A One-Man Shack Bungalow 
THE STORY OF AN AMATEUR’S SUCCESS IN BUILDING SINGLE-HANDED 
A BUNGALOW IN THE WOODS FOR SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS 
by Alfred W. Loomis 
T HE question of expense is 
the chief deterrent toward 
owning a home in the country. 
But even this problem was solved 
by one adventurous home-seeker 
who successfully built a home sin¬ 
gle-handed ; and, as the pioneer 
first made a clearing in the forest 
for his dwelling, so has the site of 
this modern dwelling been hewn 
from a jungle of undergrowth of 
many years’ duration. Unaided, 
its builder has cut out this tangle 
of poison ivy and scrub birch, and 
has graded and terraced the plot 
without even the aid of a wheel¬ 
barrow, and only the period of six 
months elapsed between the 
conception of the plan and the 
finished structure. Thanks to 
a nearby sawmill engaged in 
cutting up a blight-infested 
chestnut forest, the lumber 
and slabs were obtained at a 
very reasonable figure, and 
the total cost of the bungalow 
is but little over seven hun¬ 
dred dollars. 
Although the builder had 
no more than the average 
man's carpentry experience, 
he resolved when he bought 
his property to build his home 
entirely by his own efforts. 
Of plans and specifications he 
had none — he knew only that 
he wanted a slab bungalow, 
The set-in windows give the impression that the building is made of solid 
logs instead of slab 
Although it is little more than a year old, this little slab bungalow already looks 
if it belonged, so well does it nestle down into its site 
anu mat n must leave room on its 
site for a lawn in front, a cistern 
and outbuilding in back, and a 
small garden on either side. Be¬ 
yond this he intended to do as the 
nursery story-tellers do—make up 
as he went along. And instead 
of a jumble of crooked lines and 
angles, this method has given him 
a very attractive one-storied, sym¬ 
metrical dwelling, measuring 2c 
feet by 20 feet. 
I here is no cellar beneath the 
building, but the floor beams are 
set on substantial 8 by 8 chestnut 
sills. The framework is 6 by 6 
chestnut timber, while the stud¬ 
ding is of 2 by 4’s, over which 
are lath and composition 
board. The chestnut slabs 
with which the house is fin¬ 
ished were purchased at the 
rate of $2 a wagon load, and 
four loads were required. 
Coming, as these slabs do, of 
all thicknesses from the mill, 
the builder was confronted 
with the very pretty problem 
of planing them to a uniform 
thickness, but having no fa¬ 
cilities for this work, he re¬ 
sorted to a makeshift, and 
first sorting all the material 
into different grades, and then 
cutting it to the right lengths, 
, s laid the slabs on so that the 
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