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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 20 May 2018 12:43am - Edited by: Great Outdoors
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Well, we are finally going to build a small cabin on our 88 acre wooded lot. The Two acres of road frontage are open and I plan on building inside the edge of the wood line. I have wanted a cabin forever and finally decided now was the time as we are not getting any younger. I have been working on clearing the lot the last week or so and the guy digging the basement dropped off the excavator yesterday with the intention of starting to dig on Monday. It is on a slope with ledge here and there so who knows how that is going to go. It is going to be 24 x 26 with a full loft and hopefully a walkout basement. I designed the plans myself and had a lot of fun doing it. There were multiple changes along the way but in the end I think I made the most of my limited available space. The goal was to have a decent size living/kitchen area with a nice stone veneer high efficiency fireplace as the focal point. The cabin will have an 8 x 26 covered porch on the front made out of 8 and 10 inch douglas fir. The roof is going to be a 12/12 pitch standing seam. It will be a long process as I plan on doing most of the work myself. I will have help with the framing and hopefully some siding, the roof and foundation will be contracted out. I will post pictures of the plans and progress as I have time. Wish me luck!!
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 20 May 2018 09:19am
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Here are a few pictures of the site after I cleared the trees.
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lburners
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# Posted: 22 May 2018 08:21am
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Good luck. Im up here in the Green Mountains as well. Look forward to some updates.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 26 May 2018 03:50pm
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Well we didn't hit any ledge which I can't believe. The main hole is dug now we just have to decide how long the frost wall has to be for the walk out on the left end. It has been a long week with a lot of shuffling of dirt around, digging into a side hill is a pain.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 26 May 2018 03:58pm
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Close ups of the hole.
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Rys
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# Posted: 27 May 2018 03:37pm
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Looks like a good start!
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rockies
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# Posted: 27 May 2018 07:43pm - Edited by: rockies
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Uh-oh, here comes the architect.....
I like your plan. A few minor quibbles (and observations). What is the little room to the left of the front door?
You seem to be designing a very symmetrical cabin. The windows are evenly spaced on either side of the front door (which is the best method for creating a nice facade) but I would also consider making all the other openings symmetrical across their facades as well. The windows in the loft especially should be exactly centered under the ridge beam (they may be but your elevation shows differently).
I don't think you have enough depth between the front door and the bottom of the staircase. If you move the wall between that small front room and the bedroom back so that it's centered under the ridge beam you'll pull the staircase back just enough (and have the wall centered under the point load from the ridge beam too).
The bedroom door swing should be reversed to open up against the storage door under the stairs, and you'll save a lot of space if the 2nd exterior door on the right is an outswing rather than an inswing.
My last concern has to do with the height from the deck surface to the underside of the porch roof beam. It looks too low, and gives the cabin a bit of a "hangdog" look. You might consider raising the porch roof about 8-12 inches and adding skylights in front of the paired windows (a porch is one of the few places where the addition of a skylight doesn't result in a loss of indoor heat).
One further thing (and it's just an idea). If that small room is a mudroom you might consider switching the front door with the far left window so you come right in to the mudroom and then shift the small porch gable down to the end in front of the door. If that room is a bathroom then you can leave it the way it is.
All in all, an excellent plan.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 2 Jun 2018 07:06am
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Hello rockies and thank you for your input as it is appreciated.
The small room to the left of the front door will be the bathroom and that is a closet between it and the stairway.
I had to place one of the loft windows off center due to the fact that my stove pipe would have to pass in front of the window if it were centered ( the stove pipe really can't be moved due to my future plans for the high efficiency fireplace and hearth/wood storage). I may try to put a 22 degree in the pipe which would allow me to center it however.
In regards to the clearance between the front door and the stairway I will make certain there will be enough when it comes time to actually start the construction.
I will take your advice in regards to the bedroom door swing and will reverse it so that it opens up against the storage door under the stairs.
I plan on keeping both of the exterior doors outswings due to the large amount of snow and wind we get which could block the doors with snow drifts which would make entering and exiting difficult.
Your last concern regarding the height from the deck surface to the underside of the porch roof beam is spot on. My diagram is off as I will have 9 foot ceilings both on the first floor and the porch.
I will post some more pictures of the interior details when I get a chance. The basement hole is dug as well as the hole for the walkout frost wall. They should pour the foundation within a week or so.
Thanks again for your input!
