Cabin Renovation

Scott Newkirk designed and had this one-room cabin built for himself almost a decade ago. (It was profiled in NY Magazine in 2007). It stands as the oldest of an impressive collection of buildings at Beaver Brook. Since then the building’s untreated, reclaimed pine and hemlock board-and-batten siding was showing its age, letting in weather and various woodland creatures. Because the siding serves as both a structural sheathing for the minimal frame as well as the cabin’s interior finish, the option of removing the siding entirely was quickly dismissed. MDB approached the project delicately. After removing the rotten battens, a water-tight but vapor-permeable weather resistive barrier (WRB) was applied over the existing siding. A new assembly of eastern white pine siding was then installed in reverse board-and-batten fashion on top and sprayed with a non-toxic borate solution to forestall future weathering. Stuck doors and windows were carefully removed, trimmed and re-fitted into their openings with new material to match the siding. The cabin stands renewed and ready to host guests in the quiet of the woods.