to have transported to Toronto. The three grandchildren, all girls, were delighted to climb over the construction site with growing anticipation of the time they had a real house of their own.

To finish off I designed gable ends that looked like logs set vertically and an asphalt shingle clad roof, all specially designed to be air tight and animal proof. One son-in-law, Ian, helped with shingling the roof. Another, Frank, installed the electric service on an underground line from the switch box in the main cottage that Ann had helped me bury under our front lawn. All was in readiness for the interior finishing — but next year.

Design dreams in the wee hours

The workshop was humming in May and June of 1997. During the winter, I had worked out the designs in my head for four sleeping bunks and other fixtures that would be needed. These design sessions usually came upon me in the middle of the night and robbed me of many hours of sleep, just as they had done the previous winter when I had worked out the plans for the bunkie itself. In my mind, I always thought of it as a bunkie. When it was finished, the kids quickly baptised it “The Kids’ Kabin” with two K’s.

With three grandchildren underfoot and a fourth underway, clearly the least number of sleeping bunks required was four. So, the design provided one set of upper and lower bunks on each side of the cabin. All were attached to the wall with hinges so they could be tucked out of the way against the wall when not needed. The ground floor bunks each hid a large roll-out drawer and had additional space on the floor for other storage including a ladder needed to get to the top bunks.

Windows front and back had hinges and screens for fresh, cooling night air. The window on the side facing the cottage gives a good view of the cottage past the cedar tree trunks. Against the blank wall at the foot of the bunks, I built a corner bench along two sides stretching from the end of the bunks around to the small closet in the opposite corner where the door opens in a tight spot between the closet and the bunks on the other side. I made a bookshelf high over the bench and window at the open wall. The drawers are rarely used and the main function of the closet has been to house the potty that is so handy for the younger children.

“Their eyes sparkled…”

The best inspiration I got in my nocturnal mental wanderings was the construction of a collapsible table between the two sets of bunks, reminiscent of dining tables seen typically in travel trailers. Hinged about 12 inches from the wall, when the single but sturdy supporting leg is clapped inward, the table provides a marvellous card or other game playing space between the bunks and is readily collapsed into a small night stand. Four covered foam mattresses, each 30 inches wide and 72 inches long, and voila! The Kids’ Kabin was ready for business.

The two oldest grandchildren, Alison and Colleen, arrived on Friday evening of the July 1st long weekend. Their eyes sparkled as they came down the lane and I opened the door to the building I had finished not 10 minutes before. They could hardly wait for bedtime. After some excited chatter which we followed on the baby monitor beamed to the cottage, at the age of only five and three, the girls slept right through to morning. They have only rarely spent a cottage night anywhere else since.

The grandkids keep coming!

Two weeks later, their cousin Anna from New York arrived. And so did Chantal, the daughter of Karen’s partner, Stefan. All four bunks were filled each night!

By the spring of 1999, trouble arrived in the shape of newest grandson, Paul. Where were we to put him? The four bunks were occupied. With some reluctance, I converted the nice bench at the end wall to a bed with a 24 by 60 inch foam mattress. It worked like a charm. This was Paul’s special bed.

But life and laws of fertility being what they are, the next year brought another body to the house in the Kids’ Kabin in the form of Rachel. What to do? I designed a slat frame similar to the bunk beds that could be fit between the two lower bunks. Rachel was delighted to be able to sleep between two big cousins. Problem solved. Six kids housed in a four-bunk cabin.

A few years later, yet another challenge arrived in the firm of Karen and Stefan’s new son, Felix. Suggestions anyone?

Epilogue

Now let’s hear from more of the grandkids…

Rachel, now an engineering student, recalls:

“The cabin had an assortment of blankets — the tiger, the red plaid etc. — and Paul and I would call dibs on the best ones. There was always a rotation of Archie comics that travelled between the cabin and the cottage, and I would hunt down the ones that I hadn’t read yet (that summer) all over the property and bring them back to the cabin.”

“It was always the most fun when the cabin was full of cousins; I would stay up late to listen to all of the gossip.”

Felix, the youngest, and now the tallest, writes:

The first memory I have of the cottage is the cabin and the sand box outside of it. I was the youngest of the kids so I slept on the small bench at the edge of the cabin.

I remember having a lot of fun as a young boy. I would sleep with my older sister and my five cousins in a confined space. The cabin reminds me of summer and of nature. I spent a lot of my summer at the cottage in which I slept in the cabin. We swam, went on boat rides, did treasure hunts, had marshmallow fires, played cards and name games and had many fun and memorable moments at the cottage.

