By Josh Reinitz
The log cabin restoration committee made some good progress in 2009, and are looking forward to making plans for 2010 workdays. With the help of volunteers and Minnesota New Country School students, tasks completed this year included cleaning out the interior of the cabin and jacking up the sagging corner to original height.
We held three volunteer workdays in the summer, where we dug out the interior of the cabin, which had built up with over a foot of horse manure during the years it was used as a barn. The volunteers also helped jack up the sagging corner to original height, remove rotted logs, straighten walls, remove rotted siding, and re-build window framing.
In early autumn we had a workday with Jim Wartman and students from the Minnesota New Country School. The students boarded up all of the openings for winter, secured the doors, and helped straighten the east cabin wall. It was a beautiful day to work on the cabin, and the workday was documented by an MNCS student for the Henderson Independent newspaper. Thanks to MNCS for their continued support of projects at the Ney Center!!
We had intended to put temporary roofing on before winter came, but fall was a busy time for all of us and that project will have to wait until late winter or spring. If anyone is interested in getting bundled up and doing carpentry in February, let me know!!
With 2010 comes the next phase of the restoration project: log repair and replacement. The Ney Center is getting log material donated to do the repairs, and we will have workdays dedicated to replacing entire rotted logs, and repairing other logs with minor rotted areas with matching wood. Rest assured, the techniques we use will ensure the repairs will blend in with the cabin, and the replacement material is coming from other cabins of that vintage with similar texture and wood species.
After the log repair is done, we can put chinking in the cabin, put doors and windows in, and re-build the staircase so people can see the sleeping loft upstairs. We have been doing all the work so far with volunteer labor and materials, meaning the cabin will take another 2-3 years to finish (with almost no expense to the Ney Center).
However, we are always accepting donations to the cabin project, and would welcome anyone to help us secure funding for the remainder of this project. Please contact Josh Reinitz at (612) 756-3971 if you want to get involved or are interested in funding a portion of the project.
Thank you!!
