Gabe and Cristina joined me this week to tell the story of their late 1700’s settler’s log cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains of central VA. Check out the episode enhancements for photos of their log cabin renovation.

G: Well, our story started in 2015. We met on Tinder. 

KM: Wow. 

G: And, um, so that works.

G & C:We were probably the two, I guess the only two people looking for a serious relationship on Tinder. I don’t, I don’t know. I guess people don’t really use it for that, but it 

was a very unlikely meeting. Yeah. And at the time we lived in her carriage house, which was an old 1800s brick carriage house in the middle of old town, Alexandria.

KM: Well, that sounds pretty nice actually. That’s cool. 

G: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely wanted to stay. 

C: Yeah. I mean, the unfortunate part about that, it was, it was part of a condo. So they had like rent, they had changed them and moved them over into a condo. And it’s just nice to have your own place, like without a condo association, just as a sidebar.

KM: That is true. Yeah. So then you ended up somehow in that 186 square foot apartment. 

G: Yup. Yup. And, by that time we had started on this project and it was really just trying to save money and be efficient so that we could maximize what we could put into this project, the log cabin renovation. Well, so we moved out of the carriage house in February, 2016, and Christina was just kinda like let’s just chill out. Let’s not do a whole lot. Instead of not doing anything, I just obsessively searched for properties in a three hour radius to try and find something affordable that was also something that we could renovate. And I was really actually more interested in land, you know, I’m trying to get us into regenerative farming stuff on a very small scale and just do livestock and vegetables and fruit and orcharding and stuff like that.

G: That was kind of more of the focus when we started this project and I just came across, I searched thousands of properties and I just came across this one and was like, hey, this is, I think, suitably crappy enough for you to want to renovate. It’s got all the land requirements that I have and oh, look, I think it might be a log cabin.

G: And that’s just kind of something that we fell into. 

C: Yeah. So we came out here and it was in really, really bad condition, really bad. I mean, it smelled like urine. So I mean, that’s kind of like the, it had been rented, but I think, you know, 

KM: Because I saw photos. I mean, there’s light coming through the walls.

C: It’s stuff that we did, but yeah, they had rented it, but I don’t think it’d been rented for a while. I don’t know if things are squatting in it obviously, like there were a lot of live animals and we came and took over ownership of it. But, yeah, we saw it and we purchased it that day that we saw it.

C: So even now looking back at the pictures, we are surprised that we bought it. 

KM: What’s the history of the place- it was built in the 1700s, right? 

G & C: Yeah. So we traced it back. It was built around 1780 or so. It started out as a tobacco barn for like the largest parcel of land on this, on this edge of the County. And then I guess we think that sometime after the Civil War, it was repurposed. They took out the tobacco rafters and put in actual home rafters for a sleeping loft and added a half story to it. So you can see like the logs on the bottom are all old chestnut and the logs at the top are very much less crafts, craftsmanship that wins are those. Like you can see that it was definitely done by different people, have different notches, it’s different, different wood types. And then in 1891, a couple moved in and started a family and they raised 10 children in the cabin with only the sleeping loft.

KM:  Okay. So that’s interesting that they ended up having 10 children given those circumstances, right? 

G: Yeah. 

KM: How big is your house? ‘Cause it doesn’t, it looks like it has a sleeping loft. It doesn’t look very big from the photos I’ve seen. 

G: Yeah. Including the addition that’s on the back now that was added in the 1980s, it’s about 800 square feet. So the cabin part alone is like 550 – 600 square feet. 

KM: Can you imagine?

G: When you started at 186 square feet and move into this, it’s like a palace.

KM: Well, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the 10 kids in that, in that space. 

C: Yeah. So, we talked to a lot of the remaining family of that family, and they were talking about, you know, remembering their dad, like walking over here to like come sleep on the floor because he just enjoyed being at the house. But yeah, I think they mostly just slept on the floor. It was a pile of people upstairs or even downstairs. And it would be like a woodstove. They had no running water, they had no heat, they had no AC. So it was just, you know, kind of bare bones. 

KM: Yeah. And you’re in Virginia, right? 

C: Yep. In Virginia.

