CountryPlans Forum

Having spent many fun hours reading other folks posts, maybe it's time to start a thread describing our little project.

Lisa and I hit the roads of Northern California looking for a rural holiday home somewhere around 2004, impeccably timed to be in the middle of the biggest housing boom the World has ever seen.   As our expectations were lowered and our road trips got longer, the prices went up faster than we compromised.  It soon became clear that it was land we were after - at least we could save money by cutting back on house size if we had something built for us.  Then the 3 hours from Berkeley became 4 hours or maybe more and views became optional.  And then, in 2006, just as an acre of unattractive semi-desert or something in North Eastern Oregon seemed the only options, we stumbled upon 5 acres of wild forest, 2 miles down a dirt road in the middle of Plumas County.  In 5 minutes the decision was made.  After all, who needs running water, electricity, a 2WD drive access road, a real sewage system, a road with <10' of snow on it in Winter, an actual structure or a bunch of money left in the bank to have a house built.  It was a nice lot in a great location and we could afford it - the other "details" could wait.

Enough history.  On to the rest of the thread, which I hope will contain some illustrations of the not-so-subtle difference between having a cabin and building a cabin, as acted out over many years by an unfit, middle-aged English software engineer with a few toys from Home Depot and an Internet connection.  To add glamour, I will be enthusiastically assisted by my beautiful, patient, adventurous and caring fiancee Lisa and a small chihuahua called Casey.

Here's a picture from the front of the property before we bought it and a view in the center of the lot:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/cabin1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/cabin2.jpg)

Welcome to the forum, David.

Nice to know we're not alone here in California.  We have a few here on the forum now.

Looking forward to seeing the pix. :)

Sassy and I did similar with the purchase of our property.  Had to have it - no matter what.

Added- Hey you got them -- must be that software engineer experience.  Nice trees and land.

Quote from: glenn kangiser on January 11, 2008, 01:46:07 AM
Welcome to the forum, David.

Nice to know we're not alone here in California.  We have a few here on the forum now.

Thanks for the welcome.  I guess us Sierra Nevada folks can bond over snow-shoveling stories...

Sounds good to me --- as long as you get a lot more of it than I do.  I did get a snow plow for my Bush Hog, but haven't had enough snow this year to hook it up yet -- 2 inches once.  What big town are you near?

As I recall we flew into Quincy a few years back and a friend picked us up and took us to their camp at the Berkeley City campground near there.

Quote from: glenn kangiser on January 11, 2008, 02:12:24 AM
Sounds good to me --- as long as you get a lot more of it than I do.  I did get a snow plow for my Bush Hog, but haven't had enough snow this year to hook it up yet -- 2 inches once.  What big town are you near?

Wow - I guess you guys missed most of the storms.  We're just outside Graeagle, about an hour North of Truckee and at 5000ft.  We haven't been up there for a couple of weeks but folks nearby have had 6ft of snow in the last week or so and there was already 12-15" under that.  I thought I was smart leaving a shovel out by the door but I guess it should have been hung 12ft high in a tree!

Once we bought the property, pretty much the first thing we needed to do was build a shed so we didn't have to haul everything up in the truck every weekend.  It also seemed sensible to have done some framing before starting on the main house.  We decided to build an 8' x 8' storage shed with a loft to sleep in, and also do a board-and-batten look to see how we liked it for the house.  It's sitting on concrete deck piers on the dirt, with 4x6 beams and 2x8 joists (overkill in retrospect).  Floor is 3/4" ply, walls are 2x4s on 16" centers and 5/8 rough exterior ply (T1-11 without the grooves).  The roof is 2x6s on 24" centers with 3/4" ply (more overkill).

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/cabin3.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/cabin4.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/cabin5.jpg)
This taught me a bunch of stuff, with the biggest lesson being "buy a nail gun".  Another was "if you're scared of heights, don't do your own roofing".

Great start.

We are at 2910 feet so it has  to snow pretty good to get us, but we do get some.  We still get the heat from the valley here and can see South Modesto area.  We are in the foothills.

Last year was decent snow - 9"  to 10" a couple times.  We are about 40 miles from Yosemite so abundant snow is nearby. :)

Good plan with the shed.

Hard to work efficiently without a nail gun.  Watch those killer bounces -- the other hand etc.  And watch your assistant --- mine shot me in the back with a 16d  -- he didn't mean to though.

I was just like on TV.  I been shot....as I reached behind me and pulled it out of my shoulder blade. Interesting experience though.  I don't recall being shot before.

Hey, it's a good day when you can recall being shot. By whatever!

w* David

G'nite

Lisa did a great job of staining the cabin and it's since had 2.5" battens added on 16" centers.


The roof is metal, that you can get off the shelf at selected Home Depot stores, with 30lb felt underneath.  It would seem obvious that you put the felt on first then put on the metal.  However, it's much more interesting if you put on the metal, then realize you should have felt underneath and try and slide it underneath without fully removing the metal but rather just unscrewing most of the screws.  It certainly gives you something to do on sunny afternoons as well as entertaining the onlookers as you try and slide sticky felt between heavy metal and plywood.  I guess that's the price you pay for being a software engineer...

Glad to see you used felt.  It is the best thing to use behind your board and batten walls also.  With the snow you have there I would use the screen wall also on the house.  It would give you much better drainage.

Too much chance of problems with Tyvek or other house wraps for me to want to use it.

Truly a professional staining job if I've ever seen one, Lisa. :)

Sassy does a lot of the finishing around here after I finish with the chainsaw and nail gun. [crz]

Whilst building the shed it became clear that maybe storage wasn't the most essential requirement.  Perhaps an outhouse might be useful!  This was built pretty much the same style as the cabin except using a 4"x4" PT frame for the base and little home made trusses for the roof.

The biggest pain was getting a 3" vent pipe through the roof.  I'm guessing there's a correct way to do penetrations in metal roofs.  One that doesn't involve spreading copious amounts of elastic roofing compound all over the pipe boot, the roof, my arms, my clothes and my hair.  Did I mention I hate roofing?


Our friends Henry and Andrea gave us the ultimate designer accessory:


(the mosiac is made out of broken glass ground down in a small concrete mixer!)

Far out, David.  A psychedelic toilet seat. :)

Our outhouse was one of the early structures we found necessary also.  I had a lot of plywood scraps so the first model was a nice box bench with a one holer overlooking the valley.  We contemplated many a building project there.

It finally got walls after a delivery guy showed up one day just after the moon came out. [crz]

...and might I mention that  your carpentry skills look pretty good for a computer guy.

Roofing? hmm  I did about 300 steel buildings - not to many had plumbing, but I progably would have cut it out with a nibbler or tin snips in a flat area then put a roof jack over it -if done for a customer ..sealed with some kind of mastic -- probably butyl or silicone.

For myself -- probably not so pretty.  Probably chopped it out with a chisel then spread copious amounts of elastic roofing compound all over the pipe boot, the roof, my arms, my clothes and my hair.

Quote from: glenn kangiser on January 11, 2008, 03:12:02 AM
Glad to see you used felt.  It is the best thing to use behind your board and batten walls also.  With the snow you have there I would use the screen wall also on the house.  It would give you much better drainage.

Too much chance of problems with Tyvek or other house wraps for me to want to use it.

Yeah, I think I'm sold on the felt behind the siding for the house.  Or maybe instead of the siding for the first Winter, depending on progress.  From foundations to roof in 8 month's worth of weekends is gonna be tough - I'm guessing the snow and the siding will be racing each other up the wall.

It would probably make it through the winter over sheathing. 

There is a new trick with felt now too.  PEG says 15 lb is heavy enough for walls, but now there is 30lb and #30 whic is probably a bit heavier than old 15 lb.  I assume there is #15 also.  I was wondering once when I had an old 30lb roll and a #30 roll side by side.

Glad to see you no the forum.  Looking forward to seeing more of your project.  Gotta hit the hay as I still have my Modesto Stainless welding to finish tomorrow ... make that later today.  G'nite.

David & Lisa  w*.  I admit I don't know alot about CE stuff but I have done some construction.  Just keep in mind that building a house is basicly building a box of sorts.  Unlike the ads say you have to reverse it to "think inside the box" on this one.   You will get alot of support from the forrum.  I too have to cut a hole in my roofing for the vent and don't enjoy that thought as it is another area that could be prone to leaks.  But fortunately I can pick a location that works best.  I actually need two but in my kitchen I will be using a "studor" valve and eliminate that one. 

It's good that you built a couple of small buildings to get the feel for things. I am sure what you have learned in those will help with the cabin.  Unlike most construction mine was a little more complicated but managed to get through the problems as they arose. I believe that for every problem there exist a solution. It's just finding the solution that is difficult.  ???. If you would like to take a look and you will see what I was referring to. My biggest was how to incorporate three individual cabins into one(two of which I really couldn't alter) and do so on one horizontal roof plane.  Anyway I just keep rambling on. Glad you are here.

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=3613.0

https://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/redoverfarm/hightop/

John

Welcome David. Good to have you here. Don't listen to Redoverfarm. He'd have you belive he's just a regular do-it-yourselfer but one look at his cabin and it's clear he's an artist. As for the rest of us we struggle along and try to have fun in the process. Good idea getting some practice on the smaller buildings first.

re: Vent through the roof.  Have you considered taking the vent out a gable end wall ?  Worked well for me, and you don't have to worry about "stuff" getting into the system.

Hi David,

Your story sounds very familiar.  My wife, Dan, and I went through many of the same steps:

1.  We want a Place. 
2.  Oh, look. It's 2005.  Maybe real estate on the moon hasn't been "discovered" yet.
3.  OMG, this is the Place.  Let's screw ourselves by offering the asking price!  We can make friends by setting the new land price in the area.  (It would take less than a year for that price to be enviable.)

