We Bought an Abandoned Alaskan Cabin | Full Tour
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ธ.ค. 2024
- When we purchased our piece of Alaska, we ended up buying a homestead that had been abandoned for nearly 20 years. We had a ton of cleaning up to do when we arrived at the property, both inside and out. After removing everything from inside the cabin and fixing part of the roof and floor, we have a great place to use as storage and a workspace until we can build something of our own. While it is an eyesore, it is great to have something that we can temporarily use for our belongings and house our chickens. Come along for the tour of our abandoned cabin!
Thank you for watching and supporting our channel!
Katie & Chris
Got Jax/Down for It/Courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Biddy Sullivan\Day of Mine/Courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com
Follow us on Facebook: / northtoalaska2022
Keep the original owners heart somewhere on the new build. This was his passion before you. Remember we don’t live for ever, and one day a new person could be looking at your build the same way as this.
Forever... one word 🙃
I’m picturing a literal heart on a mantle piece
One man's dream ends, so shall another's begin. Enjoyed you sharing your dream and how respectful you are of what came before you. Thank you
Very true 👍 thank you!
True. I’m glad to hear they will salvage what they can.. Nothing like saving the trees…
@@thesun-N-moon8885 Whether the materials can be saved or not, it's usually worth the extra work to dismantle vs burn, because the metal bits that get left behind by the latter (screws, nails, etc) will render the spot an ongoing hazard.
@@netpackrat true.
The cabin has great craftsmanship and some shady craftsmanship all in one. No way I could tear it down.
Yeah, shocked me when she said that, a milion ways to save it rather than turf it.
Maybe our video did not represent the actual poor condition of the cabin. The logs and building materials will be of great use once dismantled. We will more than likely reconstruct a smaller guest cabin from the materials in a better location on our property.
Good move to take it down. I bet when it warms up there will be mold smell.
How peaceful that is walking outside and hear nothing but nature that would be so relaxing thank you for sharing your adventure with us
It is! You are welcome 🙂
Such a shame this super cool cabin will live only in this video after you dismantle it, it looks so neat and I think it would be nice to see the foundation shored up and repaired
That's exactly what I was thinking. Just get some mini acrow's and away you go.
We will have many great videos of the deconstruction and reconstruction of new structures in a better location on the property in the future with all of these materials.
Sounds irrepairable
Check out Alone in Alaska… She’s doing updates on an older Alaskan cabin if that’s what you want to see… Sometimes there’s nothing left to do, except starting over with what you have…
At least you could use it for the tent. Then some of the timbers can be salvaged. What a job cleaning it up. It might have been easier if there had been no buildings. But the property has so much potential.
It definitely would have been easier if the cabin was not here. We will make the best of it in the future, and thankful to have it for a shed and chicken house for the time being.
That was once a man's dream, time has a way of running from us as we get old, I KNOW he wanted and meant to do more...
I'm glad you are going to salvage what you can
This was someone who did what they could to build themselves a place to live. Fix it up but don't destroy the logs of wood, unless its mildewed out. I like this cabin! You guys got a good deal on it. It just needs a bit of loving care.
Wow. You've worked very hard. Good for you! And you seem to be a lovely couple. Take good care of yourselves.
Thank you!
Front loader sure came in handy, nice gravel road, lots to burn, love your dog. Great to be young and have energy. Great find. Best wishes
Thank you!
Thanks for tour guys !!
A lot of good temporary storage!
Stay safe and warm 😊
You are welcome 😊
Wow! It’s a good thing that y’all are young and energetic. At my age, I would probably burn it down and start over. Good job!
We will salvage what we can. It's hard to know until we get into it, but it seems there would be a lot to salvage, hopefully, it is worth dismantling it.
You could jack the building up and replace the foundation posts. A totally new build would be better.
I wouldn't try to fix that cabin I probably burn it down. probably have mold inside cabin
We have no intention to fix it, As we mentioned once we have an adequate storage shed that we no longer need to use the cabin as a shed we will dismantle it, and reclaim what we can.