KM: So, forgive my ignorance. I’m in Massachusetts where, you know, we have a lot of snow and it’s very hot in the summer, but what’s it like in Virginia? I kind of get the impression that it’s  at least hot in the summer, but it doesn’t snow as much. 

G: Yep. You got that, right? Yeah. 

C: So I went to school in Boston. It’s like the same weather. We have hot and humid summers, really humid, sticky summers, and then the winters aren’t as bad. So, we would like to have more snow, but they’re cold, but we don’t really get too, too much snow. Even being up on the mountain, here.

G: You get cold snaps down into the teens and twenties, but on the whole you’re living at, you know, in the forties during the winter time, forties, fifties.

KM: That sounds pretty nice.

KM: Okay. So you have heat now. 

C: We have a wood stove, but we also put in heat and AC. We put in the mini-splits, which has been really great. So those have been working. Perfect. 

G: Yeah. 

KM: Okay. So you got there and then you didn’t live there full time for a while. 

C: No. I mean, like you said, you saw pictures. There were no walls for a long time. So we had worked with a contractor in the very beginning. There were some logs that needed to be replaced and like heavy machinery needed to be used to do that. And so we were working with him for a couple of months. Probably almost like six months. Right? And it reached a point where we felt like we weren’t getting good value for the money that we were putting in. And, so, we decided to take on the project ourselves, even though we had never DIY’ed a log cabin renovation before, I don’t think a lot of people have.

KM: And not many people probably have that are alive, right now.

C: Yeah. Yeah. And so, we took on the project, and then we had been just doing it on weekends and like holidays and vacations, since 2017, 

G: Fall, 2017, then we moved in here last March because of the pandemic. And despite the fact that we didn’t have a kitchen, so it was kind of like one hot plate, an Instapot and a toaster, for that period. But we’ve been finishing, working on it since then. And we’ve got it just about done.

KM: And now you have a sweet induction stove. It looks like.

G & C: Yeah. 

KM: So that was worth the time with a hot plate. 

C: Yeah. Yeah, no, induction is good. I mean, a lot of people use propane out here and we just didn’t want to get the tank and do all that stuff. So..

KM: Yeah. I mean, why, why do that? I was watching your Christmas video last night. We had the probe that attaches to the stove and you can actually just program it to be the right temperature on the inside of the roast. That is amazing. 

G: It shuts off when it’s done, like when it reaches temperature, just shuts the oven off. It’s amazing. 

KM: That is amazing. I’ve been trying to convince my husband to buy one of those for a while. And, we watched your video and I think he was impressed by it.

C: Oh, good. Yeah. So the technology is really great. Now we’re very happy with it. 

KM: You have done a little more work on the kitchen since Christmas, it looks like. 

G: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of like a mad scramble we had, we had Tadhg on the way and when we were planning, finishing the renovation, we were planning on her being able to work during the second trimester of the pregnancy.

G: And that just didn’t work out. She just felt terrible. She developed carpal tunnel, so she couldn’t really use her hands. And so it was just really kind of up to me. So it definitely, we got a lot closer to the birth and we really wanted to, but yeah, we were able to finish the walls and paint and all the finishings and stuff at the time.

C: There’s just like a little bit of trim work left to do, but like that’s about it. Yeah. Yeah. It was really disappointing. I mean, it’s great. It was great to be pregnant. Well, I guess not during a pandemic, but it was great to be pregnant, but then it was so disappointing because I, you know, here we were at the end of the project almost, and I wanted to help finish it and I just really, really couldn’t but, Gabe took care of it.

C: You did a great job. 

KM: Yeah. Well, you never know what’s going to happen when you’re pregnant because your body just. 

C: Yeah. 

KM: You know, you just, you’re making a human, so sometimes things go awry. But, so I know that you’ve shared this on your videos, but if, if you had it to do over again, would you buy a log cabin?

KM: Did you buy it for the, for the land or was it because of the romantic nature of the antique log cabin or 

G: We bought it for the land. We bought it for the land and we fell in love with the house. You know, particularly lwe really liked the idea of honoring the local history in this area as kind of like a part of a unique American history. And that part just became fascinating. And as we got to restoring it, you know, we’re not doing recreation. We’re not trying to recreate how it was in the 1780’s when this was originally built or even the 1800’s. We’re just trying to restore the log structure back to its original state and then live like modern people on the inside.

