When carpenter Spike Carlsen and his wife set out with their recently blended family of five kids to build a cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior, they quickly realized that painting, parenting, and putting up drywall all come with both frustrations and unexpected rewards. Part building guide and part memoir, Cabin Lessons tells the wryly funny, heartwarming story of their eventful journey - from buying an unforgiving plot of land on an eroding cliff to (finally) enjoying the lakeside hideaway of their dreams. A funny, wry, and heartwarming story of one family's adventures building a cabin getaway on the shore of Lake Superior. Spike Carlsen built a tree house at the age of 8 and has been swinging a hammer ever since. He worked as a carpenter and contractor for 15 years, then as an editor with The Family Handyman - the world's leading DIY magazine - for another 15. He's the author of the award-winning A Splintered History of Wood, Woodworking FAQ, and The Backyard Homestead of Building Projects. He's written for Men's Health, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, American Woodworker, and other publications and has appeared on HGTV, Modern Marvels, and CBS's The Early Show. He and his wife, Kat, divide their time between their home in Stillwater, Minnesota, and their cabin on Lake Superior. This entertaining memoir of a do-it-yourself adventure traces a couple's steps and missteps as they plunge headlong into the building of their dream cabin. Through every stage of the journey -- from finding land to drawing up plans, framing the structure, putting up drywall, and applying the final coats of paint -- the couple's blended family of seven must learn to work together and compromise. With generous honest and wry humor, Spike Carlsen shares the heartaches, challenges, and, finally, the immense satisfactions of building a home away from home where all family members feel welcome, essential, and free to be themselves. Introduction Chapter 1: Wanted: Difficult Piece of Land If you can't find a perfect piece of land, buy an imperfect piece and make it perfect. Chapter 2: Designing Small You can't buy happiness by the square foot. Chapter 3: The Rules When you build, build with hands, head, and heart. Chapter 4: Paperwork & Earthworks Mensch tracht, Gott lacht. (Man plans, God laughs.) Chapter 5: A Solid Foundation When you dig a hole, be smarter than the shovel. Chapter 6: Kat--Wife, Lifesaver, Carpenter When you marry, you marry the whole person -- not just the parts above the waterline. You get both the silk sails and the barnacles. Chapter 7: Cabin Bones Destiny can thrown down a pretty sparse trail of popcorn for you to follow. Chapter 8: The Drive If all the difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all. Chapter 9: Buying Cabin Parts Keep an open mind -- you never know what might crawl in. Chapter 10: Skin of the Cabin & Middle-Age Blahs Beauty is only plywood deep. Chapter 11: A Superior Lake (Some Superior Towns) When you get caught with your pants down, run like hell. Chapter 12: Wood, Wire, Pipe, & Drywall The quandary with life is you're halfway through before you realize it's a do-it-yourself project. Chapter 13: Family Matters Life is a fluid, not a solid. It changes. Be ready for it. Chapter 14: Finishing Touches When it's ninety percent finished, it's finished. Chapter 15: Troubles in Paradise Mistakes are the dues you pay for living a full life. Chapter 16: Settling In, Grooving Out There's more to life than increasing its speed. Afterword For Further Reading "An uplifting tale of hoisting studs, [this] two-year odyssey of cabin construction weaves carpentry ski

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