Sorry I've been away for awhile.

I've started back on the 14x24. I just finished the subfloor, it's held up by 2x12's that are 14' long and 24" apart. I used 3/4" Advantech made for 24" spacing.

(Pics coming soon)

No "dancing a jig" photos? Looking forward to seeing walls.

I shall 'jig out' Rich!

I've started to plan out my walls and tomorrow the nailing will begin.

Can you post some pictures of your foundation bracing, for others to see? Thanks!

Quote from: hpinson on December 30, 2016, 09:57:11 AM
Can you post some pictures of your foundation bracing, for others to see? Thanks!

There's a bunch starting back on post #160.

I used 2x12's 2' on center spanning 9'6" across my 2 beams and then I used 3/4" Advantech flooring on top of that (Advantech 3/4" calls for 2' spacing).

I haven't crossed braced the floor joist yet. More importantly, I plan to cross brace underneath from the top of one inner beam to the bottom of the other beam, beam to beam at 3 locations using treated 2x6's. This will stiffen the platform and help with any raking. I do that because my piers are high.

Building my 2x4 10' high walls now:

Thanks - reposting to another thread by someone who asked.

Could you share your experience, compare and contrast your different homes?

You went from a 20X30 to a 14X24.  Actually living in the space changed what you thought you needed?  How?

You purchased a Derkson unit to live in while building.   Was there just not enough room in it to live, or are there other reasons why these buildings are not a good starting point - just finish out the interior and live in one.

Thanks for your insights ...

Very good questions BlueRidge, I could probably write a book in answering them but I'll try not to get too lengthy here.

You asked: 'Could you share your experience?'

The best way to find out my experience with all this home building thing is to simply take time and go through my post, both my 20x30 and now my 14x24. But I'll try to sum it up at this point with just a few sentences.

As these professionals here on this forum know, I'm not a home builder. I've tried to do my best with the money and knowledge that I have and as you can tell I've made a few mistakes, especially in my foundations. If I could go back and do it all again, I would tell others to really plan out and study hard and take the advise of the top professional posters here on this forum about foundations and how to do them. Don't get in a hurry to start even if you have all the money, equipment, and materials sitting right in front of you. I didn't pay enough attention, got in a hurry, and just wanted to start and because of that I didn't create my foundations as well as they should have been. How do I feel about that? Well, I'm going to go with it. I'll watch for movement in my beams, piers, and joists. I'll also check for level now and then and if I notice movement then I'll have to fix it somehow. I know you've heard it said, 'It cost more to fix it when it's done wrong than it does to do it right in the first place.' (or something like that).

You also asked: 'Compare and contrast your different homes.'

Well, I'm going smaller of course. Going from 20x30 to 14x24, when you think about it that's only 6' less in each direction so it's not a major change. It's just me and my wife, one cat, and two dogs and we love the tiny house living. I'm also going with 2x4 walls instead of 2x6's. It doesn't get all that freezing here just south of Tulsa Oklahoma. I used to live in New Hampshire and It'd get -40!

One major change between our 2 places is that we are living here on our 5 acres totally off grid. Hauling and catching rain water, reverse osmosis system, 24 volt solar system with panels and a wind turbine and also a compost toilet. We are only 'on grid' by the garbage man every Wednesday where we pay $24 a month to.

You also said: 'You purchased a Derkson unit to live in while building. Was there just not enough room in it to live, or are there other reasons why these buildings are not a good starting point - just finish out the interior and live in one.'

First of all, these Derkson buildings (or any other buildings built like it) ARE a good starting point...if that's what you want. We first purchased our Derkson building to live in with the intention of building our house next to it. It got to a point where we decided that it didn't matter whether we lived in our 16x40 Derkson for years before we built another house or not. But then we decided to build the house in order to have the Derkson a spare building for storage, a guest house, and an office for me.