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rockies
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# Posted: 2 Jun 2018 06:20pm - Edited by: rockies
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Hello. In further considering your plans I'm guessing that the kitchen counters will run along the upper right main room exterior wall (north?) and along the right (east) wall with a dining table and chairs in the open area between the two legs of the counters?
If so then the wall between the main room and the bedroom is kind of useless. You may put a piece of furniture up against it in the main room but you'd probably wind up blocking access to the fridge (?) in the upper left corner.
One trick would be to put a "jog" in that wall for a built-in dish and pantry storage. Measure out from the corner where the bedroom wall meets the exterior north wall about three feet and then jog the wall 12" into the bedroom and create space for built-in pantry/dish storage shelving. Take the built-in area almost up to the frame of the bedroom door (maybe 5').
The "jog" in the main room will also create a 12" deep jog in the bedroom (in the upper right corner) which can also be a built-in bookcase next to the bed (maybe 3' wide). Now you will have created a ton of extra storage space in a very narrow area.
For example, by adding a 1' deep built-in that is a total of 8' long (3' in the bedroom and 5' in the main room) a single shelf will provide 8 square feet of storage space. Multiply that be 7 shelves and you've created 56 sq' of storage along what was once a blank wall.
You may also consider adding some built-in drawers under the lower section of the stairs (where the headroom is too low to really access from the bedroom) that open out into the main room.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 12 Jun 2018 03:46am
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Thanks again for the comments and advice. Rockies, the future kitchen counter and cabinets will be alone the upper wall.
The wall to the right will have the high efficiency fireplace, wood storage, TV component storage and television.
The wall between the bedroom and main room will have some built in storage cabinets (most likely 1 foot deep like you suggested) and maybe a fold down shelf/counter.
I like the idea of built in drawers under the stairs but I purposely made a solid wall there to hang our deer, bear, and geese mounts on. Also there is a set of stairs leading down to the walkout basement under them so I don't think the drawers could work.
I have more pictures to add, some of which detail the interior better. I will try to post some more this week since the footings for the basement walls were poured yesterday and the walls will hopefully be poured today. Keep the comments and advice coming, it is appreciated as I am sure I am missing other things. Just yesterday my brother brought it to my attention that my main floor carrying beam would not have any support on one end due to the walkout... that caused a momentary panic.. A quick call to the material salesman and my dad resulted in flipping the carrying beam location and changing the floor joists from 2x10 to 2x12's to support the new longer span.. I am way over budget and probably won't get much done inside this year unfortunately.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 14 Jun 2018 12:20pm
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The walls are poured and hopefully we will start working on the drainage and backfilling everything next week.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 19 Jun 2018 11:05pm
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Well I got the walls tarred the other day, need to get the foam insulation board on the outside and then work on the drainage and backfill.. still need them to come pour the floor and I just got the call that my roof trusses will be delivered on the 27th and I am not even close to being ready for them. I will have a nice place leveled out to store them until I can get them up. Too much to do all at once which is what I was afraid would happen, wish me luck.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 28 Jun 2018 07:40am
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We finished up the drainage yesterday and worked on some backfilling.. I had planned on renting a 4000lb plate compactor to get the floor ready to be poured but it has been raining all night and today isn't looking much better. Hopefully that gets done tomorrow. The roof trusses didn't show up, hopefully they don't come today as my site is a muddy mess. It is supposed to be in the 90's into next week, once that breaks hopefully they come pour the floor so I can get started on the first floor deck.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 28 Jun 2018 07:46am
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Couple more of the walls after the forms were removed.
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vtbros
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# Posted: 29 Jun 2018 08:47am
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Good luck and hello from Vermont. That will,last for generations with the full basement. Looking forward to progress.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 30 Jun 2018 10:51pm - Edited by: Great Outdoors
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Thanks vtbros, We got the drainage in and we backfilled part way up the wall. Waiting for the floor to be poured but they don't really want to do it with the hot temps we are having right now. We may start on the first floor deck in the meantime.
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Rys
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# Posted: 1 Jul 2018 12:03pm
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We are also building into a hill. Good drainage is one of my concerns. We won't Realy know what we're dealing with until our basement is dug.
Looking foward to watching your progress!
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rockies
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# Posted: 1 Jul 2018 07:02pm
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I'm curious as to why you didn't use those ICF foam blocks for your concrete formwork? The insulation is on both sides of the poured concrete wall and then you wouldn't have to apply rigid foam to the exterior.
