Rebirth of a 20x30 1.5 Story Cabin

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 12:56:16 PM

Well life has a way of getting in the way now and again. Well it has finally moved out of my path so that I could again get my cabin built. Over the last year or so we have moved, had a child, killed multiple computers and just been crazy but it has finally settled down. So we are back to work. As I said I lost my computer so I lost my old account info so I started a new one (and wrote down the info this time) Here are some pics of what we have planned and where we are at.

Our reason for building is different than some but the same as others. We want a place away from the mass population centers that allow us a location to head to should things go bad for whatever reason. With this in mind we are designing a lot of redundancy into the design and also adding a couple things people might just ask what the heck do you need that for lol but that's just me.

The following 3 pictures are the view we are trying to take advantage of

Here is our primary means of travel in and out of the building site. We are leaving the roads very rough to prevent people from getting up to the building site and also leave as little trace we are there as possible. While this will make certain tasks a bit harder in the long run we hope it will allow the home and other planned structures to fade into the hills faster.

Here are some pictures of the road up to the cabin and one of the spring heads that are along its path

Here are some pics of the initial cabin site clearing. So far the mountain has been moved (well forced) back about 30' at a finger between two valleys. Our next step is to move that area about another 30' back to give us more room around the cabin. To do this we will need have a section about 20' back that is at the same elevation as the site is now and then a step up about 5-6' to a approximately 10' ledge. This is all subject to change on the fly as the rocks in these here hills like to get in the way from time to time, and the wife doesn't like me playing with the explosives to persuade them out of my building site.

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 12:57:46 PM

Our floor plan is pretty much the 20x30 1.5 with a couple of small changes and a full second floor (we are a family of 5 we need the space)

Our plan is to use a self poured 2'x1" footing with 8" dry stacked surface bonded cement forming a crawlspace (more of a Yankee crawl) that is only accessible from the interior. The walls will be framed using 2x6x12's rather than the x10 to give some extra height (I am 6'8" that plus a 7'6" ceiling with a ceiling fan and a beer or two is a disaster) Yes I got the T shirt for that one

January 11, 2011, 01:03:20 PM

I guess it would be polite of me to give you all a little background on me. I am 36 years old, been married for about 11 years (and she has not killed me yet) with three children. For work I am an H.V.A.C. service technician who has in the past owned my own service and installation company till we moved south a couple years back. My biggest advantage is I think I already own all the tools I need to build the house, my biggest disadvantage is I think I already own all the tools so not many opportunities to buy new toys I er mean tools.

astidham · January 11, 2011, 01:13:31 PM

nice looking area Brian, what state are you in?

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 01:25:05 PM

The cabin is in the TN mountains

January 11, 2011, 01:40:09 PM

Nice set of plans but where is the second floor plans?

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 01:45:32 PM

Quote from: Texas Tornado on January 11, 2011, 01:40:09 PM
Nice set of plans but where is the second floor plans?

The lower of the two line drawings is our current second floor plans

at this point we are not sure how we are going to break up the space on the second floor other than into the two rooms. A lot will depend on the height that we can obtain as low ceilings (anything under 8') drive me nuts and anything under 6'8" I hit my head on. So for the time being we are just going to leave them open and play that section by ear and see how the space feels when we are dried in.

dmanley · January 11, 2011, 01:55:09 PM

Good to see somebody else from TN on here. We're in the process of building in Scott Co and your pics sure do look like home to me. Looking forward to seeing more.

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 02:27:44 PM

These pictures depict the size of the 20x30 cabin on our current site and shows why we need to increase the depth of the site.

One thing we did manage to get done over this past summer was to get a gate in to deter the local kids from playing on our land. It's funny how the area just past the gate looks so smooth go 20' around the bend and you better have a 4x4.

And there is a lesson to be learned about the site clearing we have done to this point. If you pull a rubber tracked mini excavator into thick clay mud make sure you pull straight back out or you are likely to pop a track!! They don't stay on nearly as well as metal tracks do. But we did figure out that you can put the track back on using a big chain, a Chevrolet Tahoe and a couple guys in relatively short (but not real safe) order.

