My Cabin - Eastern Ontario - Small Cabin Forum (1)

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# Posted: 22 Sep 2014 16:40
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Hi

Long time lurker. First time poster. I have been using this site as help/motivation to help fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a small cabin getaway in the woods. I've wanted to do this since I was 11 or 12 years old. We purchased a small piece of land (Half acre, but on a beautiful creek and surrounded by crown land) about 45 minutes outside of Bancroft about 2 1/2 years ago and I have been biding my time.

Finally, this summer, while planning a canoe trip (and realizing how damned expensive it was going to be) I decided to go for it. I took the money allotted to our trip and decided to plan and build a cabin on my property. I had spent the previous two years debating about what type of structure I wanted to build anyways, so I knew that a small cabin was what I wanted. I had researched Yurts (and in fact have a friend here in Ontario who lives in one year round!), tiny homes on trailers, shipping containers, straw bail structures, and everything you can imagine. I kept coming back to my simple cabin in the woods. Then began the fun part.... I have little to no experience with building.

After many sleepless nights stressing about materials (scouring Kijiji and Restore), construction principles (up at night learning on youtube how to properly cut a birdsmouth, lay down tin roof, framing codes and everything else) and I was ready to begin. I had drawn up framing plans and decided on an 8x12 structure with a mono slope roof (12 feet in the front of building and 8 feet at the back) and a loft hung inside at about 7 feet. I purchased windows from Kijiji and had the rest of my basic materials picked out from Home Depot. I decided to build the 8x12 decking for the structure with 2x8 PT wood and used 4x4 PT wood posts at 8 points on deck blocks that were set on gravel that was dug about 18 inches down into the hill.

We framed all of the decking, walls and the loft structure (everything but the roof) in Peterborough the weekend before we decided to actually build. The weekend came and we loaded a trailer with our framed pieces and all the extra lumber needed and went up to the property. Friday was spent digging our post holes and setting and levelling the decking, as well as attaching diamond lathe to the bottom of the floor to prevent mice and other creatures from living down in the floor insulation. The next day we put all the walls up, hung the loft and sheathed the outside. Day after that I had to do the roof. We measured and cut all of our birds-mouths, laid them up there and framed, sheathed and tar papered the roof. The weekend ended with sealing up the place with house wrap and tarping the roof.

A few days throughout the summer were also spent on construction thus far, and that was putting the tin roof on, installing windows and door, as well as hand bending our flashing into soffit and fascia (I DO NOT RECOMMEND doing this yourself as it can look terrible). I will be redoing my soffit and fascia next spring, but for now it is sealed at least.

I have had the house wrap exposed for about 8 weeks now and no leaks or anything, but I am now ready to do my siding (I need 400 sq feet essentially, so have to purchase about 450 sq ft). I know there are some mills and lumber yards around the Bancroft area. Does anyone have any suggestions on type of wood (cost is an issue as I don't want to spend more than about $500 on siding)? types of siding? vertical vs horizontal? And does anyone have places in my region that you would recommend using?

Any help would be appreciated immensely. As a first timer doing this I love getting to see this dream come alive, as well as being able to learn so much along the way.

Cheers

some of my land

view down to creek

decking

walls up