C: Yeah. It’s amazing I think to live in a structure that is hundreds of years old, that was, you know, hand hewn, that was created by the pioneers that first came to this country. It’s just, and it’s amazing how well preserved it is, and how they, they put it up and they built it to shelter their, you know, family of 10 or whatever, or their animals in the beginning or they hang their tobacco and now like our family is living in it. So it’s kind of a cool, you know, passage of time. And hopefully this house will be here, you know, a hundred years later, like after we’re gone, which is just such a, you just can’t say that about every house in America.

C: I mean, Yeah, some houses are built and like, they’re just not going to be here maybe even 50 years from now. So, yeah, it’s really great to be, I think, a part of this history and, yeah, I mean, I think Gabe is, right, we just fell in love with this house and I don’t, I don’t know. I, you know, some POS is like, will you sell it to us? Like, wait, do you want to sell it? No. 

G: So, so like the house, actually, it seems to have this kind of energy to it that just sucks people in, we see people kind of get like, kind of crazy eyes sometimes. Like they’re like, they’re like, okay, you know, this is really, this would be really great. And like, like our contractor we started with, he was like, he was like, started just like, he fell in love with the house and started executing his vision for that house.

C: It was very strange.

G: What are you doing? And, you know, everybody that worked on the house, it’s just kind of like falling in love with it, everybody, you know, people that come to visit or just like, you know, very drawn in. So it’s a very, seems like, kind of like a unique structure, but it definitely, it definitely drew us in, yeah, it has its own charm.

KM: And they try to get you to sell it to them?

G: So, like  in this area of rural central Virginia, there are maybe a dozen old families that are very much original. That were originally settled here, that are still here. And so the eldest of the oldest family dropped by for a visit and, you know, I invited him to come talk to my wife.

She’d be really interested to hear what he had to say. And he, he, in fact, he said that he wasn’t going to socialize with implants, he called them, people that come to the area to stay. But he did want first refusal if we ever sold the house and he wanted us to sell it soon, he was making clear that, hey, let’s not sell this in the next year or two.

KM: You’re leaving like, in a year?

C: Yeah. After all this time and effort we put in.

G: Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty funny. 

KM: Well, and then what happened? Meaning, did you give him first right of refusal?

G: I mean, we are never selling this house.

C: Yeah. Right now, I mean, we have no plans to sell. I can’t even imagine selling it just because of the, I mean, the amount of time that we’ve put in. If you’ve watched any of our videos on YouTube, I mean the plaster alone, like hand plastering the entire loft ceiling. I mean, the hours that it took.

G: Four and a half months.

KM: Man, man, that is a labor of love. Right? Well, is it kind of. I don’t know if you’re allowed to really say this in a semi-public forum, but is it kind of scary to know that the people who live there aren’t interested in transplants and kind of want you to leave soon?

G: It’s not everybody. Um, I think it’s just like any other place. 

KM: Yeah. Well, believe me, my town is like that too. 

G & C: Yeah. 

G: I mean, we think of, we think of the DC area in general, you can say that people there are more rude. Then other places or, you know, there’s not as much community there as maybe some other places, but like anywhere else, you’re going to find good people if you, if you look for them, and it’s like here too. I mean, some people don’t want the change that’s happening to this area that has very much increased to a kind of a rapid pace in the last 20 years. They just don’t want the change to happen so much. And I think that’s really more of the focus here.

G: And I think that we’ve actually won some people over simply by, you know, hiring local people to do any of the work that we hire out. And just by restoring this place to its original. You know, we didn’t tear down the house and build a McMansion. We actually, I took a lot of time and effort to restore it back to its original status as a log cabin.

KM: What’s the neighborhood, like if it’s a neighborhood? I kind of imagine you out in the middle of the lone, in the landscape, but are, is it actually a neighborhood where there are McMansions nearby that you can see when you’re out? For a walk, let’s say.

