Evelyn Ford planned to lay red bricks on the outside of the cabin and then coat them with cement to prevent rain and snowmelt from seeping in. The cabin's foundation also needed to be raised significantly higher than the surrounding ground. A higher foundation would be more moisture-proof.
After she finished sawing the wood, Evelyn began digging the foundation. She planned a footprint of twenty-five square meters, with the cabin's interior to include a small bedroom, a small kitchen, and a simple washroom.
Digging the foundation trenches alone took a full day and a half. She laid a flat layer of gravel in the trenches, then stood the fir logs upright in holes at each corner to serve as posts. She had already chiseled notches into these posts. Between every two posts, she stacked fir logs horizontally, fitting them snugly into the notches. She continued this interlocking pattern, stacking the logs higher and higher.