You two are doing such a great job documenting this journey...it's so real, thank you for that.
Thank you!
Amazing how much work you two have done in such a short time , having fuel storage in a remote building is a great safety measure stay safe healthy and warm ,can’t wait to to see you
build this summer
Yes, we are ready for better weather ahead! Progress has been very slow since winter set in.
Thanks for taking us along.
You are welcome!
Good luck. Lots of good materials in that cabin. Nice that you can utilize the space for now. Thank you for taking us on a tour. Take care✌️🇺🇸
For sure! We have a lot of plans to reuse as much as possible 😊 thank you for the good luck wishes!
Amazing beautiful. The view IS PRICELESS. My dream is to get to Alaska. After my family ( parents) don't need me anymore NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT DAY However I absolutely love it
Good morning how are you folks doing this morning hope everybody's doing okay out there keep up the good work I'm proud of both of you keep up the proud of you help that water thing still working for you guys and then take it easy
Good morning! Hope you are well too 🙂 the spring is still flowing, it has been freezing very thick ice all around the outlet but after using an ax to remove the ice we can still use it just fine!
All the power to you guys that’s amazing. I’ve worked in construction for a good many years as a bricklayer. To be perfectly honest, I think I’d write up by just a normal piece of ground and build what I want on it. Might spend having to do all that cleanup. I would’ve built about a 4000 square-foot home in the time I spent just clearing all that crap. I’d write up by a blank canvas with some planning permission and start from there.
We only bought it for the land. The shack is of no real value to us. This video was mainly created to answer questions our viewers had about the cabin which could be seen in many of our other videos. We are currently building a new energy-efficient cabin on the property to live in full time if you are interested check it out. As far as the mess we spent several weeks cleaning it all up but it was well worth it. We love our property and location. It was a great investment for the price as well.
It seems that it was a pretty nice cabin back in the days. Such a shame that it was abandoned for so many years. Definitely you will need to tare it down and salvage what can be used in the future. Looking forward to all your new projects. Love and be safe!😘🤗🌼🇻🇪
Would love to go back and see the place 30 years ago, I'm sure it was one of the nicer cabins in the area at that time. We had hoped to find old photos from the construction in the abandoned belongings, but no luck... ❤️
You didn’t go into detail on the fireplace, but at first glance it’s a cool looking build. Would it be possible to disassemble the cabin around it, than use some of the salvaged logs to build a Gazebo style building around it? It would make an awesome outdoor covered space with the fireplace!
99% sure we will reuse the logs to build a small guest cabin in a better location on the property in the future 🙂
You have made a lot of progress! Hopefully there is an early and dry summer ahead of us!
Slowly but surely grinding it out! After seeing it rain a few times recently in your town, It feels like spring is already here!
I’m In Pennsylvania and have always wanted to move to Alaska. I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know what part of Pa but I’m in NEPA and would leave in a heartbeat. Good luck guys. So glad I found your channel. Until I move I’ll live through y’all.
Glad you found us! We lived in York County!
In PA as well! Lycoming County. Getting ready to retire and have considered a move to Alaska. But it would be move in condition only! Been there, done that on fixer uppers.
Sometimes it is better to rebuild from scratch and they will be keeping some of the original owners wood to reuse in their build if no bugs or mould. You forget it has been standing 20 years now abandoned. Your channel came into my recommendation. Look forward to watching your journey.
Glad you have found us! And welcome 🙂
Very interesting, but also very understandable that you did not move in! See what you can salvage as building materials.
whoop, cool video series comming up! can not wait to see you guys wchange this in an awesome place!
Wow, and to think I was complaining about what stuff the seller left in the above ground basement in the place we bought up here in Alaska. We only partially filled up a roll-off dumpster, you guys had a whole lot more than that, not including what was outside 🤯. At least you are able to use the building as temporary storage for now. Thanks for the tour & before/after pictures.
Alaskans love to hang on to everything it seems... a lot of cluttered properties to be seen in the state. That is one downside to living in an area with no regulation people start personal landfills sometimes.