C: I mean, Oh no. I mean, it’s definitely very rural, although we do have, you know, a neighbor behind us right up here and one, yeah, like up the hill here. So we’re on a little road that we have, a couple of people that are next to us, but, like the house up the hill was built by the same family so it is an older home. I mean the one behind us is again, and wasn’t built anytime recently, so it’s an older home. You know, we’re on really a main street, which is funny because a lot of people think we’re like way, way, way back in the woods. We’re in like a holler, so we have mountains around us on all sides, but we are off of a main road, which is great in its own way if you are someone who is buying rural. It’s like they are going to plow that road,so you’re going to be able to get out, if there is snow. We are like the first road to get the wifi, like the internet. So, they only got internet out here in 2019. Yeah, so it just happened. They had like satellite internet, but it was terrible. So we have, you know, the high speed internet now. So it, it is really nice, you know, if you’re trying to run a business out here or trying to just communicate with people or just like, even, you know, our cell phones don’t work here, so it’s nice to have internet so that we can use our cell phones over the internet. And now with me working from home, cause I work from home now. It’s just amazing to have that and be way out here in the mountains. So, we aren’t, we aren’t in the middle of totally nowhere. 

G: Yeah. But to answer your question. I mean, the people immediately around us are not building, they’re not knocking down houses and building McMansions. We’re kind of, we’re not, it’s not that it’s not the norm for outsiders to buy the properties in the immediate neighborhood that we are in. But I think that’s about the change, like with the, the unique pressures that are being put on the real estate markets in rural places right now. I mean, there is nothing here that you can buy now.

G: I mean, people were. You heard stories of people offering 20% over asking price sight unseen, for places out here, and I think that, you know, you’re going to see people with money moving in and probably knocking down some houses just because I’ve seen it in other places that I’ve lived before. 

C: Yeah. That’s probably true. 

G: And you can’t build a lot of new stuff. There’s a lot of regulation here. So people are going to take what’s existing and make it their vision. I think.

KM: Obviously you’re in a log cabin and I can see you, but other people can’t see you. So there’s logs. I’m going to hopefully have some photos in my episode enhancements, that’ll be on my website. Cause I can’t include photos in the show notes, but I can link to your YouTube videos of course, so people can see it and stuff. But, so there are logs that just, you, the surface of the log is there and then plaster in between. And obviously you spent a lot of time on the plaster and I watched a video where you were talking about not being able to hang art or other challenges, but what would you say are the best things and the least best things about living in a log cabin? And this is a real log cabin, so it’s not like the log cabins I’ve been to in West Virginia that are new log cabins.

C: Right? Yeah. Yeah. An antique one versus, 

KM: Right. Yeah. I mean an antique one. 

G: So, the things that were like, I think that the video that you’re saying about, you know, the inability to hang art and things like that, I think it was really interpreted by a lot of people that watched it as complaining and, you know, that was certainly not the case. I mean, there are pluses and minuses to living anywhere, but you know, the things that were kind of, you know, if you imagine you live in a major Metro metropolitan area, like DC, and then you move into, go from that. Like I rented apartments for decades before moving out here.

G: Right. So it was just nothing but drywall and, and parquet floors and, and, and carpeting and all that stuff, which is just different. 

KM: Right. 

G: But when you move out here and all of a sudden you’re surrounded, you’ve got animals that are trying to come inside. You’ve got, you know, it’s not entirely airtight, there, there are, and we’ve been closing as many of these, these, you know, leaks as we can, but, you know, it’s still, there’s still gonna be a lot of the outside trying to get in all the time and it just takes, it, takes it. It’s just different. It just takes a little getting used to, but I’d say that that is kind of like something we’ve had to adapt to for sure. 

KM: The animals all trying to get in. I’m kind of envisioning them scheming. Scheming. Yeah. 

C: Yeah. I mean, if it’s not like the insects of the termites and the carpenter bees, cause that’s a real problem here. I mean, it’s like the rodents, so we have all different kinds of rodents. And then of course that attracts like all of the lovely snakes that we have in the area. So Mango, our cat, has been a huge help in that regard. And it’s not like they’re running amuck inside here, but it is again, a structure that they feel like is more welcoming, I think, than maybe your normal, kind of standard house.