Also, what do you plan on using your basement for? If living space, you should lower the window sills to make the windows egress.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 2 Jul 2018 01:23am
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Rockies, I had thought about the ICF blocks but decided against it for cost purposes. I have a lot of things to do on a limited budget so I need to make sacrifices unfortunately. I plan on putting rigid foam on the basement wall interior as well later down the line. The basement will be used for storing the side by sides and other stuff. Thanks again everyone for the comments and suggestions. I didn't hear back from the concrete guy yesterday so I don't know the timeline for the floor yet. Rys, I was pretty concerned about drainage as well especially since we hit a water pocket which we initially thought was a spring. After the first couple days it reduced to a trickle and now basically nothing. We put a lot of stone along the walls, especially the back which also got two rows of drainage tile instead of one just to be safe so I think it should be good.
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rockies
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# Posted: 3 Jul 2018 07:30pm
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An article on basement insulation.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/how-insulate-basement-wall
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 4 Jul 2018 09:51pm
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So it looks like the basement floor will get poured either Saturday or Monday. I told them Saturday would be best as I would like to get started on the first floor Monday if my materials get delivered on Friday as planned. Thanks for the article rockies, lots of good information with other valuable links.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 11 Jul 2018 02:39am
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The floor was poured Monday despite the high temperature. I put water on it a few times throughout the afternoon to help cool it off. It looks good. We got the sill plate on, carrying beam in, as well as the box and managed to get about half of the floor joists in before it started to pour. We'll be back at it in the morning after I get done work.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 14 Jul 2018 07:32am - Edited by: Great Outdoors
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Walls are all up as of yesterday and we have a make shift catwalk down each wall to help aid in sliding the trusses from one end to the other. My cousin brought up his lift and welded up a hanger to hook onto the trusses and then we'll boom them up.. (that is the plan anyway) I asked the guy doing my excavating if he could leave the job he was working on for the day and bring me a couple loads of gravel and backfill some more around the foundation.. He was nice enough to oblige. The plan is to get the trusses up Monday and if it goes good maybe put up some sheathing.. Tuesday looks like a total washout so I doubt much will get done then.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 14 Jul 2018 09:44am
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Couple more...
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rockies
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# Posted: 14 Jul 2018 06:04pm - Edited by: rockies
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It's a bit past that point now, but how did you waterproof and insulate the exterior basement walls? All these articles contain excellent info.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/how-insulate-basement-wall
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/all-about-basements
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa-spotlight/how-finish-exterior-found ation-insulation
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/fixing-wet-basement
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 16 Jul 2018 09:10pm
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rockies, for now all I did was tar the outside exterior basement walls and put 2" insulation board on before backfilling. I will eventually insulate the inside walls when time and money allows.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 16 Jul 2018 09:26pm
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We got the trusses up today! It went pretty good with the lift. We ended up walking the trusses up to the lift and then lifting them into position. We started around 8:30 or so and had them all up by around 3:30. I had a great crew today, six family members showed up in addition to myself and my friend who is a carpenter. No major injuries and only some minor yelling, lol. I am very thankful for my family. Tomorrow looks like a wet day, my dad and I will probably just work on heading off the garage door and some minor things. I hope to have the roof sheathing, water proof membrane on the roof, end walls filled in with 2x6's, windows and doors in, and the gable trim up by the end of the week as I have the lift for the week if I want it... that may be a little ambitious but we'll see.
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 29 Jul 2018 09:45am - Edited by: Great Outdoors
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We made some good progress the week before last (gone away camping last week).. The goal this week is to finish closing it in, get the porch on (so the standing seam roof can go on), and maybe put in a few windows and a door. Next week we'll be gone so nothing will get done for awhile after this week. Here are a few more recent pictures.. I like the one of my two oldest worker bees, my dad and father-in-law.  
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Great Outdoors
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# Posted: 2 Aug 2018 11:14pm
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So far this week we have finished closing it in, built the porch floor including the cedar decking (stained it as well), put up the four 8x8 douglas fir posts and the 26 foot 10x10 fir carrying beam. We used the excavator to place the main porch beam on top of the four support posts which worked great. Hopefully tomorrow we will get the porch rafters built.. I really want the porch finished before this weekend but we'll see.
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lburners
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# Posted: 3 Aug 2018 09:22am
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You are making some serious progress. Do you have to fit in a 40hr work week in addition to this? Impressed by the speed you are getting this done.
Looking to do something on a way smaller scale on my lot. All I have managed to do is set up a tent a couple times.
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