Beautiful place, looking forward to seeing the transformation...
Quite the building - Yes, you should be able to salvage many useful logs ... Will be a hell of a lot of hard work - All the Best to you both and stay warm and safe - (I'm a lab lover - hope to see more of your gorgeous pup....)
It is a shack for sure... it will be a lot of work! Thank you for the well wishes! Benelli made a short appearance in the last video hopefully you caught it 🥰 he doesn't like staying outside for long recently it has been too cold for him 🥶
This is awesome! I walked through that place when it was listed. What a small world.
Not surprising, for as big as the state is there is not a lot of land for sale.
You guys are living my dream I love what you're doing
Can’t wait to see what y’all get accomplished this summer.
We are excited to see too 🙂
Wow guys! What an arduous task you have before you. I feel like this will be on of those situations where the mission was to drain the swamp and found it was full of Alligators. You are so correct to leverage what enclosed space is available for storage of items and housing your Chickens. You guys continue to amaze me with your willingness to work hard and make good things happen for your homestead!.
We feel like we have been fighting the gators for a while now! Great analogy, thanks for that! It's not going to happen overnight but we are getting there 🙂 thanks Chuck!
I like how well you inform us of what you see etc. It does add to the feeling of being there. Looking forward to future projects!!
Thank you 🙂
That will be one massive project. Best of luck in future.
Nice spot, I'm sure you guys will clean it up and get it together, very good investment
Yes, we are excited to see what the future brings 🙂
Chris would be great at narrating westerns or documentary movies! He just has that perfect voice.
I agree lol
Glad you guys think so but not sure about this one haha
Congratulations, Nice find. You are young enough to where you can make a nice home.
Thank you 🙂
Salvage what you can and have a nice fire to stay warm perfect time do it with the snow. Cold here in Pennsylvania now. Good luck
Thats a good thing for storage when you started and maybe give you something back later. Good for you guys
Exactly our thoughts 🙂
Lots to clean, your young and well make it all look beautiful. ❤
🙂
Looks like it was beautiful at one point years ago.
Image the original homesteader's journey building and living there.
Congratulations on your journey with this property. Hopefully you have saved some of those papers that showed the history to build a scrapbook or journal of the property including your journey as well. 👍💪🛠🎥📺
Just found your channel. Will have to binge watch a bit this weekend.
Hello from Florida 🏄♂️ 🏖 🌞 🐊 🐬 🦩 🦞🌊🍊🌴
We can only imagine they had a very interesting and challenging adventure! 🙂👋👍
Maybe when you dismantle the old cabin you could save one of the largest logs or the most unique log and incorporate that some way into your new cabin in a central location, as a passing from one generation to the next.
I initially was thinking just burn the old cabin, but you are correct there is a lot of log, lumber, and plywood value in what is there and lumber is only getting more expensive. Great that you want to upcycle what is of value.
Thank you, that is a great idea! Hopefully, it is worth the effort. Worst case scenario there is a lot of firewood to put in a stove sitting in the log walks. Will need to check them with a metal detector before sawing. I bet there are a lot of nail spikes inside
3:19 What type of tree is that to your right? Sooo pretty!! BTW.....huge fans, as we are remodeling a log cabin in CO and plan to live very simple!
We believe it is a paper birch tree! Thank you! Glad you enjoy our videos! 🙂 we wish you good luck with your cabin remodel!
I’m curious but I believe I saw an extra set of tracks for your snow blower? Looks like it’s still really cold up there. I bet you guys can’t wait till spring. I’m excited to see how your new house comes together & thank you for posting videos on your journey. I believe some people have the dream and never get to live it. I imagine it could be stressful on a relationship if you don’t have a partner willing to take the dive with you.
Psalm 125:1
They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but stays for ever.
You were not supposed to see that 😅 that's stuff for a future episode haha! It was a warm 20°f today, back down to single digits this weekend. We will welcome spring but no rush for the mud and bugs. Winter is beautiful here, we are not geared up enough to enjoy all of it yet but looking forward to many long winters ahead. We should have an update on the new cabin progress soon! You are right about the dream, Life is too short to live it unfulfilled.