And so on.  Like you, we built a small building for the experience.  I'm an IT project manager and she's a systems analyst.  We had done some home improvement things, but carpentry (and the myriad other skills) was not a strong suit.  Fortunately we can plan, research, and break things down into smaller, manageable pieces and acquit ourselves honorably.  I can see by your account that you have done the same.  Hurray for the city dudes!

Here's our 10'x12' shed/cabin.  Kids in the loft, M&D below, wheel barrow and generator outside for the night.

(https://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii183/amhogan/Farm/Picture024.jpg)

We found the neighbors were really friendly, and we were able to "contract" out our roof work to a bull rider for about $10 an hour.  If you're crazy enough to ride a bull, you are almost crazy enough to do roof work!

The easiest thing to do is "invest" lots of money into the place with tools, other people's labor, fences, etc.  Personally, one of my biggest challenges was to keep from trying to do it all at once.  While it's sometimes hard to wait for things, I keep finding old plans that I'd subsequently found a cheaper, smarter solution for. 

Right now we're building an 18'x24' straw bale lodge.  It's an ag building and another learning step toward the 20x30 house of our own.  You can bet I'll keep an eye on your progress!  FTW!

Drew 

Drew, you are almost a country dude now, and not bad for a city dude. :)

...and a gamer too.  I'm not but learned the term from Pala (Chuck) here.

Finally some time to post...

Redoverfarm - love your cabin.  Building a "real" log cabin seems hard enough, but recycling multiple existing cabins is getting into "extreme cabin building" territory.  I have dreams of doing something historical or milling my own lumber, then I remember how much effort it is just to haul a bunch of OSB from the lumber yard and nail-gun it to 2x4 and the dreams quickly disappear!

Drew - I'm jealous of your 10'x12'!  With 8'x8' you have to take it in turns to stand up.  Actually, I'm hoping to slip in another shed about the same size as yours as a guest cabin, maybe with a short porch, although maybe I'm just thinking about that to stop myself being intimidated by the amount of work in the main cabin!  Straw bale sounds fun too, but probably harder to find advice??

PA-Builder - I think for pit toilets you want a vent without any bends as one of the functions is that flies are attracted to the light and fly out that way rather than heading out via the door, pausing on any occupants.  Without a trap, you also need something open and straight to suck out odors.  I checked out some newly-built park service outhouses recently and there vents are very impressive - maybe 18" or 2' diameter.  Made my 3" seem a bit pathetic....

Over the 2006-2007 Winter, we couldn't really do much construction.  However, we did visit the property a few times and camp out.  Here's a picture of the campsite during winter, with Lisa huddled around the fire.

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/cabin11.jpg)

The counter was a few pieces of scrap butcher block on a frame.   I use that past tense because after drying out in the Sun then a couple of dozen freeze-thaw cycles, all we had was a heap of little wooden blocks.  So we decided to splash out and follow the fashion - we installed a granite countertop!  ($100 for a 6' x 2' section from a local granite wholesaler).

The other project during Winter was taking the Home Design Workshop at the Building Education Center (www.bldgeductr.org (http://www.bldgeductr.org)) in Berkeley.  This was great - a four evening "pretend you're an architecture student" course focused around your own project.  Homework was producing lots of designs each week followed by some often-brutal reviews by the instructor and the rest of the class.  I'd already decided to use something close to John's 20x30 plans, so my project was to work on the site plan.  It's definitely better than it would have been without doing this course.

In the Spring, we started on the site work.  First a septic system and leach field, along with a "fire safe driveway", installed by a local contractor (about $6K for the septic/leach, $2K for the driveway).


Everything went well except that the county health inspector noticed the nice, new, shiny outhouse.  It turns out that outhouses are illegal in Plumas County.  So we had to fill it in.  The fact that every other lot in the neighborhood has an outhouse is apparently not a problem (which I guess is good, as all we do now is walk to the neighbors outhouse!).

Whilst the contractor was doing the septic, I got him to dig footings for the "garage". Actually it's really a storage shed, not for housing cars.  It also wasn't permitted as a garage (200 sq. ft. storage sheds don't require any inspections) but size and shape wise it's just a single car garage.

I decided I want it to be on a slab so it is close to the ground for hauling equipment in and out.  And given the cost of  getting a concrete truck up we went for a monolithic slab so we could do it in one pour.  So all I needed to do is build some forms, throw in some rebar and then pour in the concrete.  Okay in theory, but here are the things I got wrong:

- The contractor was using a 24" bucket to dig the leach field.  If you dig a 24" wide footing, 18" deep for frost, 6" above grade for dirt clearance, that's a lot of concrete for each foot of footing!
- Dry, crumbly soil doesn't want to stay vertical on the inside of the footing.  It falls into the footing, you dig it out and then you need more concrete.  11 yds and $1677 for a 200 sq ft foundation, to be exact!  (I've since seen how to fix this problem - use building paper and chicken wire to support the inside wall of your foundation).
- Forms need to be strong and well braced.  It may only move 1/2" when you fill it with tons of concrete, but then you either don't lap your siding over the footing or you build a 10'1" wide garage!  (Or you get a diamond blade for your circular saw and trim the foundation down to size, which is what I did).
- It's much easier to pour the concrete exactly where you need it than to put it roughly where you need it and shovel it the last 6"
- Concrete sets fast in 85F weather
- Finishing concrete nicely is harder than it looks

However, there were no irreparable disasters and all of the neighbors and several friends came out to help with the pour (and the subsequent feast).  Special thanks to my co-worker Albert, without whom we would have probably been hiring guys with jackhammers the following week.

This looks great, David!  Personally, I'm going to stay with post and beam for as long as I can.  This other stuff takes too many people and too many trucks for my easy-going mind.

I like your workbench.  We've been using two saw horses with a piece of scrap plywood on top of scrap 2x4s, but it's time to nail it together and turn it into a real platform.  We don't have the freeze problem you do (We're at about 400'), so maybe it will last longer.

Sorry to hear about your outhouse.  We're getting our own lessons in how the county comes around and dispenses "Justice".  My neighbor said he saw a county appraiser walking around my place while I wasn't there, looking for things to tax.  Good luck, pard!  It still bugs me that they didn't extend me the courtesy of a telephone call.  Even though its big, it is my place.

I trust you have come up with a plan to reinstate the outhouse once the inspector left?  Or will your septic system be ready soon enough?

And there's always the Bumper Dumper http://www.bumperdumper.com/ (http://www.bumperdumper.com/) for the completely mobile solution.  There might even be a nice private spot in the County parking lot next to the inspector's car.

Wow, I'm starting to sound like Glenn.   :o

David it looks as if you are getting right along.  Sorry about the outdoor fixture problem. Here it is just a tree where the leaves have not been disturbed before. :D

Drew talking about saw horses.  My neighbor had worked partime a couple of summers ago on a movie set in Balt. Md. He brought back a couple that he said were used constantly on the set.  Neat design and strong. They consisted of 1X material in a frame configuration with two longer for the legs. They plywood gusseted the frames with 1/2" ply.  Then with two made they hinged the top with two door hinges.  Below they used three door hinges for a lock and release.  It will only open as far as the hinges allow.  When closed they are only about 1-1/2" thick and are light enough to be hung on a nail in the garage.  The major cost is the hinges. But you could eliminate the bottom three by using a piece of dog chain.  If anyone is interested I will look up the photo and post. I guess anyone in the Calf area has already seen these but here in the east it was new.

John, I'd really like to see the pictures.  I have one set of horses I move around and I wouldn't mind sharing the work among a couple of sets that pretty much stayed in one area.

Yes, Drew, laying a slab is definitely stressful if you don't know what you are doing (which was certainly our case).  I'm glad we did it, but I'm also glad we're not going to do it again! Partly due to this experience we're going with a concrete block crawl space on the main cabin.  Putting down a lot of concrete that's hidden or a bit that's visible both seem fine, but putting down a lot of concrete that's visible or hard to fix is scary when you're making it up as you go along. And there's the added complication of about $700 minimum to get a concrete truck in.

One useful tip, though - if the concrete is only a week or so old and you've got a diamond blade then working with it is surprisingly easy (except for the dust).  It's more like cutting cheese than rock.  And setting the rebar was quick and pleasant once I'd worked out how to do it and got the right tools, although I'm guessing it gets to be seriously hard work for big projects.

Well Drew here they are.  I can give you the demensions but you can probably figure them out yourself as I made mine a little higher than what I had since it made for a lot less stooping over.  I also made them only 36" wide as it worked out for the best use of 12' 1"x4".  Used drywall screws for the gussets and glue.  I also made a sketch with demensions but I am at a loss on how to scan and then post them. I have just mastered(sort of) the photo posting. Computers are alot different than hammers. ;D Let me know what you think. It is a good rainy day project.  If you made a couple set you could also use them as temp scaffolding with some 2" planks. They are really strong and stay put.

John

(https://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/redoverfarm/scenes/country%20plans/100_0123-1.jpg)

(https://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/redoverfarm/scenes/country%20plans/100_0124-1.jpg)

Looks good John. More deluxe than mine with that hinged joint. I just used sash chain.

Don I lucked out one day. Yes it happens occassionally even for me. Lowes was building a new store and had reduced the inventory at their old store. I bought door hinges for 25 cents a piece. Bought about 30-40 all they had left.  If I would have bought them at their regular price I would have used chain at the bottom.  Since I started using these I would never go back to the standard horses.  I can put 5 sets of these in the space of one standard. Best part you can hang them on the wall when closed.

That's a good lookin saw horse....I'll be make'n some soon.Thanks for the pictures.

Okay, some catching up to do on this thread as it's about 18 months behind reality!

