Michigan 20 x 34 1-1/2 story- New interior pics

AAA-DAY · March 31, 2009, 08:04:23 AM

Your loft size is close to the size in our cabin. We were able to support the floor independant of any supporting walls or post underneath. We used a 12" LVL header that spanned the 20 foot width and sat on top of the exterior walls. The loft floor joist (12" also) rested on the back exterior wall and were supported by joist hangers attached to the LVL header in the front. Then, the loft decking was attached on top of the joist. This arrangement created 8' walls in the rooms under the loft and 9' walls in the vaulted ceiling area. The rooms underneath could be divided in any way because they were not needed for support. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.

shmily524 · April 09, 2009, 11:47:21 AM

After some time has passed, are you happy with the siding? Will the maintenance schedule be better than vinyl or wood siding?

April 09, 2009, 12:29:33 PM

We couldn't be happier. We love the look and it has required no maintenance yet, aside from washing the dirt off. We have had wood siding on previous structures and they did require staining or painting every 4 or 5 years. Vinyl is pretty carefree, but the wood-stained look is not available (that I know of). Another benefit that is not applicable to wood or vinyl is that this siding is flame retardant.

TexstarJim · April 13, 2009, 06:24:20 PM

I'm really impressed with your cabin and want to thank you for sharing your work with all the pictures. I've had the plans for a little over a year and finally got financing through my bank. The mortgage collapse all across the country has made it very difficult to get started, but I will begin the first week of June 2009.

Will you be available through the coming months for questions when I get into a dilemma over which step to make next? I sure hope so, you can be a great help and probably save me time and money by helping me to prevent a mistake before I make one.

Update to reply: I've started on mine, finally. Loan came through towards the end of May, the first thing I did was have the aerobic sewer system installed and due to delays by the company installing the sewer system, I didn't get to start on my pier and beam foundation until early August. My thread is running as: "24x32 Lake Cabin in Oklahoma"

Thanks, Jim

AAA-DAY · April 14, 2009, 11:29:42 AM

Hello Jim! Good luck on your upcoming project, it is an exciting time. We will be available and more than happy to answer any questions you have about our methods. All and all, we are extremely happy about how the cabin turned out and have had no problems with it. Please do post pictures of your progress, we would love to see them!

Best of Luck, Amy

January 13, 2010, 03:01:32 PM

hello, i must say i love the house you built, what im trying to do here is get the modified plans that you did to build this house with the catherdial ceiling and how you managed to build it. how you did the roof truses, and beems, my idea was 24x50 the same way you did your house. do you think your plans would work the same way??thanks for any info you can help me with. please email me with anything you can help with or guide me with jaysteinbach2009@aol.com thanks jay

waxheimer · March 15, 2010, 08:31:01 AM

Where is the washer/dryer?

pasia · August 09, 2010, 10:57:03 AM

DOES ANYONE HAVE A COPY OF THE REVISED FLOOR PLANS FOR DAN AND AMY'S MICHIGAN CABIN. THEY TURNED THE 1 1/2 STORY CABIN INTO A 20 X 34 1 1/2 STORY WITH A SHED DORMER LOFT. IT IS BEAUTIFUL !!!! WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE SOME IDEAS.

brybry · December 29, 2010, 05:45:27 PM

hi was wondering if you can purchase your plans from from countryplans planning on building on sebago lake me. in spring and eally liked all your ideas

December 30, 2010, 06:03:15 PM

Nice, I was just in Naples ME. Good luck with your project.

EaglesSJ · December 13, 2011, 03:10:20 AM

What is the rise and run of your stairs. Seems very steep but I have been thinking of redoing ours and like the look and fit of yours

AAA-DAY · December 30, 2011, 08:50:20 PM

Hello EaglesSJ. Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you, we moved and changed our email address in early 2010 and totally forgot to update it here. Looks like I have missed several folks questions. I am so sorry!

You are right, the main flight up from the first landing are steeper than a normal stair run. Going up is fine, but going down is a bit tricky if you're not used to it. We had to do this in order to not run in front of the kitchen. It works nice in this instance because the support wall (the one with the leaded glass window) for the second landing (on step down from the loft floor) acts as a bit of a privacy screen to the bathroom and bedroom area.

My husband doesn't remember the rise and run exactly and we won't be going up until spring. He just remembers that he measured the height between the landings and the width we had to work with and came as close as he could to a comfortable distance between steps while evenly filling the space. The staircase is an open build, which is important because it allowed us to use deeper steps for a more solid footing. The steps run in front of each other, kind of like a very tilted ladder. Sorry the explanation isn't the best, it's hard to describe.

Here are a few pictures. One from inside the loft looking to the landing at the top, and one from the top landing looking down to the bottom landing.

Don_P · December 30, 2011, 09:41:14 PM

It looks like the run could have started at the edge of the red and white checkered rug. If so that amount of room would have increased each tread by several inches. I don't like winders but they can also help buy you some room sometimes.

