This project began as an idea proposed by my then 21 year old son who over dinner one winter night said
You know dad we should build a small cabin on the lake this summer
It'd be a great place for guests to stay during hunting season, so they don't have to sleep in the barn
I knew this would be a rather large undertaking
Likely much more than a casual few weekends over the summer
But I threw caution and aged wisdom to the side and agreed to give it a go
Running electricity to the site would be very costly and challenging
The issue is the site's over a mile from the nearest road
The cabin would have to be off the grid which added a whole new dimension to the challenge of building the cabin
But once built it offered yet another challenge of living without electricity from the grid
Such begins this journey and it generally starts with an idea and culminates with a finished project
In order to begin you need a building site my case was about a mile off the road the only
Access to it was on a small little two-track
All my materials would have to come in and out on an ATV in a small trailer that gets pulled behind it
Next come your plans
my recommendation is that you put your measurements down on papers so that you have something to follow and most your
Calculations are done in advance
After that, I suggest that you actually cut out
Little cutouts of the parameters of your cabin put it down on paper as shown
So that you can get a relative feel for where your windows will go where your stove will go where your bunk in bed will
Go this will give you a good feel for how spacious and how everything fits
This shown here is not my actual finished plan that gives an idea of what it looked like as I went through this process
Next come your layout where you'll install your support posts that are going to support the entire structure. I
marked them out on the ground and then used a
PTO drive a tractor to drill these holes
Where I'm situated in northern, Michigan, we need about 48 inches below ground
So my holes had to be dug
Using my pulse driller that had to be finished using a hand
post hole digger
that was quite a bit of work, but once it was done he ended up with
everything exactly the way it was he didn't have to worry about frosty being in the winner's I
Should mention all the wood on this project was cut with a thirty-five hundred watt gasoline-powered
generator and
Most of the nailing was done with past load framing nailer, which I highly recommend
investment well-made
Here you might wonder why the posts in the front are so much called than the others
the reason is is those are actually gonna support the roof off of my front porch the
Other just support the floor on the structure of the cabin itself, but the longer posts are for the porch
The only significant mishap we had in the
Construction of the cabin was the jackknife of an ATV with a heavy trailer behind it going down a rather steep hill
This is what it looks like. Fortunately. No one was hurt and no equipment was seriously damaged in the process
Here you'll see the insulation of the floor you'll notice we use two different types of materials you might ask why
sometimes
Compromise is an easy way to settle disputes between those that are helping you on a project
Messiest part of the job for sure was crawling underneath the structure to install plywood to keep the insulation from falling through the floor
Thank You Craig for doing this
Time for the walls to go up
Now the sheeting goes on
Now time for the Rich Beem to go on
And now the roof choice
You may notice in several of the photos there's a scaffold inside the cabin this made a lot of the work inside a lot easier
You may want to rent one or borrow one from a friend if you know somebody that has one
Now the purlins go on the roof joists
One morning on the job site
We found that a local beaver decided to make dinner out of one of the lakes from one of our ladders
Next we'll cut holes in the sheeting for our windows
If there's one thing I've learned from this project is sometimes things take a very long time to do
Patience is a virtue and be sure to make time to just lay back. Look at the sky and soak it all up
I couldn't wait for the roofs to finally go on
a
Part of this project. I disliked the most was boxing out the soffits, but I was able to struggle through it and get it done
You start to feel like things are really coming together when your windows and doors are installed
And you start to put on your front porch
Autumn is a good time to start the insulation work on the inside of the cabin
Thank You Craig for putting in the stairs here you'll see the floor joists are installed for the loft
Heating the cabin comes from a box wood stove
It's placed on top of cinder blocks as shown
And the ductwork has run through the wall and then off the outside of the cabin
Okay, so now a word about solar I use 2 100 watt solar panels which charge a deep-cycle solar battery
Via charge controller the solar panels can be acquired via multiple online sources
And the battery I obtained I purchased from Amazon
Make sure that you use a solar charger to prevent overcharging at the battery the entire system cost me right around
900 dollars and that does not include the costs that I pay for my 12 volt fixtures, which I purchased on eBay
Most of my lighting is very low amperage LED lights similar to this
And I used a switch panel
Which I purchased from eBay to control the lights so they could be turned on and off individually
It's been 2 years running now, and I've used the cabin for as much as a week at a time
And I've never dropped my battery
storage below 70%
you can even include a
Ceiling fan like I have used here, which is 12 volt and also runs on very low amperage
The key is to use low amperage fixtures
You can even buy these 12-volt strip lights which are very efficient and very low cost. They cost about five dollars a piece
After all the insulation is done then you can start putting on the sheeting on your walls
And finish up your electric
One of the things that I did as well as I use these twelve volt chargers that you can plug a cigarette lighter
into as well as USB ports, I
Strategically put these around the cabin where the bunks are gonna be so that people can charge their cell phones etc at night
I put concrete board and lading behind the wood stove and then stoned it in using river rock
To prevent a fire protected barrier between the wood stove in the wall
I use tongue-and-groove laminate flooring for the loft and then mixed it up and used a slightly different brand
for the main cabin area
Here you'll see I use steel roofing as wainscoting on the walls at the end of the cabinet's near the wood stove
This adds a nice warm feeling and reflects some of that heat. It also keeps it cool makes it feel cool during the summer months
Next comes the painting the exterior boards
I used a three coat system a primer followed by two top coats
It gives it a very nice warm look to it product. I use is from sickens called C tall
A nice rainy day is a good day to build some bunk frames
And these I just assembled together using dimensional lumber and a power planer the power planer gives it a nice distressed look
May have noticed there's a black strip between the moisture barrier and the siding that black strip is kind of a woven
plastic mesh that helps the
Siding breathe and prevent moisture build-up behind it whether or not it'll actually work is yet to be seen
And I will probably never know in my lifetime
Here's a good look at my solar battery as you can see I built it underneath my kitchen cabinet
These light fixtures on either side of the door are just regular 120 volt fixtures and
Inside of them. I put a 12-volt light bulb that fits into the same socket. You can obtain that on eBay as well
You