So back in the late Summer of 2007, we'd got the septic in and at the same time we got a permit for the well.  This is all a big gamble as you pay by the foot (specifically, $42/foot) but the water depth is very unpredictable.  The neighbor to our left had to go down about 150ft.  The guy over the road went down 450ft.  The difference is about $13,000!

The way they usually do it is to start doing "simultaneous drilling", pulling a 6" (ID?) steel casing behind a disposable bit.  This is due to the loose upper layers of rock. That usually breaks when they hit hard rock, so then they then do a 5" or so regular hole inside the previous section and drop in plastic casing.

In our case, it seems they tried to drill a 4.95" hole because the bit was worn.  So they couldn't get the plastic down the hole.  So they tried with steel, using the drilling rig to force it in.  About half way in it got stuck.  So then they tried to pull it out, but it wouldn't come out.  So then they tried to pull it out whilst using a big, mechanical hammer thing to hit it repeatedly.  But the weld broke.  So they ground it off (spraying sparks from 15ft up onto bone-dry Sierra scrub!) welded it again, and it broke again.  Then they welded on brackets, and it broke again.  Then, another few attempts later, with the biggest weld and extra thick brackets, they finally pulled it out.  Then they decided to use slightly narrower steel pipe, but they didn't have any in stock so they had to wait a week or two.  Here's the rig with Lisa's Aunt pretending to be a well driller:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/well_drilling.jpg)

Finally, after nearly 3 weeks and $21,000 we had our 480ft, 5gpm hole in the ground.

Drilling can be so much fun sometimes but it sounds like they tried to cut the corners a bit too short.  Lots of unknowns there.

In the fall, we worked on the storage shed aka garage.  This was pretty straightforward once I'd cut the slab down to size and added the anchor bolts that I'd omitted during the pour (a great way to waste money - the retrofit bolts and epoxy cost about 5 times the regular set-in-place bolts).

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage2.jpg)

The roof was simple triangular site-built 2x6 trusses using plywood gussets with a 12/12 slope.

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage3.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage4.jpg)

Siding is 5/8" rough exterior ply, the roof sheathing is 5/8" ply too. The roof is metal, which went a lot more smoothly after the mistakes on the little shed.

As with the previous year, the garage became weatherproof about the same time the weather turned.
(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage7.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage5.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/garage6.jpg)

The battens to complete the board-and-batten look had to wait until the Spring.

But, at the time the snow hit, the garage door wasn't working as I'd been given the wrong parts.  And, once I got the right parts, it turned out the extension springs were the wrong strength (serves me right for going with a non-standard 6' wide door, I guess).  This is all straightforward when your garage door is at your house, but a bit harder when its a 4 hour drive and one hour ski from home.  And you can't even put the springs in the sled because that's Casey's seat, so it's in the backpack they go:

It's pretty hard to do anything when there's over 4 foot of snow on the ground...

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/2008snow1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/2008snow2.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/2008snow3.jpg)

...so Lisa worked on some prototypes:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/gingerbread1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/gingerbread2.jpg)

You can even see the framing on the side!

On the basis that the gingerbread prototype probably wasn't going to be adequate for permits, we also had to do some plans for the main cabin.  I'd already bought John's 20 x 30 1 1/2 story plans and really liked the basic layout.  However, there were the usual tweaks and some more detail needed for CA code, including seismic stuff and snow load.   We also decided that maybe 1 story was easier to build and would be big enough most of the time (and anything we could build would be too small the rest of the time as it's either just the 2 of us or a big bunch of friends all visiting at once).  Another change was to try and get a wood stove in the middle, both for warmth reasons and to get the stovepipe out of the way of falling snow.  A vaulted ceiling in the main room was an important feature for Lisa, so that was added.  Finally, we tried to add a basement (but that got scaled back to a good-sized crawl space once we realized it would need to be engineered).

Once we'd tied down the changes, I made some feeble attempts to do a modified set of drawings myself, but then gave up and found a local house designer to do the design for us.  This turned out to be good from a design perspective as she had lots of little ideas to tweak the details like storage and windows so they fitted better with our revised plan.  She also explained how lofts with ladders are not allowed, but a 20'x10' "flower shelf" is fine.  And, importantly, her structural analysis software worked out that, with 120 psf snow load and a 20'x20' open room, you need a 6"x18" main beam!!! Finally the plans were submitted a couple of days before the end of the year, getting them in before the January 2008 California building code changes (but whilst I was out of the country).  Another set of plans, with the numerous errors fixed, were submitted a few weeks later (which I think went more smoothly than it might do in some places thanks to the plan checker and house designer being friends!).

Here's the plan:


Notice the space next to the fridge where you can put a ladder should you ever want to access the "flower shelf" above the bedroom/bathroom.

Another improvement that came in shortly after the well was a shower.



The water heater is an Eccotemp L5 and costs about $130 or so.  It's definitely cheaply built, but does the job and makes a huge difference - a hot shower at the end of the day is a real luxury.  If you want a regular temperature shower and the water's coming straight from the well then I'm guessing you have to have it at about 1-1.5 gallons/minute.  However, if the water's been sitting in the pressure tank a few hours it's just like your regular low-flow shower at home. One thing to watch out for with the Eccotemp heaters is that they have a safety shut-off after something like 15 mins - you have to switch them off then on again if you want them to continue.

We do have shower curtains that we use when we have guests...

Hey, great to hear from you & enjoyed the update!  Sounds like you are moving right along, although when you're in the midst of getting these things done it seems like it takes forever.  I like your shower  [cool]

David it looks as if you are making good progress considering what "hoops" you have to go through in CA.  They would go crazy in my project.  When do you think you will have access tothe property or being able to work?

Oh BTW I went back and added the pictures of the horses I originally posted.  I don't know why PB deletes these after a period of time. 

Quote from: Redoverfarm on February 10, 2009, 07:27:59 AM
David it looks as if you are making good progress considering what "hoops" you have to go through in CA.  They would go crazy in my project.  When do you think you will have access tothe property or being able to work?

Compared with the Bay Area, the building officials up in the mountains are great - most of them seem to be on your side, even if the regulations seem to be a bit over the top for this kind of construction.  I don't think I'd have the guts to do this in the city having seen what my neighbors have gone through with remodels (one had a 1 month delay in their project because someone forgot to take into account the width of the window frames in the shear wall calculations!).

These photos are all from a year ago now - still trying to bring the thread up to date.  I think it was inaccessible for about 3 1/2 months starting around Christmas.  This year it snowed in mid-December and I'm hoping to get in late April. On a heavy snow year it can be closed in from Thanksgiving until May.  However, I've just invested in a "tool" to handle these issues:


(you can tell it's a tool, and hence an essential purchase, because it's yellow like my DeWalt saw.  If it was a toy it would be red!).

In the spring of 2008, once the snow had melted, we finished off clearing the location for the cabin.  This area had previously been covered in manzanita but other than that was pretty open so only 3 small trees to remove.  If the photos were bigger you might notice the stump where I got the cut very wrong and learned how essential a wedge is when the tree falls the wrong way and sits on your saw (and how moving the car before hand was definitely a wise move).

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/clearing1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/clearing2.jpg)

After waiting a few weeks (still the end of the construction boom), the back hoe came up to dig the footings.  The plan is to have a big crawl space, roughly 3ft below grade and 1ft above, so there was a fair bit of dirt to move. But it only took a few hours to do the whole thing, including a trench to the well.  It cost almost as much to get the equipment up to the property as to do the work.

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/footing1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/footing2.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/footing3.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/footing4.jpg)

In my head I had an image of the ground being pretty much ready for concrete after this stage.  The last photo of the four, taken after the backhoe had left,  indicates how wrong I was!

Quote from: davidj on February 10, 2009, 01:25:03 AM
Another improvement that came in shortly after the well was a shower.

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/shower1.jpg) (http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/shower2.jpg)

I love looking through older threads that I missed.  That's along the same lines as what I had in mind for a temporary shower as well.. only yours is much more thought out then what I was envisioning.  Thank you, Thank you.   

Hi David and Lisa,

I recently posted on the forum regarding cabins for a summer camp(Nevada City area) and ended up selecting the 20x30 plans. Would very much like to hear about your county planner and code experiences. As you can imagine we need to build 15 of these units and I am trying to learn up front what to avoid.
Best...

Quote from: dcados on April 22, 2009, 08:23:22 PM
Hi David and Lisa,

I recently posted on the forum regarding cabins for a summer camp(Nevada City area) and ended up selecting the 20x30 plans. Would very much like to hear about your county planner and code experiences. As you can imagine we need to build 15 of these units and I am trying to learn up front what to avoid.
Best...

For the plans, we had one sheet of site plan and two sheets for the cabin drawings.  This is way less than would be needed in the Bay Area.  The upside is that there's some flexibility during construction.  The downside is that you have to work out a bunch of details on the fly.  I think you'd want more drawings if you were paying someone else to do the construction, regardless of code issues, especially if you're repeating the construction multiple times.

We got by without engineering, relying on "conventional construction", although that limited our options in some areas.   I think that after recent code changes you're even more likely to need that.  But spread over 15 cabins that's no big deal.

The "Wildland Urban Interface" fire-related changes to the code came in after we submitted (3 days after!).  If this applies to you it'll limit things like siding, roofing and eave/vent details.  But as long as you consider it from the start it doesn't seem to be a huge burden.

We're still only at the foundation stage, so there's only been a couple of inspections on the main cabin.  The Plumas County guys seem very reasonable so far, mostly checking the bits that are where someone might mess up like the anchor bolts for the hold downs.

