While you’re up on the roof finishing the chimney, it would be a good idea to take the measurements of the entire top. In your leisure time, make a fairly tight cover, shaped like a shallow box, that will fit on top of the chimney when you close the cabin for the season. It can be lashed down with wire or rope. The object of this will be well known to anyone who has left a cabin chimney open for several months, because it seems to have a great attraction for birds and squirrels—not to mention the fact that snow and rain get in and rust the flue lining if it’s made of metal.
In planning your cabin fireplace don’t fail at least to investigate the several so-called “patented” fireplace forms which circulate heated air. (See [illustrations].) These are especially worth considering if you expect to rely upon your fireplace for heating the cabin during the colder months, and also greatly simplify the intricate job of fashioning a fireplace.
When using these forms the fireplace is constructed with an air chamber behind the fire box. Cold air is drawn off the floor and circulated back in the room as warm air. This gives you both direct radiated heat and warm air from absorbed heat. Various installations are possible, with the added heat being used in an adjoining room—or even upstairs.
Another patented fireplace design showing how warm air may be piped to adjoining rooms
WARM AIR OUTLET COLD AIR INTAKE
BUILDING THE LOG CABIN
Mention of a “cabin in the woods” brings a vision to the average man of one thing—a log cabin. And, although few people will ever build a real log cabin, most of us have inherited from our pioneer ancestors a romantic attachment to the sturdily constructed homes of our early settlers. The pioneers built of logs primarily because they had no other materials and also because they needed a shelter that would be a protection against Indians, wild animals and rough weather.
But just because a cabin is built of rough logs instead of finished lumber doesn’t mean that it will be less expensive in this day and age. According to such experts as C. D. Aldrich, who designs some of the finest cabins in the country, a log cabin costs about twice as much as a frame cottage of comparable size and design. A one-room-and-porch cabin that can be built of lumber for about $500 would cost roughly $1,000 if well built of logs.