AAA-DAY · December 30, 2011, 10:14:22 PM

You are absolutely right, starting the run closer to the door would have given us some room. But we didn't do that because the stairs could not have risen that high along that wall because of the slope of the ceiling. We had to make a turn and start up sooner to follow the peak of the roof.

This picture shows a better view of the relationship between the ceiling and stairway.

And we, also, are not fans of winding staircases.

December 30, 2011, 11:21:29 PM

Ahh, there's the rub. I like the red wall

Mike 870 · December 31, 2011, 10:43:47 AM

This has always been one of the favorite cabins on CPs. Glad you are back.

ellbaker · January 01, 2012, 02:21:09 AM

I agree, glad you are back. Your cabin is my inspiration for my build. I copied your dormer and am getting ready to build a similar fireplace. I wanted a similar exterior but the pre stained Certainteed was a luxury I could not justify. Ended up going with plain Certainteed and self painting.

AAA-DAY · January 01, 2012, 12:47:45 PM

Thanks for the warm welcome back and the kind words regarding our cabin.
I agree, the prefinished Certainteed was a big expense, but I think it's gone up quite a bit since we ordered it. Although, I understand some construction type materials have gone down in this poor economy, but I'm not sure since our building days are behind us...for now!

ellbaker · January 01, 2012, 03:59:15 PM

Quote from: AAA-DAY on January 01, 2012, 12:47:45 PM
I agree, the prefinished Certainteed was a big expense, but I think it's gone up quite a bit since we ordered it.

Prefinished with stain was $19 a piece vs $5 for primed. 220 pieces made it an easy decision. I started off trying to use the same stain in Redwood color but that was a $200 experiment gone wrong. I also used Duration paint which has a lifetime warranty vs. the stain was a 7 year warranty.

Ameryt · January 08, 2012, 03:00:36 PM

@ Ellbalker would love to see more pics of your cabin!

November 17, 2012, 03:17:00 PM

Hello! I haven't been to this site in quite sometime and now realize that when I rearranged my online photos I broke the link to the photos I've posted. So I thought I would update the link to the new photo album.

http://photobucket.com/danamycabin

C.Oden · March 19, 2013, 04:10:54 PM

Wondering if anyone has more pics of this particular build ?
The links are all DOA it seems. Beautiful job they did.

How would one address making the stairs not as steep? If one added more length per se - anyone have thoughts on a slightly different configeration w/o ruining the overall layout of this place?

? Thanks

suburbancowboy · March 19, 2013, 05:21:45 PM

A higher landing would have decreased the angle.

C.Oden · March 19, 2013, 05:29:55 PM

That I understand somewhat but to get that higher landing to become reality would be done how other than extending the house and then "pushing" the thing back per se on that new longer wall? To create a higher landing requires more actual floor space to do so. Maybe its somehow available there - not sure and that was reason I was hoping more pics are out there somewhere.

Or would it need to be relocated in general placement??

Thanks

AAA-DAY · March 20, 2013, 11:46:07 AM

Hello! I am sorry that some of the pics have lost their links. I did some rearranging of my on line album and didn't realize I was messing things up, and it appears that the postings are too old for me to edit. So I have included a link to the album that contains the pictures:

http://photobucket.com/danamycabin

Regarding the staircase...in order for the cabin configuration to remain as it is, this was the only way to put the staircase without making changes we were unwilling to make. Believe me, we racked our brain trying to figure it out because this pitch wasn't what we wanted.
The layout is posted below for reference. The first set of stairs, from the main floor to the first landing are at a normal angle, but when you are on the landing the ceiling above you starts to slope upward (12/12 pitch) so you cannot have the landing higher. You are correct that if the walls in the main area were taller than 9 ft, you could make the first landing higher by sliding the first set of stairs closer to the doorwall, allowing more stairs in the first set. What the wall height would be to allow a normal staircase, I'm not sure.
The second problem is the location of the kitchen which is tucked under the loft overhang. If you move the second landing, at the loft entrance down toward the center of the cabin, you would end up with the support wall in front of the fridge. While there is just enough room to open the fridge, I didn't like the obstruction it would create in the kitchen.
Perhaps making the cabin wider than 20' would give you more room to work in a normal stair, or somehow doing a modification that would allow the stairs to come straight down from the center of the loft toward the front of the cabin and make a turn back toward the kitchen. This would impact your livingroom space, but you may counteract that by making the cabin a little longer by maybe 4 or 6 feet.
Having utilized the space for a while now, these are just some ideas that may work for you. We don't use the loft often, we have a pull out couch for guest that can't make the climb up the stairs. Going up the stairs is no problem at all, those that are able to make use of the stairs don't seem to mind once they find the method of descending that works for them.

Hope this helps. If you have any other question, please ask!