However, a couple of things may change your experience from ours:
- you're probably gonna be classified as something other than residential, which could make things more complicated
- counties vary considerably, and Plumas has a good reputation so other rural areas may be less friendly

Quote from: muldoon on March 24, 2009, 06:33:22 PM
I love looking through older threads that I missed.  That's along the same lines as what I had in mind for a temporary shower as well.. only yours is much more thought out then what I was envisioning.  Thank you, Thank you.   

The shower was over-engineered, as happens too often to my projects.  I've had neighbors build 10x12 cabins for less than I spent on the shower!  By the time I'd bought the heater, hoses, propane tanks, some gravel for underneath, redwood posts, PT framing and some suitably-country shower curtains I think it came in at somewhere North of $600.  That being said, it's worth every penny when you have a nice hot shower at the end of a hard day's work.  And it's gonna last for decades.

I think it's gonna get some T1-11 sheets on the sides this year as the shower curtains are a pain if it gets windy.  I've got some hard-core epoxy wood preservative that I'm gonna use on the edges (basically the same stuff as fiberglass resin) and I hope that will see the plywood through a bunch of winters.

Sweet shower setup! :D :D :D

And thanks for helping folks with "on the ground" info concerning CA code issues. Reasonable people can often get reasonable help from local building inspectors - even when state codes are probably the most strict in the country.

Thanks to all. This site and the people on it rock! Nice to learn up front what to avoid.

Still almost  a year behind current progress, so more catching up...

Once the backhoe left, the footings looked like this:


When the concrete truck arrived, they looked like this:


Getting from the first photo to the second was way more work than I expected and took several weekends.  I think one of the hardest bits for an amateur was the lack of reference points - it was almost 50 ft from one end to the other, with no hard reference points to work from - nothing level and no right-angles.  There was also a lot of dirt to move and everything involved bending over.  One piece of wisdom for other newbies is to remember it's easy to make everything move down with a couple of blows of a hammer, but making it higher involved pulling a nail, extracting the stake and starting again from scratch.  Something like setting all the metal stakes maybe 1/2" high, then a final tamp-down to correct level allows you to go a bit too low on some stakes without having to pull them out.  Especially if you have a cheap laser that only works after dusk so it's hard to check levels as you do it. Another trick shown to me was to set every other form board with a stake at each end, then hang the slightly-short intermediate boards off the end of the staked boards with bent nails so they're automatically level.  Then once you've got everything level add more stakes to strengthen it.

The bit that looks like a room in the foreground is actually for the porch - apparently the porch post footings have to be at the same height as the main foundation, and also tied to it because the porch is tied to the house.  So they look like footings for a wall but it's really just for 4 posts.  There are several wider and deeper sections for load-bearing - even the 8ft window needed an extra 2" of concrete depth under the jack studs thanks to the snow load.

Below are a few more detailed close-ups.  Note the way the vertical rebar (#4 @ 16" centers) hangs off the center 2x4, with the L's alternating sides and the footing rebar tied to it.  The wooden spacers for the vertical piers were removed after the footings were poured (in retrospect, I should have used a loop of rebar, but I think they're short enough and fat enough it shouldn't be a big deal).

Pouring the footings was a big party - friends, neighbors, friends of neighbors - everyone joined in. One of the guys, Fin, had done this kind of thing many times before so he took over the organizing, freeing me up to actually do work rather than pretending to know what everyone should be doing.


Fortunately folks brought their own wheelbarrows as mine died trying to move mud to the far corner out of reach of the chute.

We finished off the whole surface with trowels, which was hard work given a total of 150ft of footing.  After it started setting up we pulled off the rebar supports but left the forms in for a couple of weeks (which I guess is good for the concrete, but also bad for the back of the person trying to get them out!).

Too much cabin building and not enough posting to the forum!  The last post was from work about a year ago.  The latest progress can be seen in my photo gallery:

 http://gallery.me.com/davidj270#100036&view=grid&bgcolor=black (http://gallery.me.com/davidj270#100036&view=grid&bgcolor=black)

Below are a few highlights...

The footings before the grout pour:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/progress1.jpg)

The I-joists for the main floor:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/progress2.jpg)

Raising the front wall:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/progress3.jpg)

The first folk to stay in the loft:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/progress4.jpg)

The roof bones:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/progress5.jpg)

If anyone is interested in any details let me know...//

thanks for the update - it's looking good!

David,

I'm Herb Nelson's neighbor over on Lodgepole.  We are building our little cabins out of shipping containers.  I'll try to stop by and introduce myself in the next couple of weeks.  I'm about to start roofing our buildings, and may hit you up for advice.

Regards,

Mike

Quote from: kontainerville on September 11, 2009, 03:08:45 PM
David,

I'm Herb Nelson's neighbor over on Lodgepole.  We are building our little cabins out of shipping containers.  I'll try to stop by and introduce myself in the next couple of weeks.  I'm about to start roofing our buildings, and may hit you up for advice.

Regards,

Mike

Great - another red-dirt-roader on the forum!  We've been meaning to say hi to you guys but we've been more antisocial than we'd like lately due to the amount of work left to do before the snow hits.  Your project looks really interesting...

Stop by any time - we should be up the next 3 weekends and maybe some Fridays.

Great!  We'll be up September 19th and, hopefully, on October 10th for Oktoberfest at the Saloon!  We'll stop by.  Great to see the pictures of your cabin. 

Here are a few more updates from this fall (posted from 35000ft - wifi on a plane is a great invention!).

The eave rafters were a whole bunch of hard work.  Cutting the notches for the 28 lookouts at random angles (depending on the scaffolding details) involved swallowing more sawdust than is healthy and took nearly 3 hours.  And lifting the rafters in was hard work, but fortunately the neighbors once again helped out. The palm nailer turned out to be the best way to nail them in as it was really hard to lean out with a hammer or nail gun.

Here's Lisa cutting the notches for the eave vents.  The scaffolding made work at the eaves really easy.  We really wanted to go with sprayed-in foam, but the open cell required venting anyway and the closed cell was seriously expensive (I can't remember exactly right now, but I think it was gonna be close to $7K). 

I really wasn't looking forward to the roof sheathing - heights aren't really my thing.  To make it a bit less scary I bought a bunch of roof jacks, which worked really well and was well worth the money. The first side I ended up doing alone, which resulted in two of the hardest days of my life - hauling 5/8" plywood up 20ft gets to be pretty tough by the end of the day, especially with temps in the high 80s.  However, for the second half my friend Joy helped and it was way more fun.

David don't forget the screen for the vents.  Insects, mice and bats love the insulation to nest in.

Quote from: Redoverfarm on February 05, 2010, 11:01:04 PM
David don't forget the screen for the vents.  Insects, mice and bats love the insulation to nest in.

Yeah, they went in after I got the roof on - I ended up just stapling venting metal cloth (or whatever it's called) on the inside.  Cheap and cheerful!

If we'd submitted our plans 2 days later we'd have been hit by the new California fire codes and would have needed the $30/piece fireproof vents (x 30 rafter bays!).

We ended up buying some nice (and expensive!) 6x6 resawn posts and 6x8 beams (needed for the 100psf snow load).  The easy way was to use a bunch of short beams, but the strong way was to get one 18' long.  Fortunately the neighbors inlaw Tre is an HVAC engineer and was up that weekend - his lift made the whole thing trivial!

Framing the hip roof for the porch was probably the most complicated framing on the whole thing - not knowing how to do it the proper way I ended up doing a lot of math to try and work out how long everything needed to be.  Even though the span was 6ft we needed 2x8 commons and double 2x10 hip rafters, plus a lot of Simpson metal to tie it all together.  I cut birdsmouths in the hip rafters and used a ripped "wedge" to support the commons due to the difference in depth.


As he's done many times before, my neighbor Ken helped out when it came to the sheathing. He's got 25 years on me but I still can't keep up with him!  One day I'll try and do a thread on his cabins - three sleeping cabins, a saloon, a jail and a bathhouse (all <200 sq ft) on 5 acres.  There's not many places to live where you can be in the middle of nowhere and have a (free!) saloon within 200 yds of your cabin!

The windows are Marvin fiberglass clad wood - pretty expensive but they look (and work) great.  This is the big 8x5 south-facing triple double hung (which needed a 6x10 header - that snow load makes things expensive!).

This is the stove we ended up getting - a Quadrafire Yosemite.  There was some discussion (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=7826.0) on stove sizes and I ended going for a small stove rather than a medium.  It seems to be able to get the place up to 30F warmer than outside with no insulation (and uncovered ridge vent!).  This still isn't really warm enough for Casey, who rarely comes out of her down sleeping bag if it's below 80!

The roof is standing seam metal.  Due to the height thing I got a roofer in to do this and it ended up costing $8K.  This seemed expensive but there's not much competition in these parts, and I guess all of the trim costs a fair bit.

I also had the stove/stovepipe installed, again due to the heights, and this came to $400 (which seemed quite a deal given the round trip is 1.5 hours and they ended up coming out 3 times!)

We pretty much got everything done before the snow came with one exception - the custom metal door for the crawlspace entrance arrived a few days too late and the road was already closed with snow.  It weighs close to 200lb and is 6ft by 4ft, so not exactly convenient for throwing in a backpack. A few 2x6s and some hardboard was the solution, plus of course the ATV!

There were some heavy storms in January 2010.  Here's the start of the dirt road into the cabin - about 4ft of really soft snow.  Breaking trail was incredibly hard work, even with good backcountry skis.  Joanne had snow shoes and she could only make progress after Eric and I broke down the snow.  And we had to take it in turns to lead to avoid becoming completely exhausted.



The good news is that the cabin was fine, if a little snow-encrusted.

Yay - finally up to date on documenting progress!  Now for two or three months of skiing-in to work on the rough plumbing, mechanical and electrical.