Keep in mind that all these lofted barn cabin buildings you see for sale on the side of the road (like mine) are much smaller than their stated size. Ours is a 16 by 40 but they take those measurements from the eves and from the very most front and back and the porch won't be your living space. The width from finished wall to wall in our 16x40 Derkson building is actually 14'4". The length not including the 4' front porch is 35 1/2' from one wall down the length to the other. That equals around 507 square feet. Our 14x24 Country Plan home will be around 316 square feet. That's a difference of 191sf. Our loft in the 14x24 is going to be 13.5'x12 so that'll add another 160sf or so. So if you include the loft in the 14x24 we get pretty close to the same square footage of the two places - the 14x24 only around 30 square feet less.

Ok, I hope I've answered your question BlueRidge sir. Now it's time for me to get out there and build.

Monday Night - January 2nd, 2017

Got the first long wall up on the 14x24. You can see our large 5x5 window opening.

A wall!! And it only took 259 posts. 

Snow on the Advantech Flooring...no big deal.

Almost got a section of the side wall done. A little cold out but it ain't nutt'in.

Got a section of the end wall up today:

Warmed myself twice!


Our 450 foot driveway going to the road:

It was a very warm day after work today so I cut and laid out the last section of our first end wall...in the dark using LED shop light. Tomorrow I'll nail it!

Great progress Al!
I was just asking Robert about you at work..
Looking good.

You said warm weather so I looked up the forecast for your area.. well I'm jealous. Tomorrow is 65 and day after 72.. in January? I never thought of Oklahoma as being that warm.

My advantech floor was put through the ringer, and appears in perfect shape despite the discoloring. Pretty remarkable how far OSB has come.

Got the East wall up now, it has 3 long windows 23 3/4 x 61. (Working in the dark with the LED shop light again)



We moved onto 5 acres filled with mostly small to medium size trees so a bulldozer had to clear areas for the house, yard, and driveway. This left behind huge unsightly brush piles. I have a lot of fire wood to get out of them but problem is that they are also filled with limbs and vines. The biggest brush pile is right near the 14x24 build, as you can tell by some of the pictures. I'm slowly getting rid of that pile and getting some nice firewood out of it too. One of the best decisions of my life was to buy this Stihl WoodBoss chainsaw, it never stalls, starts every time, and just keeps cutting (as long as you don't cut into a rock or the ground).

Put up a small section of the 3rd (North) wall last night in the dark. The full moon looks pretty cool through the window:

Seeing walls go up is always so gratifying.  Thanks for sharing the beautiful night pictures.

Got the French Door rough opening done:

Finished the other long wall and there's the kitchen window. I also like trying to 'flip' my hammer - hate it when it lands on my toe.

I've got to be careful, there was a timber rattlesnake at the end of my driveway a couple months ago. I killed it with a rock:

Nearing January 2017 End.

Well, I almost have all 4 walls up and it gets both exciting and a little tense at this point. Exciting to see walls all around you and a touch of tenseness of hoping to take the proper steps at the proper time, thinking about what I should do next and in what order before I actually start on my roof.

My thought is to add my top plates right after all external walls are done, then make sure walls are straight, level, and plumb and then keep them that way using  braces and nailing temporary diagonals on the inside. Next step is to add the interior walls which there are only two of them, bathroom walls. The loft floor joists are going to rest on the top of the bathroom wall just short of the half way point in width.

I plan to use doubled 2x6's at 16" on center for the loft floor, they will act as beams. They will rest on 2 sistered studs at each 16" point at each end of the loft joists. That will make for a really nice sturdy loft floor. I want to use 2x6's instead of single 2x8's, 2x10's, or 2x12's because I want to have every inch possible for head room up in the loft.

My roof is going to have a shed dormer on each side and the shed dormer will be a 3/12 or a 4/12 pitch while the rest of the roof will be 12/12. I plan to have our place look very identical to JackRabbit's 14x24 here on Countryplans:

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=13714.0