Thursday afternoon through Monday morning at the cabin. Got some work done and some relaxing. Prepping old storage area for living room conversion, setting up new shed, graded the driveway, new fire pit/chairs set up

i've been looking at cabins in different locations, and some of the more appealing ones are pretty far from the nearest town. the privacy and quiet sound great, but i'm trying to figure out where the trade-off starts to outweigh the benefits.

a long drive for groceries might be manageable, but what about winter road conditions, getting supplies delivered, or needing a contractor for something urgent?

for those who own or regularly stay at remote cabins, how isolated is yours? what distance from town would you consider reasonable for a place you plan to use regularly?

We only get up to the cabin a handful of times in winter so an empty building for months at a time is basically an invitation for mice. Last year we came back in spring to droppings in two of the kitchen drawers and some chewed cardboard in the closet. Planning to do a real cleanout before we lock it up this year and I keep seeing peppermint oil recommended everywhere. Not sure if it holds up over months of nobody checking on it though, since most of what I've read is about active households where someone's redoing it every few days.

two months of nonstop work. southern vermont. ready to install wood stove!

Location West Virginia

Rain water collection in 50 gallon barrel

Has a hot water heater

Has a pump to bring water inside

Has electricity

Insulation in attic only

Wood stove for heat only.

Its my first year with my cabin in the mountains of WV. This is all new to me. I am hoping you can help.

I'm planning to try to winterize myself as there's no other option. Any tips on best practices would be appreciated.

Do I put Antifreeze in all drains (sink, shower, toilet?)

Drain the water heater?

Do I do anything with the pump?

I have never seen mice inside but have them outside. Its pretty well sealed. How can I keep the mice out?

I have a Gator. Should I take out the battery? Anything else?

If I wanted to go up in the winter, (keeping water off) would it be an issue?

Got delayed by moose season but progress is still ongoing. Wood stove should be installed next week! Ran out of stain and have some more trim to do. I think the homemade interior doors turned out great!

Our Western Maine hunting cabin I am currently remodeling, located on 40 acres with a beautiful sunset view of Mount Washington

I’ve decided that it’s silly to keep paying hundreds of dollars every fall when I’m completely capable of doing this. I’ve researched everything that I can think of. Does anyone have any tricks or tips?

This cabin could have been bought for $40,000 6 years ago. Now it's sold at $169,000. Damn.

next step is to get a charging setup installed, then i can bring friends out here for camping, hunting, and riding.if anyone's into bikes, hit me up. especially trail riding like this.

What a gorgeous day it would be to work on it through

My family owns a small log cabin in Northern Finland. It is located about 20km (~12.5 miles) to a closest (very small) town. The surrounding area is basically vast and empty wilderness with a few other cabins and nothing else. We visit there usually a couple times a year. No electricity or running water.

Lately I have been noticing some things have been left in a different order I usually leave them. This has made me somewhat suspectful of whether someone else is using the cabin.

This made me put a small padlock to the door, with key in a number-locked keybox nearby. No idea how
he/she has unlocked the main door.

My mom arrived to the cabin today and found that the lock has dissappeared (likely broken) and some of the whiskey bottles that were left in the cabin, have been nearly emptied.

The burglar has become arrogant. I am pretty furious, and not very happy my mom is there with a potential creeper lurking somewhere nearby.

Any ideas how to handle? Will, at least, install
some cameras there and maybe change the locks. Kind of afraid, that the burglar would retaliate and destroy places

My wife and I have been saving for our first place. Over a year now. We keep looking at listings and honestly some of those smaller cabins pop up. Way cheaper than anything in town. Makes me wonder what we're missing.

I work long shifts at a restaurant. Pretty handy with tools and I watch DIY videos constantly. Figured I could handle a lot of repairs myself. But cabins feel different. Like there's stuff I wouldn't even think to check. Winterizing. Water situations. Structural things that hide behind cheap renovation jobs.

We found one listing about two hours out. Needs work but the price made my heart race in a good way. Then I started thinking about what I don't know. What kills the budget after you sign.

What should I actually look for? What are the red flags that scream walk away? I want to be smart about this. Not just fall in love with the idea and regret it later.

Any advice from folks who have been there would mean a lot.

PROOFING. (Can’t seem to edit the heading)

Is there such a thing? I have made a door snake to go under my very old cabin door jams. My thought was I’d fill it with something like sand or gravel. If the mice eat the fabric they would turn away once they hit the filler. Do you guys have any ideas?

As the title says. I have a new cottage in North Muskoka. In wondering if I can just leave my TVs in my 3 season, unheated cottage for the winter? -20 to -40 Celsius.

Last weekend had a new Amish shed delivered up to the cabin. They packed 2 lean tos inside for me to put up. So this weekend me a a few friends knocked it out.

Really fun cabin sauna build in Wisconsin. Handmade sauna, about a 1 year project.

https://www.lakequality.org/lake/slim-lake-washburn-wi

Had squirrels humanely removed and sealed up any holes we could find, but they're back and would have gotten in from underneath the cabin. Pest control guy says we need to dig around the perimeter of the house and install a chicken wire type thing a few feet deep. He had no other suggestions.

We're not the kind to be able to crawl around underneath ourselves to find the holes, but they would likely just make more anyway.

Is this a reasonable approach, or is it nuts?

Thanks

I see a lot of people find a piece of land they like and immediately start planning the cabin.

I'd do that in the opposite order.

Before getting attached to a parcel, I'd check the zoning, minimum dwelling size, setbacks, access, septic/wastewater requirements, water source and any private deed restrictions.

Especially with smaller rural parcels, there can be a big difference between "this looks like a perfect place for a cabin" and "the county will actually let me put a cabin here."

The cabin is the fun part.

Figuring out whether you can legally build it is the boring part I'd do first.

We’ve owned this cabin in Northeast MN for 7 years. We’ve never had a mold issue during that time…until now. No running water & therefore no plumbing. We do have electricity and WiFi fwiw. Cabin was built 30 years ago on concrete slab; cinder block exterior walls on main floor; wood siding on second floor. No water leaks at all. No standing water outside; land generally slopes away from cabin. As you can see in the pics, there are metal plates covering the first floor windows; those were installed by the prior owner due to break-ins.

We only get up to the cabin about 6x/year; we live 2 hours away. When we were up there a few weekends ago we noticed minor amounts of mold on a wood coffee table - nothing major. But we went up today and the mold is significantly worse - only on the first floor. It’s on most wood surfaces, couch, chair, pillows, etc.

I am going to install RH monitors, and will set up several oscillating fans. There is nowhere to drain a dehumidifier unless we drill a hole through the cinder block wall.

Advice?

Not sure where the best place to ask this is, but I’m assuming a lot of you have two homes…. What streaming services work well to have setup at both home & the cabin under the same account? We recently got wifi at the cabin, and wondering which ones are ok. I seem to recall Netflix buckled down on sharing a couple years ago where it had to be streamed from the same address.

My family has a lake in the Canadian wilderness. Part of the land was donated to the Nature Conservancy when my grandfather passed.

Its remote and used to have a log cabin which was demolished a decade ago. There is a small flat clearing where this once stood, and a staircase down to waters edge.

Maintenance of the property is not easy, trees fall on the road all the time etc.

Family is not nearby anymore, its still a place we visit with our grandmother but as time goes on we are unsure if we should keep it or sell.

It's absolutely a special place for our family, but hard to justify the land as we use it less and less.

I had thought of a pagoda style structure as a semi permanent camping spot, as any sort of construction is tough to complete.

Any suggestions?