At this point we're about $50K and 18 months into the project (excluding land, well and outbuildings).

Hi david,
  great picks.. i love the idea of skiing into a cabin in the woods..  you guys sure got the snow..   we are on the other end of the country - NE  PA, and normally, we would have some snow by now, but all of the storms that have swept across the country have either gone north or south of us.. much like the one that is hitting Washington right now.

I like the lift that you used for your beam for the porch.  My son was visiting over thanksgiving, and we used a built up beam for the same purpose.. but we had to get in in place ourselves..   I think that I scared him - he is a rock climber, and he said that getting that beam in place was more frightening than anything he faces on the cliffs..  , but the system worked, and the beam is in place..  maybe we will try your method next time!
 
we started our house about 2 years ago.. not much gets done over the winter.  we have just about the same 50k invested without the land - that does include a septic system and a well, however.  we are going to go easy from here on - spending only what we have on hand.   I am hoping to come in under 70k when we are all done.   

I am looking forward to more pics!   enjoy the snow.. we are taking a group of students skiing tomorrow - but it is nearly all man mad snow :(

Very nice.
Love the porch. Thats about what I had envisioned doing for my porch and now I'm sure I'll go with it.

Quote from: pocono_couple on February 06, 2010, 09:36:43 AM
. . .  we are on the other end of the country - NE  PA, and normally, we would have some snow by now, but all of the storms that have swept across the country have either gone north or south of us . . .

I have between 20"-24" of snow in South-Central PA that you can have . . .    ;D

Cool project!  I love Plumas County and have lived there during three different summers, 1975 and 1980 in Meadow Valley (west of Quincy) and 1976 on the west shore of Lake Almanor.

Haven't spent much time near Graeagle, but there used to be a great hot spring out in the middle of no-where just NW of the town.  I think it got filled in back in the mid-1980s, but it was just some nice pools out in the middle of a large flat.  I don't think there was a house within 5 miles of it back then.

Great climate in the summer months, but the winters are a bit severe.  I wonder how much the snow on your porch weighs in the winter picture you posted.  Looks to be about 3 feet deep over the door area...

Nice project.

Nice wife.

Nice neighbors

Nice roof; nice windows.

Not bad for someone on the left coast.  :)

Quote from: Pine Cone on February 07, 2010, 10:44:34 PM
Cool project!  I love Plumas County and have lived there during three different summers, 1975 and 1980 in Meadow Valley (west of Quincy) and 1976 on the west shore of Lake Almanor.

Meadow Valley's pretty - must've been nice to live there.

I'm guessing Lake Almanor's changed a bit since you were there - they seem to be pushing at as the new Tahoe and there's been lots of development (although I'm guessing not so much the last couple of years).

Quote from: Pine Cone on February 07, 2010, 10:44:34 PMHaven't spent much time near Graeagle, but there used to be a great hot spring out in the middle of no-where just NW of the town.  I think it got filled in back in the mid-1980s, but it was just some nice pools out in the middle of a large flat.  I don't think there was a house within 5 miles of it back then.

I'm pretty sure there're no hot springs near Graeagle now.  There are some in the Sierra Valley but they're on private land.  The plan was to make our own, but the hot tub project has been on hold since the framing started and looks like it's a few years off at this point.

Quote from: Pine Cone on February 07, 2010, 10:44:34 PM
Great climate in the summer months, but the winters are a bit severe.  I wonder how much the snow on your porch weighs in the winter picture you posted.  Looks to be about 3 feet deep over the door area...

Just went back up again two weeks later and the porch roof is completely clear.  This is good news, as it's the compacted snow that builds up over weeks and months that becomes "sierra cement".

One problem we had with the cabin recently was mold in the crawl space.  I'd planned to put in a vapor barrier and a bunch of vents, but with the hurry to get the place winterized I just covered up the crawl space entrance and the single prototype vent hole.  6 weeks later I went into the basement and there was a thin layer of mold everywhere, with water literally dripping from the sub floor.  Turns out the temp. in there was in the high 30s, which was enough for any moisture in the dirt to evaporate.  However, the rim joists were more like 28F at night, making a great condenser

The remedy was to put 6 mil polyethylene down, taping the seams and the edges (to the polyiso foam) and then cut a few more vents.  It seems way better now - no obvious moisture except under the poly sheet.  The relative humidity is 86%, but with feet of snow and temps oscillating around freezing I think this is as good as it gets for a month or two.  We also found some damaged vinyl flooring at HD, which we've laid down to protect the polyethylene.

Were I doing this again, I'd put down the vapor barrier before laying the subfloor - seeing your brand new crawlspace turning green and damp is no fun!

Good advice on covering the crawlspace early.

Quote from: davidj on February 10, 2009, 10:10:10 AM
This year it snowed in mid-December and I'm hoping to get in late April. On a heavy snow year it can be closed in from Thanksgiving until May.  However, I've just invested in a "tool" to handle these issues:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans320/atv1.jpg)

(you can tell it's a tool, and hence an essential purchase, because it's yellow like my DeWalt saw.  If it was a toy it would be red!).

Hmmmm . . . most of my "tools" are red . . .  ;)

It's taking way longer than I thought to do the plumbing and electrical.  Driving through snow and hiking in an hour each way isn't helping, but having only done one plumbing job before (a bathroom remodel) it's mostly inexperience slowing me down.  Finally, a couple of weeks back, I finished the DWV after a couple of changes of plan:


It all seems very simple now, but the whole 3d issues along with trying to avoid 90s made it harder to think about.  I also followed the Hemp plumbing book ("Plumbing a House") for the toilet vent details, but it turns out that most of the toilet patterns don't work in CA.  You can't have horizontal venting until 6" above the flood level of the fixture and all vent connections need to be wyes (some of his are sanitary tees) - basically you have to use his "pattern 5".  I also don't have any interior walls that extend to the cathedral ceiling, so I had to swing the drain over to the outside wall and go up at 45 degrees into the bottom plate.  Fortunately I called the inspector with a minor question and he explained everything patiently (and it actually makes more sense intuitively this way, even if it's more limiting).  This all resulted in me having to change my existing vents, which I'd already taken up the wall and out of the roof before I really understood the underfloor stuff.  The photo on the left is under the bathroom and the right is under the kitchen sink.

I've also got 1/2 of the electrical in, which is also going slowly.  Which is good, cos I'm still trying to work out where to put the light fixtures and switches (we want old-fashioned looking, title 24 compliant, cheap, warm light and works with cathedral ceilings - apparently an almost impossible combination!).

Last week my pex arrived and I'm working on that too (I don't know if it's me, but the cheap lead-free pex fittings really don't like to hold solder!).  But once any copper fittings have been soldered, the pex itself is great to work with.  I went with the steel clamp rings and they work well.  I'll post some photos in a week or two...

Gotta love the cheese/sausage croissant at the Blairsden bakery and the lil' bar in Graeagle!

The good news is the snow has finally cleared and we managed to drive in over the weekend.  The last time we could do that was Thanksgiving - almost 6 months ago.  That's quite a Winter considering we're only at 5000ft!  But even though the dirt road is open it still dropped down to 23F on Saturday night, snow on the ground both mornings and Donner Summit was closed for a couple of hours by snow and accidents on the way up.  It looks like we're pretty much gonna jump straight from Winter to Summer this year.

The bad news is that now I've got no excuse for not making some rapid progress! I'll try and remember to take some photos of the pex setup next time I'm up there - it's mostly done at this point.  Still dragging my feet on the electrical - at this point I'm fed up of crawling around under the floor and can't wait to move on to the decks and siding.  Need to have everything ready for the 4R inspection at the end of September...

Spring lasted for about 3 days this year - it already feels like Summer.  Which means it's time to finish the decks (18'x6' at the front, 8'x6' by the back door).  Here are a few photos of the work on the stairs for the front deck...

Here are the forms for the concrete pad - it took >30 bags of concrete to fill:

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/deck1.jpg)

Some of the "hired help" used to mix the concrete - Joy and Christian.  Amazing the amount of sweat you can get out of these guys for a couple of bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale...

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/deck2.jpg)

Another look at the stringers (2 hours with the sidewinder to cut).  This is the first time I've done anything serious with concrete screws - seem to work pretty well although I probably went too long with 2 3/4" - using 2" length would have been fine and I'd have spent a lot less time drilling holes with the hammer drill.

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/deck3.jpg)

(http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~davidj/countryplans640/deck4.jpg)

David and I thought I had a wide set of steps on the cabin at 8' but you have me beat hands down.  Thats a lot of concrete to mix by hand but it looks like you "got r done".  Looking good.

Quote from: Redoverfarm on June 09, 2010, 05:40:09 AM
David and I thought I had a wide set of steps on the cabin at 8' but you have me beat hands down.  Thats a lot of concrete to mix by hand but it looks like you "got r done".  Looking good.

The main justification for the steps is for winter access.  After heavy snow falls there can be a pretty big heap of snow in the middle of the porch but the corners don't accumulate much due to the hip roof.  It also gave me another foot of deck using the top step - I was limited to a 6' porch unless I had the whole thing engineered, but that width limit doesn't include the steps.

This past winter it wouldn't have made any difference for me I couldn't use them anyway because of the roof snow slide.  I am planning on making a small set to the end of the porch which shouldn't be effected.  I will probably just be able to walk level off the snow to the porch deck without using the steps if this winter is the same. ;D

(https://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/redoverfarm/hightop/100_3581-1.jpg)

Wow - that's a fair bit of snow!  Wouldn't wanna be under that one when it came down!!

The worst part was that this was mid season.  There was still more that came down after that.  I guess when it finally ended there was about 4' between the peak on the pile and the overhang soffit.  Of course it had already made it's way to the porch deck and covered the steps.  But it finally left by the hardest.  Now what to do about putting gutters up.  ???