I was always amazed that the cabin was built by Claus (grandpa). I remember waiting for the other kids to have pancakes, porridge or eggs and bacon. We would have great conversations late at night.

I was so sad when we could no longer go to the cottage. A big part of my childhood was spent at the cottage and in the cabin so I was glad we could keep a big piece of the cottage. Nadine and Ian’s cottage is very close to the old one. When the old cottage got sold, Ian and Nadine decided to move the cabin to their cottage. Although we cannot go to the old cottage, we can still go to the cabin.

“The kids’ cabin”

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Ian Kinross

In the mid-90s, Nadine’s parents Ann and Claus were hosting a growing brood of grandchildren at their cottage on Horseshoe Lake. Where to put them all? They needed a tiny cabin movement.

Claus had been looking at a book of cabin designs and, before you knew it, the wheels started turning. He was planning a small 8 x 12-foot log cabin, one that would be built to last and would honour the 150-plus-year homestead cabin that formed the core of their cottage. And at 96 square feet, it would be just small enough not to require a building permit. He ordered cedar logs from a local farmer.

When the logs were delivered, they needed the bark stripped. Claus’s father, Oscar, then into his 90s, was on hand to help.

Cedar and chocolate

Oscar was seated in a lawn chair, wearing a fedora and sports jacket, and a black patch over a wonky eye. In his hands he had a debarking tool and was stripping bark vigorously one log at a time. As a long-time farmer and lumberman, Oscar knew his way around wood. Nadine and I pitched in to help.

From time to time, the kids would come by, and Claus would prompt Oscar about the chocolate. Oscar had brought a shopping bag of at least a dozen bars of fine chocolate along with him, ready to offer up as a treat to the little people when the moment was right.

Claus found a site for the cabin in the woods just across from the main cottage. He set down a gravel base and levelled it up with the help of a few flat stones from the bush.

The cedar logs were stored to dry over winter.

The cabin-building started in earnest the summer of ’97. Claus had the cedar logs milled to four-inch widths so they could be stacked cleanly. As the log walls came up, he notched the ends, knocked in metal spikes, and caulked each log for a tight fit.

Pitching in

Claus had obtained several old wooden windows from his parents’ former place in Grey Creek, B.C., including a two-part solid casement window. They would be a sentimental link to the past, and functional for the future. He took measurements and left space for four windows and a door in the structure. Two windows could be opened for a through breeze.

The wheels were turning on the door too — he had plans for a sturdy but decorative door with diagonal strips that would complete the picture once the structure was built.

Friends and family pitched in. Our brother-in-law Frank worked on the electrical — including supply, lighting and sockets. Nadine and I installed the red shingle roof to match the cottage, working our way around the dormer over the front porch that Claus had added. Nadine figured out the math to get the shingles aligning correctly as we roofed the dormer channel. Claus cut some decorative cedar siding strips to adorn the peak underneath the porch roof.

Meanwhile, Ann and Claus continued to host friends and family who watched the construction unfold. Neighbors dropped by to check progress, offer advice, be inspired, and have a beer.

Finishing touches

During the third summer, in ’98, Claus finished the interior with several beds. The cabin was nestled nicely into the woods, built solid and ready for grandkids. Nadine and Ann sourced some mattress foam and covers. Linens and pillows were procured for a proper nesting of the interior. Claus asked for contributions for a time capsule that he would hide in a secret spot in the cabin for posterity. As he finished up the cabin interior, he placed a coffee tin inside and asked the kids to put their contributions into the tin time capsule.

Some flat heavy granite steps fronted the cabin porch to the green space outside the cottage. “It’s a 100-year cabin,” Claus declared proudly.

Cabin christening

Ali remembers some unique details of the first sleepovers: “We were given little bowls of Cheerios that we were supposed to eat in the morning to distract us for a little while so the adults could sleep in past 6:30 a.m.!” The kids also played tricks with an electronic baby monitor device. It was installed with good intent to monitor signs of life in the cabin, but the kids got devious, hamming it up over airwaves so that the adults would have to investigate.

Anna recalls the excitement of having her own cabin: “I remember running into the cabin during particularly dramatic rainstorms and listening to the rain and thunder, feeling very cozy but also closer to the storm.”

Cabin for 7

The tiny cabin movement had begun. As more grandkids came along — Chantal, Paul, Rachel, Felix — Claus would continue to add sleeping quarters, turning double bunks into triple bunks with some ingenious carpentry, and adding a small bunk on the west side.

“My favourite was when the middle lower bed was added as the entire lower level was like a big sleepover,” recalls Ali. “The smallest kid had to sleep on the bench bunk, so both Rachel and Felix had to put up with that for awhile.”