C: Yeah. What about what you like about the house? 

G: There’s a lot of what we call friction involved in this house. Like there’s the friction on one hand of having to expend all this effort to make the house what we want it to be. But then like the, the walls are very textured. Like there’s a lot of interesting information that your brain is constantly taking in I think, at a subconscious level, it’s very interesting to be in these rooms and to, you know, you’re not necessarily appreciating the beauty all the time, but there is, there’s just so much texture. There’s plaster that’s, that’s, that’s, you know, hand done there. The logs themselves have lots of nooks and crannies.

G: The walls are not just flat pallets there, they curve in some places. And then sometimes they undulate a little bit, and it’s just a, it’s a very interesting, sensory, rich environment to be in. I think that’s, we find that very satisfying. 

KM: Hmm. Yeah. Even, even looking at you on the screen and seeing the white stripes, they kind of, I read them on a different scale, like mountains or landscapes, you know? So if you look at the different areas, then it’s like, that’s pretty cool. And then over there, they’re bigger mountains on the other side of the door. And yeah, so you don’t even really need art so much hanging on the walls because you are surrounded by, like you said, this textural interest that’s really a lot to take in anyway.

KM: Right?  And then when I was looking at the various photos, just the, the rhythm of the house is kind of intriguing to me. Like you have the exposed joist in, I think the room you’re in, I don’t know which room you’re in, but where you had the Christmas tree. Right. So there’s that, that rhythm. And then there’s the wall, you know, the ladder thing on the walls and then upstairs with our, it’s just like this relentless marching of these lines that are all not straight. 

G & C: Yes. 

KM: I can imagine being in there reading a book and getting into a different world, you know, and then stopping reading my book and then thinking like, oh, I forgot I lived in this place. Do you ever feel that way? Like, you’re surprised that you live there.

C: Yes. 

G: Yes. Especially now, I think that we’ve had to focus so much energy on actually finishing it and having a hard deadline of, you know, of the birth of your child coming up. It’s kind of this little bit of pressure on things, but yeah. You know, now that we’re back and I don’t have to work on the house all the time, like it’s been, it’s been really nice to just sit and enjoy the wood stoves and read a book and yeah, you’re right. Like when you transport yourself to another world in a book and then you come back to yourself and then you’re sitting with this woodstove in the middle of a log cabin. Sitting on the side of a mountain. I mean, it’s pretty cool. 

KM: Yeah, that is pretty cool. So, how’s the farm coming along or is that the next project?

G & C: We have so many ideas.

G: We’re kind of an idea overload at the moment and we’re, we’re trying to, our next focus is to situate an out building on the property somewhere, we’ve been, we’ve gone by, it’s like switched locations. It’s like two or three times just in the last couple of weeks, but you know, I think it’s coming into focus just like in general, like where on the property we’re gonna really focus our garden, you know, where are we going to build our greenhouse?

G: I think that’s starting to come to focus, but we actually have, we’re using a very, very small portion of the actual land that we have and a lot of it is, you know, woods and forest. So we’re going to be doing a little bit more clearing as we go and then clear and establish and then clear and established and clear and establish.

C:Yeah. 

G: And just see what we got. But, you know, there’s going to be, I think, a pretty heavy permaculture influence on whatever it is that we end up doing. You know, there’ll be some annuals, but then there will also be some perennials. It’s definitely, living out here now is definitely different than you’d probably even 10 years ago.

G: Right. Cause I mean, you know, we can get Amazon, it might take three days instead of two days, but like, that’s incredible that you can get anything you want delivered to you, in your house within a couple of days, you know, I might have to drive a little bit further for grocery stores, but I mean, there’s a Harris Teeter 25 minutes away, there’s a whole foods that’s 45 minutes away in Charlottesville. You know, it’s, we’re, we’re, we’re isolated, but we’re not cut off. You know, it, it, we can, you know, we’ve been zooming, you know, with, with family members, you know, or FaceTiming with family members and, you know, you can really kind of stay as connected as you’d like to stay, I think.

KM: That’s pretty awesome. Well, any final words of advice to people? Are you going to be writing a book? Or obviously you already have your own TV show.