As promised a while back, some photos of the pex plumbing...

Here are the main hot and cold manifolds, which sit directly under the on-demand water heater (still missing three or four fixture runs when I took the photo):


Here's the pressure tank, along with a home-made 3/4" manifold:


As usual, I went a bit over the top with the design of this, especially given the small size of the system.  It's set up to gravity drain from 2 points:

i) The valves at the bottom the main manifolds (along with a third valve for the cold inlet to the water heater) can be used to drain the cabin itself but keep water in the pressure tank and crawlspace-only pipes
ii) The tap on the pressure tank can be used to drain everything else, including the tank itself.

In general I liked working with the pex, although I spent more time sweating the copper for the manifolds and water heater connection than I ever did crimping pex!

Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaa - passed the rough inspection.  The inspector even emphasized that I'd done a great job on the DWV - better than some of the local plumbers - which was nice to hear given how much hassle I went through plumbing it.  The only issue was that he wanted one of the smoke detectors moved higher on the cathedral ceiling - a 30 minute fix.

The last few weeks before the inspection were definitely the toughest of the whole project - long lists of things to finish off, all of the jobs I'd put off because I didn't want to do them and very little visible progress.  Working all week, building all weekend and all my vacations days, and a "summer vacation" of 1/2 a day hiking in Lakes Basin. Even the dog pretty much moved in with the neighbors because I was so boring and never threw a stick for her!  But a great feeling of relief to have it all done and move on to the next stage.

So if I've got the outside pretty much finished and the rough plumbing/electrical/mechanical done, what % of the way through are we?  Have we done 2/3 yet?

I'll try and post a few more photos now I'm not spend every spare second putting up siding or running Romex.

hi david and lisa, just finished reading your thread.  i really enjoyed it.  i smiled at the victories, sympathized at the bumps in the road, and the outhouse thing and that bumperbummer thing made me laugh until i cried!  my husband in the living room thought something hapened to me and came running. silly him, and i just could not stop laughing/crying to expain to him what i had seen and read!

your cabin is so awsome!  and you got so far so quickly.  i bet its going to take us years to get there.  and congratulations on the building inspection, that must feel good!

so is this a vacation cabin, or a full-time residence?  we will be in the bay area for about 10 more years for work reasons, but then we are going to be full-timers.  unless of course we hit the lotto?  i would defect in a minute!

thanks for sharing so much details with us, i will refer to your thread for several of those details!  you guys rock!

Quote from: altaoaks on October 22, 2010, 09:33:12 PM
so is this a vacation cabin, or a full-time residence?  we will be in the bay area for about 10 more years for work reasons, but then we are going to be full-timers.  unless of course we hit the lotto?  i would defect in a minute!

Whoops - sorry - missed this question.  This probably won't be a full-time residence, although maybe half-time when we both retire.  The winter is just too harsh, with no neighbors, a 45 minute ski to the road and 4ft of snow everywhere.  We might try and survive one winter up there, just to prove we can, but I don't think either of us are under any illusions that it'll be easy or our preferred way of life. 

Once the rough inspection was over, it was on to insulation.  I priced out everything I needed at Home Depot and figured it was gonna cost about $2K for the materials (R38 in the cathedral ceiling, R19 in the walls, vent chutes and polyethylene vapor barrier).  I then got a quote for the "local" insulation guys (almost 2 hours drive away) and they wanted $1900, delivery and installation included.  The decision wasn't a tough one!  Two guys did the whole thing in 4 hours, which was pretty impressive - it would have taken me many days.  I did have to go back and fill in some details - more spray foam around the windows, blocking to keep the insulation away from the chimney, filling behind outlets and taping the vapor barrier.  But it passed inspection and now the cabin is nice and cosy (and a lot quieter - you can hardly hear the generator outside).

Hard to beat that!  Insulating is not a favorite pastime of mine.

Normally the drop-dead date for road access is Thanksgiving - it'll be clear until then but any snow after the end of November and it may not clear until May.  So in early November I had 1600 linear foot of 1x6 T&G pine delivered [for the cathedral ceiling - 90c/foot from the local lumber yard - not cheap, but delivery included].  I also hauled the scaffolding inside.  I was extremely lucky that I did this a little early - it snowed a week and a half before Thanksgiving and the road hasn't be accessible by truck since.

Fortunately I also managed to haul in the one fixture that was gonna make the winter a bit more civilized - a toilet!  We have an outside flush toilet, but this is too much work to use during winter given the problems with freezing hose pipes, so we'd been using the neighbors outhouse.  Not having to put on snow shoes, hike 200yds and then shovel snow to go to the bathroom is such a luxury!

Other than preparing for Winter, not much else happened in the last few weeks of 2010, which was a relief as I was definitely ready for a break!  The original plan was to do the cabin in <3 years (one Summer foundation, one Summer framing, one Winter rough and the last Summer finishing).  The 30 months had already passed and there was at least another year of work to do, so time to be lazy and take a break for a month or so before starting on the interior.

I had the same experience with both the insulation and the drywall.  I might have saved on a little on both by doing it myself but having someone else do it was priceless when I saw how quick and easily they did it!  Like you, there were a few things that needed some improving- they aren't going to do it with the same attention to detail that you would.

Looks good!  Moving right along.... [cool]

It's been a strange Winter in the Sierra's this year - loads of snow in November/December, spring conditions in Jan/Feb (most of the snow melted) and now back to real Winter.

We drove up this weekend (President's day) to try and finish the T&G on the cathedral ceiling, but it was tough to get anything done.  We couldn't leave at all Thursday night - Interstate 80 was closed due to snow + accidents, as was 70 (a good Winter alternative).  So we drove up Friday morning, but the roads were still a mess - a long wait for chain control at about 3000ft and 7 hours drive (usually more like 4).  But the timing of our arrival was perfect - the last 800yds of road had maybe 6" of snow but we were right behind the snow blower and he cut a parking place for us at the trailhead.  The trail, on the other hand, had >3' of very soft powder and we had 3 days of food and lots of warm clothes in our packs.  Fortunately some snowmobiles had recently been through on most of the two mile trek, but the last 500yds or so was virgin powder and it nearly killed us getting through it (even with oversized snowshoes).  Here's the view from the front door:


Layla, our lab, was basically swimming in snow! 


Overnight almost another foot of snow fell.  On Saturday the neighbors were supposed to come in, but we get a text saying that they had to turn home because the road was closed - apparently we saw the snow blower just before it died.   And the local ski races (http://www.plumasskiclub.org/) had been cancelled because of too much snow! We were officially snowed-in!!

One other problem was that we were supposed to check some samples of the slate we hoped to use for the floor (main room, bathroom and bedroom).  What's more we needed pretty much all that the tile shop had in stock and they'd no idea when the next shipment was coming in, so we had to decide  ASAP.  So on Sunday we hiked back out to the car, spread out the 10 tiles on the snow, picked 4 that looked representative (still maybe 20lbs) and packed it back to the cabin again.  The good news was that a snow plough had obviously made it past the parking area - it looked like we could get our little RAV4 out.  And fortunately the slate looked good in the cabin, although we were so exhausted we could barely get it out of the backpack!

On Monday morning it still hadn't reached 20F when we started to hike out.  Fortunately the low temps combined with our previous tracks and light packs made the walk out quite pleasant!  And the drive home was a breeze - all of the skiers were still out on the slopes rather than clogging up the freeway.

All in all a tough weekend, especially for Lisa who was less keen on being snowed in than I was (for me the extensive wine and canned soup stocks in the crawl space seemed a reasonable alternative to work!).  In between the snowshoeing trips we did actually get some T&G up too, but not quite as much as we'd hoped.  I'll try and post some pictures of the progress in the next few days...

Quote from: davidj on February 22, 2011, 02:43:42 AM


All in all a tough weekend, especially for Lisa who was less keen on being snowed in than I was

Visions of the Donner Party undoubtedly danced in her head.  Layla the lab also most likely was not too crazy about the whole prospect because she would be the first.... :-X

It does look like a very adventurous time of it, and at least you had a chance to get away.  It is so strange how things change so quickly up there is it not.  Look out and there are a few flakes coming down.  Lookout again and there is a couple feet, look out again and there is a lot more.  So it goes up there in the Sierras this time of the year.  Well be assured spring time is just around the corner!

[waiting] [noidea'

Quite an adventure!  Looks pretty, though  ;D

Great project! thanks for sharing all the photos and the stories.

incredibly beautiful setting too!

i'm looking forward to hearing how the rest of your project goes!

We're currently installing horizontal 1x6 T&G pine on the cathedral ceiling - photos coming soon.

The next decision is what to do with the walls.  The three obvious options (based on what is easy to find locally) are:

1) Horizontal 1x6 T&G
2) Horizontal 1x8 shiplap
3) Vertical 1x8 shiplap

Anyone have any thoughts?  The vertical 1x8 is a bit more work as we'll need to put horizontal 1x4s behind it and do jamb extensions for the doors (the windows need them anyway).  Is it best to go uniform with all horizontal 1x6 in a smaller cabin?  This would certainly be easier with materials.  Or does some wider and/or vertical wood add variety and make it more interesting or less "busy"?

Should we still used water-based poly on the walls/trim?  Or should we switch to oil-based in areas that are gonna get more abuse?

Thanks.

For me, vertical or horizontal is a personal choice. I don't think there is any rule. However, I think that if the main covering is horizontal wood boards it is nice to break that up with something different. Either different material or some boards vertical. Even a wall someplace that is sheetrocked and painted a color; not an off white, but something bolder. In our home we have drywall. None of the walls are a shade of white anymore.

