How Not To Build a Cabin

Chapter 8 Materials: The Concrete Foundation

How Not To Build a Cabin is a memoir of my first building project. More than the details of that experience, however, I use the project to offer opinions on life’s conundrums and quirks.

Chapter 8 Materials: The Concrete Foundation

Once the building site was reasonably cleared of trees, the foundation came next. I found the word evocative: foundation, the basis on which a thing stands, is founded, or is supported. Europeans seem to have put great faith in providing their buildings with sturdy foundations; they wanted buildings that lasted forever. On the other hand, 19th century Plains Indians believed in little or no foundation for their dwellings but for a very good reason: they saw themselves as nomadic and needed a mobile edifice rather than a solid one so they could be ready to pick up and move on a moment’s notice. Their lack of architectural foundation was only one of a plethora of cultural differences that separated them from their European antagonists.

I wasn’t sure why constructing a foundation made me think of Native cultures, but it did. Maybe it was because my Vermont land wasn’t originally European. Though the thought nagged a little, when I decided on a foundation, I unconsciously followed my Eurocentric DNA and cultural influence.

Mostly, I tried to find the cheapest foundation that would adequately support the cabin, and one I could build by myself. We hadn't built a foundation in the shop class, so again I started from a position of total ignorance. I had no driveway, so poured concrete from a huge mixer was out of the question. But I might be able to use concrete blocks. Yes, I could do that. Of course, I had never laid concrete blocks before nor had I mixed mortar. Small matter. Just do it, right?

As the size of my house plans shrank from large log edifice to small framed cabin, so shrank the size of my foundation. When I had wanted a large house, I sited a 32'x26' rectangle where the foundation would sit and began digging a trench with my shovel. I had procured a pick and a ... I can't remember the name of the other tool, but it had two heavy digging blades on it, one like a hoe and one perpendicular to the hoe’s blade. I'll call it a pickaxe until I can remember the real name. I thought with these primitive tools I would be able to dig a trench wide enough to stand in while I slung mortar and blocks. The trench should be about four feet wide, and maybe four feet deep to be below the Vermont frostline.

A thickly wooded forest floor is covered with pine needles. No real obstacle to trenching there, even for me. But the stubborn roots of many trees lie not even an inch below surface dirt, so I immediately had to forsake the shovel for the pickaxe. MATTOCK. That’s what that tool is called. Mattock. After feverishly chopping and shoveling through about two inches of roots and topsoil, I came to an orange clay, and soon after, I ran into my first rock. I'm not just talking about a large rock here. I'm referring to a New England rock, one that barely shows itself, like an iceberg, making you think you can scrape around it a little but that has you widening and scraping and digging an hour later and turns out to be larger than all your concrete blocks piled up and heavier than you can lift. This is the kind of rock people place in their yards as art. “Place,” as in use a backhoe or excavator. I mean, this is the kind of rock that makes you consider moving your whole foundation and re-siting the house.

And that's what I did, moved my whole foundation over six feet. The house plans shrank to cabin-size 16’x24’ so my foundation shrank to piers instead of walls. I would dig holes every eight feet and install concrete block piers. That way I wouldn't have to pour an amount of concrete I couldn't use before it hardened, and I would have time to make sure the blocks were level and plumb.

I drove to a nearby town and bought 20 concrete blocks at $.72 per block and 5 bags of mortar at $4.10 per bag (remember, this was 1985). This purchase I list in detail because it was the most important purchase I made in the building of the cabin. Up to this point, I had bought a chain saw, a ladder, a carpenter's square, a chalk snap line, a four-foot level, and a 25-foot measuring tape, all important items but all things I could keep and use whether or not I built the cabin. In my more insecure moments, I was still secretly willing to give up the whole project and pay someone else to build the house. The concrete blocks and bags of mortar, however, were the cabin itself. By moving from tools to materials, I had crossed an invisible line between doubt and certainty, between idea and actuality; and with actuality I had to make a commitment.

What an invigorating feeling, commitment. All the frustrations that had accompanied the early log tests and trench diggings dissolved from memory, and a vital, purposeful resolve took their places. I would build this cabin. I really would. The dream had never been frivolous after all, and now, by admitting the doubts, I could leave them behind. It didn't mean all my ignorance about construction suddenly disappeared, but it meant I accepted my ignorance and that acceptance became the impetus for renewed learning. It meant that I rejoiced in my ignorance, for commitment promised a movement from ignorance to knowledge, and what could be more exciting. And, after all, there was the matter of the rock.