It is scary working next to a drop off in the dark, but when your rental is per day and not being metered by the hour you use all the hours you can!

January 11, 2011, 02:38:40 PM

Nice looking country. You appear to have as many slopes and as little flat ground as we do, maybe more and less.

Nice choice of transportation to. Any mods/goodies other than the lift and tires? There are a few of us XJ owners here.

Mine's the white one in the link
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4539.msg55692#msg55692

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 02:47:56 PM

Quote from: MountainDon on January 11, 2011, 02:38:40 PM
Nice looking country. You appear to have as many slopes and as little flat ground as we do, maybe more and less.

Nice choice of transportation to. Any mods/goodies other than the lift and tires? There are a few of us XJ owners here.

Mine's the white one in the link
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4539.msg55692#msg55692

the old xj is a bit loaded, it has a front and rear lockers, a terra low 4:1 low range conversion, the front axles have been swapped out with one of the with the superrior super 30 kit to increased strength (i still need a bigger axle I have snapped 2) the uni body has been boxed with 1/4" metal, All the steering components have been beefed up and it has a full compliment of aftermarket (thick as heck skid plates)

it is my woods toy so it does not have to be very street able

waggin · January 11, 2011, 04:44:37 PM

We are leaving the roads very rough to prevent people from getting up to the building site and also leave as little trace we are there as possible. While this will make certain tasks a bit harder in the long run we hope it will allow the home and other planned structures to fade into the hills faster.

This is something I give quite a bit of thought to myself. How do you (and others) view the pros and cons of gating/chaining at the road, rough vs. highly maintained road, etc? Sometimes I think that if the place looks maintained, then people are less likely to go in to check things out. If the road looks rough, maybe some people would go in thinking that nobody is there, gate or no gate. On the flip side, if it's ungated and doesn't look used/occupied, maybe people won't go in looking to steal/vandalize/party. I haven't formed an opinion yet, and I am curious and would love to hear peoples' reasoning and thoughts.

IronPatriotTN · January 11, 2011, 05:30:18 PM

Good to see another TH neighbor on here. I love the view of your build site. Have you leveled out a garden spot? Hope about places for animals. How did you like our Jan snow? Good luck on the project.

Brian_G · January 11, 2011, 06:05:59 PM

Quote from: waggin on January 11, 2011, 04:44:37 PM
We are leaving the roads very rough to prevent people from getting up to the building site and also leave as little trace we are there as possible. While this will make certain tasks a bit harder in the long run we hope it will allow the home and other planned structures to fade into the hills faster.

This is something I give quite a bit of thought to myself. How do you (and others) view the pros and cons of gating/chaining at the road, rough vs. highly maintained road, etc? Sometimes I think that if the place looks maintained, then people are less likely to go in to check things out. If the road looks rough, maybe some people would go in thinking that nobody is there, gate or no gate. On the flip side, if it's ungated and doesn't look used/occupied, maybe people won't go in looking to steal/vandalize/party. I haven't formed an opinion yet, and I am curious and would love to hear peoples' reasoning and thoughts.

The town we own in is quite small, population just under 2k people. They have already figured out that I am not there most of the time so they are not the ones I try to keep away. The people that are our issue are the out of state tourists or area hunters. We scarred the locals enough the first weekend I owned the property and shot over 5k rounds of 5.56 and 7.62x39 we are known as the crazy people in the hollar lol so to answer your question we are using multiple tactics to cloak our intentions one for the locals and one for the non locals,.

January 11, 2011, 06:13:13 PM

Quote from: IronPatriotTN on January 11, 2011, 05:30:18 PM
Good to see another TH neighbor on here. I love the view of your build site. Have you leveled out a garden spot? Hope about places for animals. How did you like our Jan snow? Good luck on the project.

We are doing to terrace an area for a garden approximately 150'x200' using a lot of the dirt from the home site excavation as fill. That should give us plenty of garden space near the cabin. I would love to do animals but at this point in my life this is only for the weekends and things going wrong. I can not make near the money in TN that they pay me in Charlotte so I will be living here for the foreseeable future. The snow has been fun I only made it up that way once so far this month but man driving through blowing rock in the snow is a bit white knuckled lol

MountainDon · January 11, 2011, 06:26:08 PM

Quote from: waggin on January 11, 2011, 04:44:37 PM
.... If the road looks rough, maybe some people would go in thinking that nobody is there, gate or no gate. On the flip side, if it's ungated and doesn't look used/occupied, maybe people won't go in looking to steal/vandalize/party.