@@northtoalaska2022 So that means I get the first T-shirt when you guys start your merchandise store? I would be definitely be first in line to buy one.
Great to see you guys again I so agree about doing thing s right the foundation is everything anyway glad you guys doing well had my knee surgery in time as recover be so glad when I get back to Alaska have great time and good luck be safe 👍🔥
Glad to hear you are doing well! We hope your recovery is going smoothly! Thank you!
Hey Chris and Katie, greetings from Baltimore County.....We just got a HUGE snowfall with a whole 3 inches of snow!!!!!! Everyone is paralyzed and loosing their minds, don't you miss that? Eyeroll. Keep up the good work.
Hey! I can only imagine the pandemonium 😆 it's a different world up here driving on ice roads for 5 months out of the year. Back in Maryland, the entire government would be fired over the roads haha... With tires rated for low temps and ice it is not a big deal at all. Believe it or not, they do use salt brine on the highway in this area. Very unfortunate, had hoped to get away from rust and destruction of the salt. Hope all is well!
Thanks for the tour! Pretty neat! I’m from P.A. to, Oxford. ❤
The cabin is ugly, but it is interesting ❤️
I think it’s pretty awesome what you guys are doing it’s exactly what I want to do!
I would like to do that but I'm 72 yrs old now and it's out of my sphere of things I recently bought some rural property With an old house on it and a really big metal building ,Had my Son and his construction crew fully upgrade it before we moved in New Everything . But I'm Older and had some money to pay for it all , Had my own Contracting Business myself . But I can't even get out of my own way now days.Did the type of things you're doing when I was younger .So stay positive and keep pushing .
Congratulations on your new property and home, it sounds like it is turning out nicely! Thank you for the positive comment. We do hope what we are building here will last us for the rest of our lives with some regular maintenance. Nothing is becoming more affordable or easier with age.
WOW, you two did an amazing job of clearing..... good use of the stable parts of the build to use for storage and looks SO MUCH better when it was cleared out! (14:51) GOOD LUCK with Winter and look forward to your new house build~~
Thank you!
Loved the journey thank you.
You are welcome 😊
So glad you are going to try to reuse the old cabin
A lot of good wood to salvage 🙂
We know someone who tore down a home, used the lumber to build a three car garage attached to their home with matching vinyl siding. It was great,even poured a full cement floor. It takes a lot of time and patience. You can do this!
Very nice! We are excited to see all of the useful construction we can do with the material here 🙂
Thank you both for the update! The place certainly has an interesting history! Your work so far has been amazing! Looking forward to your next episode! 😊
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video 🙂
What an amazing opportunity to make improvements.
Considering the sketchy staircase to the second floor, how did they get the bed up there? It looks too big for the opening.
Could you get bottle jacks to shore up the foundation and level the walls.? Thanks for sharing this portion of your life journey. Wishing you a blessed week filled with gentle seasonally appropriate weather and restful evenings together. Peace
Great question, I think they put the bed in before building the short privacy wall... that's why we have not thrown it away yet! Haha, we will need to remove the wall to get the mattress out it seems. The cabin could undoubtedly be repaired with a lot of work and money, but it is just not worth repairing it for us, it could be a great barn for animals the way it is, but eventually, we hope to repurpose the logs to build a smaller guest cabin in a new location with a proper roof and foundation design. ✌️✌️
Wow what an amazing project you have. Excellent video
Thank you! It's a big project but it will be well worth it 😀
A BIG project but you have a great started a the vision to keep moving forward. I wish you well as you work toward your goals together!
Thank you!
Awesome!! I've had to clean out some estates like that! Its a lot of work!!
Thank you! It is quite a bit of work, but it has been well worth it! 😀
Enjoying your tour and much good luck in you endeavors!!
Thank you!
WOW! Y'all have been busy!!!! Lots of clean up in that cabin.