C: We probably should. I don’t know. I mean, I think this is probably so far like the greatest adventure of our whole lives, and now we have our son, so that’s probably going to be like another, another chapter.

C: But yeah, it’s not for the faint-hearted, I mean, like, it’s definitely like, we’re happy now and it looks great now, but you know, like with any renovation, like there were definitely tough times. It was very, very labor intensive. You have to really feel a certain passion, I think, to keep going. ‘Cause it’s very easy to, it would have been easy to abandon a project like this. I think if you just, you know, because you become so overwhelmed. I mean, there were times where we were just camping outside and like birds were flying into the house.

C: I mean, like those are low times. So I think that, yeah, it’s, you know, log cabins are not, are not easy. I know they do all those log cabin renovation shows now and they make it look so easy, so easy or so fun. And I would say that it was fun and, or it is fun still cause we were living in it. But, it definitely, yeah, I, I know that our account has, you know, inspired some people to buy a log home and it’s inspired some people to never do a project like this. And I think that’s, that’s right. That’s like where we want to be, showing, you know, as much as possible because, you know, the reality is that it is  a lot of hard work when you, when you work with an older home and this is a really, really the old home. 

G: But also, like, I think our overall philosophy is that it is good to challenge yourself to take on voluntary hardship. Involuntary hardship is not, not that great, but like the voluntary hardship that you can take on and just get yourself to grow by sometimes over challenging yourself a little bit, I think is, is a very rewarding pursuit in a project like this will definitely, you know, be able to give you that kind of rewarding experience.

KM: Yeah, no, it would. So what would be  easier than buying a log cabin and fixing it up involuntary hardship. Like living in a really small space with someone else? 

C: So I think that was like, our first thing is, is, is we, you know, I was pursuing like minimalism and I wanted to live in a small space just because just to challenge yourself, just to see if you could, and then we moved from 500 to 260 square feet and we still could do that. So like, you know, why not something smaller? Right.  And we were very successful living at 186 square feet. I don’t know if we could do that with a baby. I don’t know if we could do that with a pandemic, like full-time at home just like staring at each other in one room. That would be very hard. 

KM: Yeah.

C: But you know, when things were normal, or when they get back to normal, like it is easy to kind of pare down your things and live in a smaller space. It is a fun challenge to take on. So I definitely would recommend that too. I think that was definitely worthwhile and it really makes you appreciate space and it makes you appreciate, you know, what you have.

KM: That’s true. 

C: And, you know, especially when you’re doing DIY, I think I said this in one of our videos once, but it’s like, you, you have to start using your other hand, like whatever your non-dominant hand is. Cause like your dominant hand is just going to get too tired and you have to keep going. So it’s like that too in itself is like practicing, just doing things. Like making it a little bit harder because in the end it will be easier. 

KM: Yeah. That would be a challenge too. How do people find you on Instagram? 

G: Yeah, you can find us on Instagram @bellwetherfields. You can find us on YouTube at the same name, bellwetherfields. We post automatically to Facebook, but we don’t really, you know, we don’t have the energy to really manage so many social media sites.

G: You know, we’re trying to minimize our social media to surgery anyway, but yeah, Instagram, YouTube, definitely two good places to find us. 

KM: How’d you come up with bellwetherfields name? Is that the going to be the name of your farm? 

C: Yep. And so a bellwether, it’s B E L L W E T H E R, so that’s a sheep that is basically the sheep that wears the bell and leads all the other sheep to the next field.

And, Fields is the family that we purchased the house from. So just to honor that family, you know, we included it in the name. So, eventually we do want to have sheep on this property. And so we will have a bellwether sheep wearing a little bell and leading the other sheep around.

KM: That’s awesome. Yeah. So you’ll have to get a sheep dog too. 

C: Yeah, no, that would be great. Yeah. We would love to have a dog. So, so many, so many things to come.

KM: Yeah. You could also, do you knit? I mean, you can learn to knit, so you could also process their wool and the knit stuff and have a whole merch, you know? Yeah. 

G: Empire

C: We definitely could!

KM: You could, well, anyway, I’m excited for you cause it seems like that would be an awesome life there.

G & C:Thank you so much.