Among the books in my tall stack to read, in preparation to revise and polish the current epic is one with the very dry title of “Texas Log Buildings; A Folk Architecture” – which has actually proved to be a bit more interesting and informative than it looked at first glance. I am a sucker for knowing how things are constructed or put together- which is good, especially since I need to write a description of building such a thing as a log building. Little details like how many days it would take to build one, what size it would generally be, and the layout – these little details count.
Previously, the one description of the process that I could bring readily to mind was “Little House on the Prairie” – and it turns out that Pa Ingalls was not building that cabin to much of a standard. He may not even have been all that skilled as a carpenter, but since he was working on it mostly by himself, and in a place where the swiftness of getting a roof of some sort over his family counted for everything – allowances were made.
That was almost everyone’s first and most urgent need, upon settling on a new grant or homestead, that and planting some kind of crop in the ground; building a cabin, to meet immediate shelter needs. This book differentiates very clearly the difference between a log cabin, and a log house. A log cabin was small, twelve to fourteen foot square, windowless, with a dirt floor. They were scratch and hastily put up to use as a temporary dwelling place, whereas a log house was larger, permanent, and much more carefully constructed; even quite elaborate as to comforts. For much of the 19th century, at least in Texas it was a matter of some embarrassment to still be living in a log cabin after a couple of years; rather like living in a trailer would be. In fact, many log houses were covered with siding and paint as soon as their owners could afford to do so. If they had lived in a little cabin before building the permanent house, the cabin was frequently reused as a smoke-house, or a stable.
Pace “Little House” and a whole raft of western movies, I’d always visualized such houses and cabins built out of the whole, rounded logs, with simple interlocking half-round notches (called a saddle notch) cut close to the ends, and about a foot or so of the log hanging out beyond at the corners, rather like a “Lincoln-log” house. This method of construction turns out have been employed by the relatively unskilled and/or those in a tearing hurry. The majority of Texas log structures were built of timbers which had been at least roughly shaped on two sides, and carefully notched at the ends to make a square corner. With the exception of part log, part dugout shelters built in far western Texas, where trees were scarce, most log structures were also raised off the ground on corner piers, to prevent rot and termite infestation, and to take advantage of air circulation.
Logs were prepped before construction, either by rough-hewing — cutting a shallow straight face on two opposite sides, or “planking”— cutting a thick plank out of the center of the log. In a very small number of cases, each log would be square-hewn, on all four sides, resulting in a heavy, square beam. More usually, only the bottom log— the sill, and the topmost, the “plate” which supported the roof rafters would be squared. These logs would usually be the largest; if the structure was to have a wooden floor, the sills would be mortised, with the floor joists lap-jointed into them. Sometimes a third sill would be added, for extra support.
A log house went up pretty fast, apparently, once all the timbers had been cut and prepped: the book gives an estimate of two men working two days for a fairly simple, square (single pen) structure, and three men working three days for a more elaborate one.
Roofs were usually constructed with the gable-ends on the sides of a two-slope roof, with pairs of rafters lap-jointed or mortised together at the roof-ridge, at about a 45-degree angle. Long laths or slats run cross-ways between the rafters. Most log houses were roofed with cut shingles. Porches and sheds attached at a later date would usually have a shallower roof line, described as a “witches’ hat” in silhouette.
Doors and windows were cut in the walls after basic construction was completed. They were neither large nor numerous, since cutting them weakened the structure. The carpenters would set wedges into the spaces between the logs to prevent them sagging, and cut vertically until the desired size was reached. Then a door or window frame of planks would be nailed or pegged into place to stabilize the cut logs. Another reason for having a minimum of windows in many parts of Texas, especially in the early days was the ever-present danger of Indian attacks. A number of houses from that time actually had so-called shooting holes, two or three in each wall. Windows were secured with wooden shutters; before glass was available, filled with oiled paper or thin-scraped oiled rawhide, which admitted some light.
In all but a handful of log houses made from carefully fitted hewn timbers, there was a gap between each log which needed to be filled in order to make the house weather-tight. Since so many houses would have been built with new timber it was necessary to allow for shrinkage and warping, as well as the natural taper of the logs. The gaps might be filled with thin slats nailed or driven into place, flat pieces of stone and mortar, or clay mixed with animal hair, straw, or moss – or just plain mud. In a house built of logs which had been roughly hewn, bark left on the top and bottom helped the chinking material adhere to the rough surface in between logs.
About the most common floor plans for log houses in Texas was called a “dog-trot”, or “dog-run”; two single-pen rooms with a covered but open breezeway in between. Sometimes each room had it’s own fireplace; but many house built after the Civil War did not have fireplaces at all, since metal stoves had become so widely available for heating and cooking. Quite a few houses originally built with fireplaces, were retrofitted with stoves and the chimneys and fireplaces removed. Larger windows were cut when glass became cheaper and more widely available.
In later years, many log houses were added on to, or covered with siding; after all, there was a whiff of poverty attached to living in such a house and sometimes it is hard to tell, at a casual glance, that there is a log house underneath the siding and plaster, the porch added at the front, and the shed kitchen on the back. Having read this book, I am resolved to look very carefully at the oldest neighborhoods of some of the small towns around where I live – knowing that there may be a log house, lurking in the heart of suburbia.