My woods are full of people with 4x4's. One of the things people with 4x4's like to do is challenge themselves. Sometimes the rockier the road the greater the appeal. But I may be in the minority .

So a rocky road with no gate and no "posted" sign will not keep me away. A sign will keep me out but then I am not a crook.

Seriously though we with places in the country are simply left to ponder the odds, left to the mercy of those who not only do not care about others property but want to steal it. And then there are those other idiots who enjoy destroying other peoples property for no good reason. A gate will keep honest folks out and perhaps make crooks and vandals cautious. But a gate will not deter a thief.

A locked gate might even be seen as an invitation to a thief; nobody is home. Some folks in our neck of the woods leave their gate open when they are there. Driving by their roads I know right away if they are home or not. We close and lock our gate all the time. It is an inconvenience at times but that is what we decided works best for us as it also keeps the weekend "tourists" out guaranteed.

Another plus for us is our cabin is invisible from any public property. A neighbors place can be seen, but not ours. Maybe that's a plus.

A sturdy locked gate is also a nuisance deterrence. If it looks like too much trouble to get through then maybe even the vandals will go someplace else. We hope so.

Barry Broome · January 11, 2011, 10:29:28 PM

i knew that looked like TN. That driveway is something to behold. I hope this turns out nice keep us posted!

Brian_G · January 16, 2011, 06:36:24 PM

Just a bit of planning this weekend since I am stuck working. Got my rough DWV plan on paper, which had to be moved up because we found a really good price on a mason to do a slab for us. While I am not crazy about being on a slab I cant beat the price and the number of steps that going this route will eliminate.

Here is the rough DWV system, for some reason it is not showing the 4"x3"x4" T that is going to be used for a main vent of the home between the washing machine and the Toilet lines. There will be a 1.5" pvc vent from the kitchen sink run up into the attic space above the loft and tied into the 3" before it exits the roof of the home near the peak.

volstuckinnc · January 17, 2011, 12:36:26 AM

What kind of septic are you going to be able to install? I ask because we have a very hilly lot and haven't been able to determine a way to get septic installed.

Brian_G · January 17, 2011, 07:11:41 AM

Quote from: volstuckinnc on January 17, 2011, 12:36:26 AM
What kind of septic are you going to be able to install? I ask because we have a very hilly lot and haven't been able to determine a way to get septic installed.

we are actually pretty lucky with the septic we are able to use a standard arch system . There is a flat spot below the cabin about 30' that is 12' wide and about 150' long where we are planning it (and the septic permit guy thinks it is good there also)

January 17, 2011, 08:22:29 AM

Quote from: volstuckinnc on January 17, 2011, 12:36:26 AM
What kind of septic are you going to be able to install? I ask because we have a very hilly lot and haven't been able to determine a way to get septic installed.

I would suggest you look into the "Presby" system.

volstuckinnc · January 17, 2011, 10:33:33 PM

Quote from: Brian_G on January 17, 2011, 07:11:41 AM
we are actually pretty lucky with the septic we are able to use a standard arch system . There is a flat spot below the cabin about 30' that is 12' wide and about 150' long where we are planning it (and the septic permit guy thinks it is good there also)

That's great. Our only flat spot is by a creek, and they have tightened requirements about septic near waterways in recent years. Guy up the road put his septic within 25' of the creek but you can't do that anymore. We are left with a fairly steep sloped hillside that will be difficult at best for a septic system. At this point we plan to build a small weekend cabin and try our best to be creative about water.

One big limit for us is we can't get anything beyond the temporary "RV" type power pole from the power company until we get septic. They used to be more lenient about that as well but that changed about 10 years ago.

Seems like the laws are being changed to force everyone into a subdivision of cookie cutter homes with an HOA to pester you on postage stamp sized lots.

Wish my parents had built 20 years ago when they bought the land and the rules were more relaxed........