Building a historical tiny house from Laura Ingalls Wilder books

I am building a sleepout that can be a maximum of 100 square ft (10 square metres) an under 3m high without building consent, and I am interested in it reflecting the building style of the sawn board houses in Dakota (with some hidden insulation batts).

There are many references to building, but in particular on p.64 of The Long Winter Pa says "Our store building in town is boarded and papered, sided on the outside and ceiled on the inside.  It's goodcand tight and warm"

Does anyone know how to translate this into modern building terms of where I would get a description of this building process.  I am in New Zealand where stud walls with horizontal weather board outside, steel roofs and plasterboard walls and ceiling inside is the norm.  The inside then used to usually have wall paper when I was growing up, but paint is now the norm.

I am guessing this is wide vertical planks outside with thin vertical planks on top along the crack.  What about on the inside walls and the roof?

I would make it a sloped half house like the first part of the shanty house in "By the shores of Silver lake", and make it 2 x5m with a loftbed on each side and the ladder rungs  on the wall like in "On the banks of plum Creek".

Any other ideas?  

I will give this a go, just based on my limited knowledge of building my own house and seeing old structures years ago when I lived in Michigan.

Annie Hope wrote:
There are many references to building, but in particular on p.64 of The Long Winter Pa says "Our store building in town is boarded and papered, sided on the outside and ceiled on the inside.  It's goodcand tight and warm"

Does anyone know how to translate this into modern building terms of where I would get a description of this building process.  I am in New Zealand where stud walls with horizontal weather board outside, steel roofs and plasterboard walls and ceiling inside is the norm.  The inside then used to usually have wall paper when I was growing up, but paint is now the norm.

I am guessing this is wide vertical planks outside with thin vertical planks on top along the crack.  What about on the inside walls and the roof?

I would make it a sloped half house like the first part of the shanty house in "By the shores of Silver lake", and make it 2 x5m with a loftbed on each side and the ladder rungs  on the wall like in "On the banks of plum Creek".

Any other ideas?  

Boarded and papered, I think this means the main structure was probably a log type house and then a tar paper was nailed outside to block the wind and act as a vapor barrier.  Similar to the Tyvek house wrap they sell today the paper would stop the air movement and allow the warm air to stay inside and help keep most of the cold wind outside.  Then for the siding they would butt the cut edges of the lumber planks edge to edge on the outside to protect the tarred paper and give th house a finished look.

A quick search for "wood plank house construction" found this picture....
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/old-ruined-wooden-logs-plank-residential-building-broken-wall-glasses-picture-id588382060

Maybe someone else has more knowledge but this is similar to what I have seen in houses that are now 100 years old, or older.

Wow, that seems like a lot of wood and a lot of work.

It would be constructed from sawn lumber much as today. Most structures would have had unfinished framing on the interior due to cost. I would guess that board and papered would refer to enclosing the wall framing on the inside(plastering not widespread or available in the area) and then filled with shredded newspaper for insulation. Typical horizontal siding fits that type of framing...board and batten is for pole structures with purlens making the horizontal spans.

Here is a 16-page pdf on frontier housing from the state of North Dakota that might help.

https://www.history.nd.gov/publications/frontier-housing.pdf

Annie Hope wrote:
There are many references to building, but in particular on p.64 of The Long Winter Pa says "Our store building in town is boarded and papered, sided on the outside and ceiled on the inside.  It's goodcand tight and warm"

Does anyone know how to translate this into modern building terms of where I would get a description of this building process.

"boarded and papered" would probably refer to tar paper or newspaper. Tar paper is usually put on a layer of wood then another layer of exterior wood over it. I helps make a layer that will help moisture not get past the exterior layer. News paper was used a lot in the old times as insulation in the walls. I have seen it when remodeling old homes, it is really cool to read old papers from 70-100 years ago !

"ceiled" could refer to anything on the ceiling usually wood slats. If it was plaster I would think they would do the walls also.

I would figure out where and when it was built and look for a historical organizations that might have preserved some similar structures and might have pictures of them. You could also call them usually people love to share their hobbies and interests.

I wonder if the photo listed , is actually an attempt in the day to modernise the log building.
Often later generations feel the need to modernise things.
Could that photo be an example?

Thanks for your your replies.

There are five houses mentioned in the Children's versions of the books:  the first two are logs - a log cabin already standing, a log cabin they build in Indian Territory, the other three are built with "bought sawn" lumber.  In Plum creek it had a loft, (I think the film was based on this house) and in De Smit a town store and house with a second story, and the homestead claim / homestead that was all on one level, and built in three stages.  This last one is what I am trying to replicate.  I have found a bit more about these in the following places:

http://www.pioneergirl.com/blog/archives/6902  This gives the dimensions of the buildings, but has no contact.  

http://davidshome.com/SouthDakota/Travelers04.htm  This has lots of tantalising pictures including a replica of the half house shanty they built themselves.  Unfortunately they have not updated since 2015, and an email to them came back undeliverable.


https://www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-agricultural-heritage-museum/south-dakota-claim-shanty  This is some information on shanty claims in general, and the one at the top looks like the first pictures of the "half house" shanty in the book.  

https://pottedfrog.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/laura-ingalls-wilder-homestead-desmet-sd-my-world-tuesday/  This has more pictures of the inside of the current building for tourists.

The current homestead people visit, and sketches in later of Wilders book of the homestead show horizontal weather board.   Pa talks about tar paper on the house being blown off the roof in a blizzard although well boarded on, and one old photo showed a shack wrapped in tar paper and held on with a mishmash of thin boards.  

These may give someone an idea of the name for the style of building I am trying to replicate.  Also maybe a tiny house plan I could take and adapt in this style.


I have also learnt that under new laws I can build up to 30m2 without consent provided it is "light" building material, one level, and of no  more than 20kg per Square metre wall or roof - e.g. not brick or cement etc. and no electricity, sewerage or potable water.