Are you thinking of staining the wood or is your preference for a clear coat? Again that is personal. We really prefer light natural colors that an absolutely clear coat provides. Are there any pure clear oil based? Everything oil that I've used seems to impart a yellow cast. Some like that, we don't.

Quote from: MountainDon on February 26, 2011, 08:19:04 PM
Are you thinking of staining the wood or is your preference for a clear coat? Again that is personal. We really prefer light natural colors that an absolutely clear coat provides. Are there any pure clear oil based? Everything oil that I've used seems to impart a yellow cast. Some like that, we don't.

Thanks for the feedback.  We've used Polycrylic satin (water-based Poly) on the ceiling.  I hadn't thought of the fact that the oil-based equivalent is slightly yellower.  So we'll stick with the water-based for all of the pine.

Still haven't worked out what to do vertical - I've got a few random boards that I'm gonna put up next week to see what the vertical looks like next to the ceiling.

Talking of the ceiling, we finally got it finished this weekend.  It was a long job, mostly due to the difficulty of working with long boards and being high up on the scaffolding.  Not to mention applying poly to 3200 linear ft of board (actually half that, but each was done twice).  Lisa made the whole thing possible, helping to slot in all of the 16' boards and doing more than her fair share of the painting.

One useful trick is to have an awl or sharp screwdriver handy.  For the more warped boards you can stab or hammer it into the joist and use it as a small lever to pull the board in.

The next projects are the loft railing/posts, finishing off some of the electrical (to make sure there's nothing wrong before covering everything) and then the bedroom/bath ceilings (great - more finish application!!!).

Here are a few pictures of working on the ceiling.

Here's what it looks like now it's finished.  Unfortunately the photo framing isn't great but my little point-and-shoot doesn't really cut it for this kind of shot.  Any change in wood color from the other pictures is due to the difference between natural light and an underpowered flash - the poly was all applied before installing.

Very nice David.

And I just want to take a moment to make certain that the viewers understand that glorious cathedral ceiling is made possible by the use or a ridge beam. One can see some of the roof load path from the ridge beam down around the windows. That's why there's no rafter ties across the width.

Quote from: MountainDon on March 07, 2011, 02:44:47 PM
And I just want to take a moment to make certain that the viewers understand that glorious cathedral ceiling is made possible by the use or a ridge beam. One can see some of the roof load path from the ridge beam down around the windows. That's why there's no rafter ties across the width.

Good point.  I'm guessing that it probably cost us around $1200-$1500 extra to skip the rafter ties by the time you take into account the beam, posts, hardware and crane.  Probably a bunch of extra work too - more one-off details like bigger footings and drilling bolt holes, which can be slow for an amateur when every different step is something new.  Rafter ties are repetitive and probably quite quick to install after the first one or two are in.  That being said, I'm glad we went with the open look.

Also there are no collar ties (http://www.nachi.org/collar-rafter-ties.htm).  The rafters actually sit on top of the beam and opposing 2x12s overlap.  There're somethink like 12 x 16d nails connecting each pair of rafters together.

The snow was finally down to just a few deep patches last week and one of the neighbors brought over his Bobcat, so finally we can drive in.  The last time we could do that was mid November!

Since the last set of photos I've also finished the bedroom and bathroom ceilings and most of the finish electrical (mainly to test it before closing in the walls).  Now I'm working on the loft ladder/railing and putting slate down on the bathroom floor.  Hopefully some more photos in the near future now that I'm not spending half of my life hiking through snow or hauling slate and 4x6s on the ATV!

The railings for the loft look simple but required a bunch of thought.  Apart from the basic design (wood or metal, horizontal or vertical, how much wall below railing) even the issue of how many posts and where was hard - I wanted to make it somewhat symmetric, avoid joists and fit in a ladder too.  Originally the ladder was gonna be the other orientation with a side dismount but it wasn't as clean so we went with the face-on approach.

The railings are gas pipe, which looked like a cheap and simple approach.  Turns out to be more complicated than you'd think (e.g. you can't do closed loops with threaded pipe) and also pretty expensive (literally hundreds of fittings).  That being said, we're pretty pleased with how it's turning out.  I'll try and post some more details pics and costs later, but here's where we are so far (without the corner pieces, which are fiddly to try and get right and so still need a bunch more fittings and cut pipe).

As promised, a few more details on the railings.

Here's another view, including the end section.


The top rail is 3/4" x 1/2" tees with 3/4" x 3 1/2" nipples between them.  Getting everything really tight (I actually ended up using pipe compound to help), you can get a 4 7/8" o/c spacing, which just about gets you to the 4" code-specified maximum gap between pipes (but it's marginal - you might want to go with 3" nipples if you have a fussy inspector).


The vertical pipes are 1/2" x 34", which with the length of the tees, a 4" gap beneath and a 2 1/4" stem wall (so stuff on the floor doesn't get kicked over the edge) gets you over the 42" code height.

At the bottom, there are also 3/4" x 1/2" tees, but this time with a 1/2" pipe running through all of the tees.  Currently it's not attached to the tees, which results in the vertical pipes being slightly movable and off parallel.  At some point I'm gonna drill a hole in the bottom of the tee and put in a set screw to hold it in place.

All of the connections to the posts (which are 4"x6", but 4"x4" would work) are with floor flanges - these can be a bit harder to find but any good plumbing supply store will have them.


The end sections are basically the same setup, but with a bunch of 90s and 1/2" x 4" nipples, and vertical pipes that get 4 7/8" shorter each time (actually I used 5").



The bit of T&G is a substitute for the final trim.

All in all it only took a few hours to assemble, but at least the same again shopping (and yet more to work out the design, but that was mostly because I had no idea what I was trying to do).  And there's >$500 of pipe and fittings in the whole thing!  (probably more like $350 at HD prices but I couldn't find anything like the quantities I needed at my squalid local city stores and had to pay more at a pro plumbing supply store).  It's certainly not the cheap option I thought it would be, but we're very pleased with how it turned out and fits with the industrial feel that we're using elsewhere in the cabin.

The pipe rail looks very cool and and intreresting project.  8)

Quote from: davidj on February 26, 2011, 06:42:34 PM

The next decision is what to do with the walls.  The three obvious options (based on what is easy to find locally) are:

1) Horizontal 1x6 T&G
2) Horizontal 1x8 shiplap
3) Vertical 1x8 shiplap

In the end we decided to go with vertical 1x8 shiplap pine on the walls.  For reasons that seemed sensible at the time, we also went for a square-groove shiplap rather than a V-groove.  I.e. something like:

This was in an attempt to make it more old fashioned looking, and different from the ceiling, which does work.  The downside is it's fussier to get the groove just the right width and the boards all in the same plane.  So if you're looking from afar, it really just looks like V-groove shiplap or T&G. From too close up and you can see the occaisional place where there's maybe 1/16" difference in groove size where I didn't quite manage to straighten a bent board enough, or even variations in lighting that give the same effect.  But from just the right distance it looks great!  Oh, and the other downside is having to put two 3/4" rabbets in almost 3000ft of board, which turned out to be more work than I would have imagined (not being experience with a table saw, it took me a while to work out the key tricks - buy a decent quality dado blade and use lots of clamps and feather boards).  We put two coats of Polycrylic on the front and one on the back (except in the bathroom, where we put three on the front).

Here are a couple of pictures:

For the bathroom, we wanted something a bit more waterproof, and wainscoting seemed a good idea.  After the gas pipe railing we were on a bit of a roll with the industrial look, so went with corrugated metal roofing.  The floor is slate ("California Gold"), which will eventually be installed throughout the cabin, probably sometime next year given how long it took me to do the 50 sq ft in the bathroom.



Originally I wanted the old-fashioned HDG-style dark grey galvanized steel but couldn't find it.  We bought the really cheap and shiny metal at HD and tried to weather it with Phosphoric Acid, which sort-of worked, but it came out very blotchy and required sanding as well as an acid wash.  Finally we ended up with a galvalume finish on 29 gauge 7/8" corrugated, which is a bit lighter than we wanted but at least it's not shiny.  Probably $150 total - definitely cheaper than the pine - and pretty easy to install too.  It sits on the slate and I'm gonna use silicon caulk to seal the joint.  At the top I'm gonna put some wood or metal trim - still working on that detail.  The corners are just touching each other but with vertical flashing behind.  All attached with rubber washer roofing screws to some horizontal blocking.

the wood and tile looks great

Everything looks really nice!  One of our bathrooms has the galvanized steel for walls & I like it.  We have the old stuff w/lots of neat patina in our great room on one wall & on a wall by our wood stove in the kitchen/den room. 

Quote from: Sassy on July 13, 2011, 04:54:48 PM
Everything looks really nice!  One of our bathrooms has the galvanized steel for walls & I like it.  We have the old stuff w/lots of neat patina in our great room on one wall & on a wall by our wood stove in the kitchen/den room. 

Thanks.

I couldn't make up my mind whether to put the same steel behind the wood stove but maybe I can copy you guys - all I need is one piece and maybe I can start scouring the scrap yards for something old and weathered for that location.  The bathroom was more urgent so we went with new material (when it comes to patina vs. indoor toilet, it turrns out indoor toilet wins) but there's no hurry with the stove so looks can trump convenience.

Glenn put up stuff like you have in the shower - in a hurry, like you guys...  it had only been 8 yrs since we had put the shower in & were expecting Grant, one of the students who had stayed at our place the year before.  Grant had asked Glenn, "what is this stuff on the sides of the shower?"  Anyway, I tried to use a little passive-aggressive technique on Glenn so that we could finally get something covering the cement board that was looking kinda bad.    I told Glenn it would be kinda embarrassing if Grant saw it again, he took the bait & put up the corrugated steel  heh

The steel on the wall & by the wood stove is from a mine that had burned down - the fire added some nice patina on the metal.

