In August 1966, when I was 13, my family moved up from California and bought a wooded lot and a log cabin kit. My dad rented a tractor and cleared just enough trees for the house, the driveway and the septic field.In November, after the septic system was put in and the foundation poured, a truck delivered the logs. A relative and several of our new neighbors helped us build the house.it took one day to put up the walls and another to do the roof. It rained the entire time.
We moved in two days before Thanksgiving. It was nice to be indoors, even though the doors and windows weren’t in place yet. The front door was a sheet of canvas, and there was plywood over the Windows. We found an antique wood cook stove, had some friends over, and cooked in an entire feast in that old wood stove. Before that time we had camped out in tents. That would stove was the only heat we had that winter. Our electricity and water came to us from the neighbors via extension cords and hoses. my brother dug a hole for an outhouse, which we had to use all winter. And a cold one it was!
We took turns climbing under the house to help Dad solder the pipes. He and the neighbor wired the house themselves and got some of the wires crossed. Some of the switches were the mercury type, which blew up when the power was turned on. Dad got the first shower on Mother’s Day; just to make sure everything worked, don’t you know! Until that time we took sponge baths with water heated on the stove and went to my aunt’s in West Seattle once a week for a shower, whether we needed it or not. heeheehee.