When I was growing up in the late 50′s, early 60′s, my grandmother lived in a 2 story log house that was covered in white clapboard siding and plaster-lathe interior walls. Because I was just a little kid, I had no idea at the time that it was a log house. But I do have fond memories of sitting in one of the front window sills watching the rain. That sill was wide enough to accommodate at least two kids. There were two big rooms downstairs and two corresponding big rooms upstairs with a central passageway between the rooms on both floors. There was a fireplace in all four of the main rooms but grandma used coal stoves for heat. The kitchen was, as you have described, a single story “lean-to” style addition on the back. There was also a very large tin-roofed, screened in side porch with a porch swing and a coal scuttle. The “facilities” was a two-holer out back until one of her son-in-laws installed indoor plumbing for her a few years before she moved.
Grandma moved out of that house in 1966 when I was 12 years old. Two of my cousins bought it from her a few years later when I was in the service. They tore it down and used the logs to build a hunting cabin somewhere in the woods. (The hunting cabin might still exist, but I have no idea where it’s located, and both cousins have since passed on.)
Some of my fondest early childhood memories took place in that house. Especially her kitchen and the big featherbed she had in one of the upstairs bedrooms. When we spent the night at grandma’s, all of us kids would be piled together in that enormous bed. (I actually lived John Denver’s song – all except the part about the “piggy we stole from the shed” anyway.) And grandma made the absolute best blackberry cobbler.
Grandma lived her entire life in and around New Haven and Culvertown KY. And she died at the age of 94 in the summer of 2004.
Sorry for the rambling nostalgia, but your post on log houses did it to me.
Hmmm. Sounds like either a dog-trot with the breezeway enclosed by later additions… or a central-hall house (a room on either side of a hallway). Were the fireplaces on the end walls?
It’s not uncommon for log houses to be taken apart and re-sited, after all, they’re sort of like a life-sized Lincoln-Log set! Be cool to find out whee your grandmothers’ house was moved to, though.
My mom said for years that she wanted to live in a log cabin. When the folks moved out of the nightmare house in 1982 (I did a post on that house, awhile back), they moved to a small town in Ohio coal-mining country. Mom found a little house at the top of a hill, with 42 acres of land split by the road it was on. From the outside, it was stucco, but if you went up the one steep staircase, and into one of the storage cubby-holes in the upstairs rooms, you would find that it was, indeed, a log house. The logs were so old and dry that they were beginning to split, but they were definitely logs. They had been squared, and there was no bark on them.
It was a small house, set flat on the ground (no basement, in other words), and had been added onto at some point. Downstairs was the kitchen, livingroom, bathroom, master bedroom and another small room that Mom used as an office. Upstairs were two large rooms, one behind the other. The front one became a bedroom, the other Mom’s sewing room/craft room/storage room.
It was not a dog-trot cabin, as I understand them to be, and probably not a central hall model, either. There was a very small hallway, and it led from the kitchen to the bedrooms, with the bathroom at the end of it between the bedrooms. It also had a garage, that was probably added on at some point.
Grandma’s log house was a central hallway type, but I have no way of knowing whether it was originally built that way or not. Anyone who would know has long since passed on.
I remember that from the front stoop, you went up two or three steps to the front door. As you faced the front door, the gable ends were on the left and right rather than front and back. The chimneys were on either end so the fireplaces in each of the main rooms were also on the ends. The house had a tin roof which is common on very old houses in this area – even on brick mansions from the civil war era.
As you came in the front door, you looked straight down the main hallway. A few feet down that hall you came to two doorways that lead into the two main downstairs rooms – one on the right and one on the left. The room on the left was grandma’s bedroom. (None of us kids were ever allowed in that room unsupervised.) The door on the right led into the parlor. This is where grandma kept an old upright player piano. I spent many a good time plinking out kid songs on that thing, but I don’t think it had seen a tuneup since the 1860′s. The parlor is where we would sometimes sit in the windowsill and watch the rain.
On the back wall of the parlor was a door that lead into another very large room that was part of a later addition. This addition was a single story with the gable end on the rear. This was the living room and was the largest room in the house. Just inside the door that connected the parlor with the living room and to the left was another doorway that faced the front of the house and opened onto a set of stairs that led to the second floor. On the left hand wall of the living room was a door that led to the screened-in side porch that I described earlier. On the back wall was yet another door that lead into the kitchen.
The kitchen was a single story “lean-to” addition that had a couple of small rooms on the left side that were a pantry and a small storage room that later became the bathroom when my uncle Hooter installed indoor plumbing for her. (Oh yes – I really did have an uncle named Hooter who was a plumber. Honest I did.) The back door to the house also led into this kitchen.
Back to the main hallway – if you continued down the hallway from the front door to its end, another door opened out directly into the end of the side porch. This porch was built into the left side of the living room and had a door that led directly into it. It had a porch swing on one end and a coal scuttle on the other. It was a great place for kids to play when the weather was inclement.
When you climbed the steps to the second floor, the stairway emptied out directly into the large room above the parlor. This was the largest of the two upstairs rooms and is the room that had the huge featherbed. From this room, there was a door that led into the other upstairs room. It was smaller, but was still big enough to be a third bedroom. However, grandma used it for storage.
Well, I’m sure this is a lot more detail than anybody cares about considering that this is a house that no longer exists. But once I started describing it in writing, my memories started flooding back and I couldn’t stop.
I miss my grandma.
“Be cool to find out where your grandmothers’ house was moved to, though.”
It would indeed be cool. But I am under no delusions that it would still be grandma’s house. My cousins didn’t “re-site” it. They tore it all down and reused *some* of the logs to build their little hunting lodge. Assuming it still exists, it would bear no resemblance to the original house.
What a cool short history lesson on log house floor plans! So many people don’t dig through books on hisotrical architecture anymore. It’s nice to see someone keeping it alove in the modern age.