Thank you! It's been quite the undertaking, but it has been well worth it! 😀
Great storage for you! Too bad it’s not salvageable. Thanks for sharing
🙂
We've bought several properties and cleaned them up. It's amazing how much equity you can build just with a good cleaning.
That is great! This one took a bit of time and effort but it has been worth it. We can't wait to see the final results in a few years when the new cabin is up, and the old cabin is gone.
@@northtoalaska2022 we can't wait to see it either 😊. Stay safe and warm
So glad you guys are going to salvage some of those logs and wood. It would be a shame just get rid of it. Looking forward for the build to start. Peace ✌ and Love ❤.
We will save all we can, so many great ideas we can repurpose the materials for! ❤️
Great buy. Good luck. 🇨🇦✊🏻
Wow that is a large cabin, i can see its not great but the foot print can be altered when you finally get to it, cant wait to see your cabin now and then this one when youre ready, love your channel xx
We have a lot of work ahead of us! Once the weather is better we will have a lot of progress to share 🙂
I bet you could disassemble the cabin and rebuild it on a better foundation. May have to replace some of the logs but it looks like most of the logs are still good.
Logs don’t really make for a warm house in Alaska. Ask anyone who heats one. The logs can be used for a lot of beams for future building.
Once we disassemble, it would be a nice project to build a smaller log cabin with a normal roof out of the materials in a different spot on the property. It could make a decent guest house for our family to visit in the summer. Like Chris_ at_home mentioned this diameter log has a terrible r value. So they will not make for a warm home in winter. Log homes can be beautiful but with high heating energy costs today it is not practical compared to modern construction, especially in an arctic or subarctic region.
@@northtoalaska2022 Every Alaskan with family in the lower 48 needs a quest cabin. My parents came up every other year in the 80s and early 90s and 3 of my siblings made multiple trips. A brother lives here and a sister did from 81-2000. Right now we have a travel trailer with all the hookups and a nice deck with a view. If I had those logs I’d build a roof over it as I am tired of cleaning the snow off it. Thats about 10 items down on the major to do list. And now back to hanging drywall.
@@northtoalaska2022 I am curious on what type of walls and type of insulation you are going to use on your home.
The plan as of now is studded with either blow-in cellulose or rock wool. Mainly for more r-value, but they seem to be better for mold resistance compared to fiberglass. Spray-on Foam is out of the budget.
Thanks for the tour! I’ve been curious what the old cabin looked like inside. Quite the clean up project there.
We had quite a few questions about it, hopefully this video helps. We did talk about the cabin briefly in our very first video when we arrived and when we built the chicken coop. But we never went into any real detail or shared the before cleanup footage because back then we were not recording enough to make an interesting video, it was mainly for our memories.
nice larger logs still, just jack up and replace that their rotted foundation log with filled concert blocks!
Could be an option if we were desperate to live in a shack.
That's quite the project , Good luck
It's been quite a lot of work but it has been well worth it! Thank you! 😀
@@northtoalaska2022 You know when I first got married .We took on a fixer upper , Almost ruined my marriage . always working on House and property . But we survived just a word of caution.47yrs of being married to the same woman and still Happy 😊
I immediately like this guy the second the video starts!
🙂
Awesome video and Thanks for sharing. 👍👍👍💯💯😊
Thank you! 😀
New subscriber Enjoy the tour Lots of work But enjoy the journey And we'll catch you another one to stay safe stay healthy stay happy
Welcome and thank you!
Hi...please remove snow from the roof the cabin and record full video and share...thanks
That the original builder's stuff held up for 20+ years after he died shows that his building quality was at least adequate. It seems he lived a far more rustic life with simpler things and tools.
Very true 🙂
we jacked up my cabin the correct way and replaced rotted posts with new ones.
If this cabin had been constructed in a better fashion from the beginning that may have been an option here. In this case, we are building a new well-insulated cabin to live in full-time here.
An interesting tour and a big challenge ahead. I would be nice if you could repel the Yurt building, erect a new roof and at least restore this part as a future guest house for example. The Skidsteer is an invaluable tool and I wish you both all the best.