“We would play all sorts of games like Ghost Town trying to get everyone settled down but it was tough as everyone was so excited.”

Colleen remembers: “We had quite a book craze with the Goosebumps series. Someone would read aloud and we would discuss what to pick for the “choose your own adventure” challenge. We often had adult visitors who would read a story or two as we were going to bed.”

“As an early-to-bedder I enjoyed many nights hidden away on the cozy top bunk while the chatting continued late into the night between my sister and cousins.

Anna recalls every summer feeling “a bit intimidated to try to get into the top bunks and feeling very proud once I finally got up there!” The kids dressed up the cabin for parties and special occasions: “I remember carrying Rachel into the cabin on a ‘stretcher’ (boogie board) so that she could safely deliver stuffed animals to the ’emergency room’ we created there.”

The cabin also hosted a few adults, and was popular with the children of guests Ann and Claus entertained over the years.

All in the family

Before he passed away, Claus asked that the cabin be kept in the family if possible. With Nadine, he scouted out a possible site in the woods next to our cottage. Ann was preparing to sell the cottage on Horseshoe Lake and kindly offered to move the cabin. Local crane operator Chuck Hopkins obliged, taking the log cabin on a 5K road trip to its new ‘hood.

The tiny cabin movement would continue — on a site nestled in a grove of oak and beech, overlooking a pretty corner of Minden Lake.

The eagle has landed

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Ian Kinross

My father-in-law Claus had asked that the little log cabin he built for his grandkids at Horseshoe Lake stay in the family. Before he passed away in 2017, Claus had joined Nadine to scout out a possible site for it in the woods near our cottage on Minden Lake.

The next summer, my mother-in-law Ann was preparing to sell the family cottage. She kindly offered to pay for the cabin move.

This promised to be a one-of-a-kind road trip, with a few twists and turns.

Built to last

It was a tiny, pretty cabin, yes. But it was built to last — for at least 100 years, Claus had predicted. The cabin weighed many tons — not a job for few friends over a case of beer on a sunny Saturday.

We spoke to our contractor Bob, who had built our place at Minden Lake. There were two options — dismantle the cabin piece by piece and rebuild it on site, or pick it up intact and move it. Option two had a few challenges attached to it, but seemed the better way to go to keep it simple, and to honour the cabin’s integrity.

Bob referred us to a crane specialist in the Minden area. Chuck Hopkins lives just down the road from us and owns several massive cranes used in construction around the Minden-Haliburton area.

Sizing up the job

Chuck came by to take stock. The cabin would need to be wrapped in a giant sling — like a baby carried by the proverbial stork. It would then be craned on to a trailer and trucked to our cottage. Finally the cabin would be picked up again by crane to be set on its new site.

Chuck advised to leave the front porch intact even though the wider load presented some potential challenges. We did a final clear-out of the cabin’s contents and disconnected the power.

Chuck advised he would move the cabin during a break in his construction schedule. One fateful morning in summer 2018, I got a ping on my phone with this photo attached:

The cabin was on the road!

Earlier that morning, Chuck and his crew had roped up the cabin with heavy straps and lifted it onto a flatbed trailer:

Over hill and dale

The cabin was hauled by Chuck’s pick-up truck up a very steep section of McCracken’s Lane at Horseshoe Lake. It wound its way past the world-class white-water rapids of the Gull River, then hung a left on our cottage road: Summer Lane. When the cabin hit a tight spot on our lane, our neighboring farmer, Casey Cox, came with heavy equipment to bend over a tree to let it pass. The only stop missing on this five-kilometre drive was a detour to the Minden Timmies drive-through.

All told, it was a fine bit of motoring for the little cabin that could…

Chuck and his crew used the crane to place the cabin temporarily on our front lawn, then came back the following week, this time with two cranes. In a delicate demonstration of mighty-machinery skills, they “walked” the cabin inch by inch down a slope next to our cottage to its new site on a level gravel base in the woods. Half the battle was keeping the cranes properly positioned so as not to topple along with their load.

The mission was complete — the eagle had landed. Thanks Ann and Claus!

Nadine and I rolled up our sleeves and spent a morning digging a 40-foot trench, 2 feet deep, to house a new electrical supply. The 1990s red shingle roof was updated. Beds were made and the interior dusted and nested. Next spring we would work on some stone steps and a little garden terrace to nest the cabin in place.

The log cabin was ready for its first winter on Minden Lake.

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Tag Archives: log cabin

Cramming them in at the Kids’ Kabin

“The kids’ cabin”

The eagle has landed