"Possibly the most beautiful cabins of all had walls of yellow poplar, or tulip poplar as it is often called. This tree grows widely in the woods of the Southeast and Middle Atlantic states. Poplar rots quickly when damp, so cabins made of it always had sills of some durable wood, but as wall logs seasoned poplar lasts for centuries." The Log Cabin: Homes of the North American Wilderness (1978, page 37)

For many years I had wanted to build a small log cabin. Nothing fancy, just a small single room cabin that could be used for a weekend getaway. Unfortunately, when I added this to my bucket list in the early 2000's, I was living suburban life. Until I could afford to buy some property, this seemed to be a distant dream. In the beginning of 2019, I was fortunate enough to find an 11 acre parcel of wooded land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northwestern North Carolina.

Getting to Know What I Have

I have never been good at identifying dormant trees, but once the leaves developed in the spring, I was able to better inventory the various tree species on the property. I had Sugar Maple, Beech, Shagbark Hickory, Black Cherry, Buckeye, Red Oak, Yellow Birch, Sycamore, Black Locust, Ironwood, Red Pine, and Tulip or Yellow Poplar. Of all the trees, the tulip poplars were both tall and straight, with many of them having “log cabin” sized trunks that I could manage, and in more abundance than any other single tree species on the property. The name “poplar” however caused me to dismiss them off hand. I wasn’t familiar with the tulip poplar, and the name “poplar” caused me to automatically associate them with the cottonwood tree that I was all so familiar with in Michigan (often called “poplar”,) which were just about worthless trees. Some quick queries on the tulip/yellow poplar indicated that its wood probably wasn’t a good choice for outdoor projects.

Deciding on Tulip Poplar / Yellow Poplar / Tuliptree

It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that I revisited the log cabin idea, and decided to do a little more research on the tulip poplar. Initially, I didn’t come across too many sources regarding this tree in log cabin builds, outside of a few historical snippets mentioning the tree’s use for cabins among early American settlers. I then happened on a short post by Noah Bradley of Handmade Houses about the tulip poplar in cabin building, which seemed to indicate this was actually a viable option for me.

Having come up with a really rough plan, I decided to send Noah a message, laying out my plan, and I was hoping that maybe if he had time, he might give me a “sounds like a good plan” or “that’s a bad idea” response. To my surprise a week or so later, I received a response, and it wasn’t just a simple response like I was expecting, rather, Noah actually took the time to produce a video response for his YouTube channel, called “Bushcraft on Steroids”, directly addressing all points of my email, which was very helpful and inspiring. See the video below:

Further Research

Of course before diving in, it is always a wise thing to do as much research as possible. A couple of books that I picked up:

The Log Cabin: Homes of the North American Wilderness (1978)
The Classic Hewn-Log House: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building and Restoring (2014)

More Updates to Come!

I plan to update this page as often as I have something worth writing about on this big effort, so check back often!