Ha, I lived in Alaska 30 years and that sure looks like an Alaskan build. Good stuff for young people.
Classic Alaskan build for sure!
Bravo et courage dans la réalisation du projet de votre vie.
Love your videos, very relaxing and informative
Thank you! We are glad you are enjoying the videos! 😀
I like your idea of reusing some of the logs from the cabin on your future build.
For sure, I think we will reuse some of the good logs to construct a guest cabin in a better location on the property for our family to visit in the summer 🙂
you should pressure wash the outs walls. You might find some of the logs are still usable.
Most of the logs other than the bottom rows that are rotten will be salvaged!
I'd say the person who built it did a good job with the construction. To build something by yourself that can last 20 years in that climate without any maintenance is quite the task. Its sad they only got to enjoy it for a short time.
Unfortunately this happens too often, just as I sit here (in NJ for medical treatment) terminal at 42yo with a cabin in northern Quebec just rotting away because my illness dictates where I can go. It's sad how many people have become sick, I swear we are being poisoned and told things are "safe" when "they" know it's not, cough... Flint Michigan and so MANY other examples..cough...cough!
That was very interesting...
That’s awesome I’m so happy for you guys
👏🏼😁 Guys I haven’t gotten a notification from TH-cam for your videos in 90 days + so I’m playing catch up. Crazy right ?
That is unfortunate, TH-cam may have stopped recommending our videos, it seems our views have been lower than usual in the last few. Oh well, we will continue posting whenever we have something we feel is interesting to share!
Cool. I think that stump foundation would work in Minnesota but Alaska is A different animal.
Possibly. I would prefer a concrete or steel foundation because I do not want to have to redo the job when I'm older and less capable down the road.
Good luck up there you crazies 👍
Thank you, we will take the luck 🙂
Hi, just subscribed ,enjoying your videos from england 🇬🇧
👋 hi! Thank you for joining! We are glad you are here! 😀
UT seems like you could've jacked the house up and put new supports under it
Anything is possible, but is it worth it? Not to us.
So interesting. Thanks for sharing
You are welcome!
I would keep the cabin. After you finish yours you could make it safe and you might need it sometime.
10:47 I LOVE that little decoration 🥹
Oh my! Yes! We just love that little decoration. It will certainly be getting cleaned and put in our cabin. A piece from the previous owner's past for our new home 🥰
Awesome place. That Subaru looked mint btw 😂
So happy you’re saving the logs and not burning them! U can use a battery powered or corded electric disc grinder and grind the first layer of aging off the logs. Then use a propane torch and burn them then broom 🧹 them off and paint them with Australian Timber oil. Then use the Cabin logs to build a nice size work shop with or on your house for that matter. If you used that Japanese burning method on them logs whatever you build would be there when your grand kids are old. The burning & Timber oil makes them insect & rot resistant. Definitely don’t throw them away or burn them because someone has already took out a ton of work for you by having those logs already in place. Even the ones that are a little bit rotted you can cut the bad part off and use the rest of the log. That’s a lot of work cutting down logs stripping all the bark and letting them dry, so that part is already done for you. It’s amazing how well those logs will clean up with a disc Sander, lightly burning, brushing 🧹 off the char off and treating them with oil. They’ll then be good for another 100 years or longer. Yeah you guys definitely have a lot of nice usable logs in that cabin that’ll save you time and money to be ready to be used again.
😁👍🏼
So true! A lot of usable materials to be salvaged. A lot of the logs are cracked from not being properly sealed over many years but as long as they are still sturdy I would love to try and rebuild a small summer cabin out of the better logs on the property for when our family from out of state come to visit they would have a private guest cabin to use!
Wow lots of work
Yes!
we all have health fail.. my advise is plan ahead & steps become limits. i am looking to put ramps to our home entry ways 🏡
True, our new cabin will have limited steps.
Was a nice looking place at one time
Yes, I would love to go back in time 30+ years to see it in person. We had hoped to find photos in the cabin from the time of construction but no luck.