700 Square Foot Cabin Remuddle in Western Washington

waggin · October 20, 2012, 02:32:57 PM

We all know what they say about the best laid plans...

Several years back, while remodeling a house in the Seattle suburbs, I purchased some land in the outer suburbs/foothills to build on once I sold my house. Ended up finishing the house and selling it, but then realized that infrastructure and building costs would be higher than buying a turn-key property somewhere else. Not to mention, I hated the idea of a pressure distribution septic with a sand filter that required annual inspections. Thanks, King County! Ended up heading north and found a hardcore fixer cabin on a nice chunk of acreage in the foothills for a very reasonable price that was far less than it would have cost to build on property I already owned. My new place came with a well, great springs and a creek, and a modern gravity septic with infiltrator style drainfield. Sold!

Now, for the cabin. The cabin started out as a shack, and over the years it was added on to in various directions. Hence, the "remuddle" part of the title. I'm friends with the person who did most of it, and they'll freely admit that it was their learning experience. Some things were done well, and others...um, not so much. I've been here a while now, and have been picking away at little stuff while contemplating the larger projects. I like cheap, so I'm a big fan of making do with what's already here and remodeling via Craigslist.

Before closing:

Big Doug Firs-When they shed branches or drop big chunks of wet snow, it gets one's attention inside the cabin!

What used to be an exterior window that's in the wall between the two loft areas. Note that the floor level of the two lofts is off by about a foot.

And now, some of the finer points:

Timber frame "joinery"

Stick is about 1" in diameter. I've since relieved the bark about 2" deep. The tree is about 4' dbh.

Fairly soon, I'm going to need to do something about the base/root growing under the foundation footer. Any thoughts on how to safely do that?

A few random property shots:

The creek in the woods.

My dog in the creek in the woods. She will lie down in water when there's snow on the ground. Here, she's just sitting in the water.

Anjou pear tree

Akane apple tree

Liberty apple tree

BIG leaf maple

John Raabe · October 20, 2012, 03:13:30 PM

It's a great year for Akane apples! My tree looks about the same

October 20, 2012, 03:55:31 PM

I've got several bowls of apples sitting on my counter waiting for cutting up and freezing, plus some pears that will make for tasty desserts over the next couple of weeks.

One of the first projects I tackled was the driveway. It's an established road bed, but it hadn't seen gravel in over 10 years. It was pretty rutted, and there were a few areas where water pooled and made it muddy. I considered adding some geotextile fabric in a couple of places, but decided that the road bed was solid enough and improving drainage would suffice. Thankfully, it was a good call. I've since had a 40' shipping container delivered, and the driveway held up just fine.

Before:

See the leftover cable embedded in the roadway from when the property was logged at some point? It pops up in various places on the driveway and in the woods. I'm not pulling it, as I don't know if/where it might be entwined with the power and phone lines!

Rented a little John Deere 2305 with loader and backhoe

Scraped the crown off in some of the worst places

And made a nice mess in a low spot

Initially, I'd planned on adding perforated pipe drainage in several places but only ended up using it in one spot instead. Even there, my revised plan ended up being to try to pitch the driveway to drain off to one side. To start, I got some 3/4 x 2-1/2 railroad ballast to fill some of the low spots and larger ruts. I also used it to build up one side of the driveway where needed.

One section of drainage I added along uphill side and draining across

Hope mine works better than this!

Backfilled and with additional 3/4 x 2-1/2 on top to pitch driveway

Done...

...and working

After the work, I went over most of it with 3/4". Later, I went over most of that with 5/8" minus. There are still areas I want to improve, but it's working really well so far, and I get over 40" of rain annually!

John Raabe · October 20, 2012, 04:10:13 PM

Very nice road work. A good long term investment.

duncanshannon · October 21, 2012, 08:23:40 AM

Hi- Beautiful looking land. Cabin looks like it could be pretty nice once you get the exterior cleaned up!

Thanks for all the road detail. Thats the first thing I need to do (finish cutting a drive way).

November 18, 2012, 01:42:18 AM

Thank you John & duncanshannon. For driveways and access roads, local knowledge is best. I know if I was starting from scratch, I'd be using some geotextile fabric here and some big (4+") base rock. Fortunately, I had a nice existing (but neglected) driveway to start. On a driveway my family did in Northern New England it was local sand/gravel mix right over the bulldozed swath, with some of it fairly deep. That would make for an impassable mess here!

Latest project is a woodshed. I've been dodging the raindrops over the last few weeks trying to make progress. It's a bit overkill for a small woodshed, but since it's the only building one sees from my parking area, I wanted something a little more substantial than just a small, basic one. I have some ideas to pretty it up a little once the roof is on. I also planned it around some material I had already. It's going to be 12' wide x 10' deep at the posts, and will have a 6" overhang in back and a 15" in front. It looked right when I was mocking it up, so that's where I set the rafters. Even at the rear, it will still have well over 6' of headroom.

After clearing some brush, I laid out some scrap boards for orientation and location.

Dug out the bank.

Dug down about 3' for 6"x6"x12' posts. These were not light! Used some boards to line the holes on one side, then pivoted the post up over a firewood round to slide it down the hole against the boards on the other side. That kept me from scraping a bunch of dirt back into the hole with the post. Did it by myself, which I wasn't sure if I'd be able to pull off.

Squared and braced in preparation for concrete in post holes.

"Walking" the beam up with little steps I nailed on to posts.

Level! Oh, and I spy apples

Notching posts for rear header preparation.

Playing with roof pitch ideas using a long 2x4.

Ended up with about 3:12 pitch.

Starting to look like a building now. Rafter is just resting up there for planning and layout purposes.

waggin · February 21, 2013, 04:27:27 PM

Rafters on and plumb cut.

Skip sheathing was originally 1x4's at 1' center spacing, but because I went a little lower than I should have on the pitch at about 2-1/2:12 for aesthetics, I ended up putting some 1x2's in between. Glad I did, as the 30# tar paper sagged even with that.

Tar paper on and sliding roofing up 2x4 ramp.

Roofing on! I had a little bit of conflicting info on how to fasten this roofing best. Per the manufacturer of a similar style of roofing, it's supposed to be fastened at the bottom of the corrugations. Since I'm below the recommended pitch, and I'm under some cedars and hemlocks and will see significant accumulation of debris on the roof, I decided to fasten at the tops of the corrugations. If this was anything other than a wood shed, I would have the correct pitch and fastened as recommended. One thing I learned is that I do not like this simulated metal tile roofing. It's hard to lay out and work with, difficult to move around on, and will always have lots of voids for critters. It was a craigslist buy, so fortunately I don't have too much invested, but I wouldn't use it for much besides an open shed.

I'm going to be adding some bracing, flashing and fascia going forward, but I'm happy to have a roof now.

Alan Gage · February 22, 2013, 10:06:07 AM

Beautiful looking property and the cabin looks pretty nice on the inside. Have fun!

Alan