Quote from: Sassy on July 13, 2011, 10:52:59 PM
The steel on the wall & by the wood stove is from a mine that had burned down - the fire added some nice patina on the metal.

Did a quick search of the Underground Cabin thread and found a picture (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.msg102448#msg102448).  That's amazing!

A couple of weeks back we got the tub, toilet and vanity in place.  Still a bunch more to do - the vanity isn't connected up, the tub needs the shower installed and there's a very small leak in the tub drain.  But hopefully only a few more hours work until the bathroom is ready for the final inspection, then on to the kitchen and decks...

BTW, the vanity is from Old Fart Woodworking (http://www.oldfartwoodworking.com/). I was thinking about trying to make it myself but having seen the end result I'm happy I didn't - too much curved stuff for my amateur woodworking skills.

There's also work on finishing the pine panelling.  Lots of furring to support the vertical boards.  Also 3/4" of fiberglass to fill between the furring. This is on top of the polyethylene vapor barrier, but with a badly-filled 3/4" on top and well-filled 5-1/2" underneath it there shouldn't be any condensation problems.

Looking good...vanity is way cool!

Nice!  Like that vanity - never saw one like that.   [cool]

Love the tub and vanity in the bathroom. Hope OJ doesn't see the tub!
Really like the industrial look of the tin.

Quote from: Tickhill on August 12, 2011, 03:56:36 AM
Love the tub and vanity in the bathroom. Hope OJ doesn't see the tub!
Really like the industrial look of the tin.

We're right next to an area that was one of the biggest gold mining areas late in the gold rush so there are loads of old mines within a few miles.  And of course we're surrounded by trees, so all of the old buildings are wood.  So we tried to mix up the two themes - lots of pine along with details that could have been "salvaged" from the mine.  The railings, bathroom walls and vanity are three places where this idea had a big influence.

The next bit is the kitchen, which is where we're not quite sure what to do.  The first idea was copper countertops and pine cabinet doors, but we're not exactly lacking in pine already.  Another option was wood-and-copper cabinet doors with a (dirt-colored) concrete countertop.  A copper range hood would be nice too, but the reality is we're gonna have to start with just a standard black one and maybe try and customize it later.

Any ideas welcomed...

+1 for the concrete counter tops.  they seem like a great DIY project that perhaps the family can help with too.

Found a nice, small two-bowl copper sink at HD (Pegasus I think), so now we've got a copper sink then the concrete countertop is looking more likely.

Bought the kitchen cabinets from Ikea - 4 uppers and 4 lowers came to under $900.  This included fake-wood bodies, the plain white doors and no side panels or legs. I'm gonna cover all the exposed sides/ends with left-over pine panelling, so it'll look really built-in.  For the doors, we were originally going to paint them, but the latest plan is to do a historic newspaper collage and cover with poly - pretty much how Glen and Sassy did their brown-paper floors (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=6019.0) but vertical and with more to read!  Lisa's Mum has dug up a bunch of old copies of Popular Mechanics, so that should add to the industrial theme.

Does anyone know if you can put oil-based poly over water-based poly?  We tried some marine grade poly on the newspaper and it looked a lovely historic yellow color but it started to make the ink in the paper run.  The water-based poly didn't damage the paper but was too clear.  Could we do one coat of each?

Yes David you can put oil over latex.  But I would give it some additional time to cure before covering with oil.  Even then the oil may turn yellow.  Seems like it is in it's nature to turn.  Any reason  multiple coats of water based won't work.  It is not a traveled area so wear should not be a problem.

Quote from: Redoverfarm on August 29, 2011, 08:06:54 PM
Yes David you can put oil over latex.  But I would give it some additional time to cure before covering with oil.  Even then the oil may turn yellow.  Seems like it is in it's nature to turn.  Any reason  multiple coats of water based won't work.  It is not a traveled area so wear should not be a problem.

It's actually the yellow color that we like, but the problem was that the dyes in the newspaper ink started to run with anything oil-based.  Even with 3 or 4 coats of the water-based poly it was still only slightly yellow, but one coat of the marine grade and it looked like it had been varnished 30 years ago, which is exactly what we wanted.  Lisa's also gonna try painting the newspaper with weak tea to age it, which will be good as tea is a lot cheaper than poly!

Finished off the back deck over the long weekend but forgot to take any photos.

We're gonna try and get our final inspection before the snow closes the road, which implies early November.  So about 10 weekends (and one week of vacation) left.  The to-do list looks like:

• posts and decking on front deck (about 200 sq ft) + code-approved hand rails
• another 20 linear feet of pine panelling on walls and random associated trim
• kitchen - cabinets, temporary countertops, range hood, finish plumbing
• a bunch of bathroom details
• one more under-counter outlet, smoke detectors, one more fan, tidy up the junction boxes
• all four interior doors
• finish interior of two closets
• organize propane, including tank, trenching and final fixture connections

This will leave the final countertops, all of the flooring and huge amounts of trim to be finished over the Winter.

It all looks very reasonable but I have a feeling it's gonna get a bit frantic towards the end given how it went with the rough inspection.

Anyone know what the classic slip-ups are for the final inspection?

Hi David and Lisa, just logged in and looked at your update.  The bathroom is amazing, and i love the copper/barrel vanity and the corrogated metal in the bathroom.  its just beautiful.  I am so pleased to hear you are so near your final inspection.  You must be very proud.  great cabin!

Thanks for the feedback!  This was the second bathroom I've done and I think that gave me the confidence to be a bit more adventurous than in other parts of the house.  Everyone loves the barrel but the corrugated steel goes both ways - some folks really like it but an equal number are just confused by it.  I was reasonably pleased with it just after I installed it but I'm liking it more as time goes on - it really is a nice room to be in.

one more vote -for- the the corrugated steel!

Sorry, not many postings recently as I've been spending all my free time up at the cabin trying to get it ready for the final inspection.  Lots of progress, although much of it isn't that photogenic.

Meanwhile, Lisa's been working on the kitchen cabinet doors.  Here's what our front room looked like at home in the middle of it all:


Here's a close-up view of one of the doors:


And here it is in place:


It took Lisa a long time to do each one - picking all of the cuttings for two sides, then 4 coats of poly (3 water-based to lock in the print, then one marine-grade for final protection).  We should be hanging the last couple of doors next weekend - can't wait to see them all up.

I finally got the decks finished - ended up going with "Deck Heard" KD redwood for about $1.65 linear foot but I had to haul it all up from the Bay Area.  Looks nice and was ready to stain straight after installation.  Not quite sure what I'm gonna do with the railings - they're not actually needed for code (<30" high deck) but I did need to have handrails on the steps as they're more than 3 risers.

Here's the back deck:


And the front deck:

The other big task was the kitchen.  Not really much to it as I haven't done the trim yet.  This will be a big job as the cabinets are just particle board with fake wood laminate and the plan is to pretty much cover them with pine leftover from doing the walls.


Here's the sink - the HD one was perfect as it's small for a double bowl.  The counter tops were $25/piece close-outs from Ikea - just temporary until I get time to do a concrete one.


In this picture you can see the one big screw up - the corner cabinet door won't be able to open fully as it'll hit the range hood.  I didn't think this through as it's basically the same geometry as the cabinets in our house in town, but I didn't take account of the fact that the range hood sides are angled in on the old setup but aren't on the new one.  The fix will be to cut of the cabinet door and leave the bottom half of the cupboard open - we'll invest in pretty crockery rather than a new range hood!

Meanwhile we needed to get propane hooked up.  At the last minute we rejected all of our previous 3 tank locations and worked out we could fit it right at the back of the lot.  Needed a 24" trench with sand for the maybe 30ft to the tank (which has since been installed).


I also had to redo a bunch of the internal gas pipe.  Originally I had the regulator location right next to a foundation vent, but code is that it has to be 5ft from any vents and windows.  This meant moving it to a completely different wall as the North wall had no space that wasn't near either windows or vents.  But the good news is that the new location is better for snow (on the gable end), closer to the tank and out of view.

Whilst Dwayne had the bobcat over we got him to pull out a bunch of manzanita stumps, including some in the outdoor kitchen.

Now the punchlist is down to about 3-4 days work before the final inspection:

• 14ft of wall panelling and some odds and ends of trim
• two interior doors
• final gas hookups
• smoke detectors

Talking of smoke detectors, I had to check up with the county on the rules for carbon monoxide detectors.  These are now mandatory in CA, including on existing residential structures.  However, they weren't necessary when my plans were submitted.  So although by law I need to have them, the building inspectors can't fail me for not having them.  This is good news as, in a small cabin, plug-in CO detectors seem better than hard wired as they're cheaper and easier to replace (given they don't have the ceiling-mount requirements of smoke detectors).

The plan is:

1) a hard wired photoelectric smoke detector in the great room (less prone to false alarms from cooking and wood stove)
2) a hard wired CO/ionization smoke detector in the bedroom
3) a plug-in CO and propane detector in the great room
4) (maybe) a hard wired propane detector in the crawl space

You've done an awesome job davidj!

I'm praying that I'll be able to figure out a lot of the things that you've done. I'm building from John's 20x30 1 1/2 plans also. I'm just about ready to put my floor on and then get the walls up. I'm just going to take it one step at a time. If I can understand it then I can do it.

davidj, did you already have building experience before this project? You guys are doing great.

Thanks for the interest in the project.

Quote from: ajbremer on October 19, 2011, 03:35:38 AM
davidj, did you already have building experience before this project? You guys are doing great.

10 years ago I had pretty much zero building experience - my job is in IT and I'd lived in rentals all my life.

Then I bought an old fixer-upper house in the Bay Area and worked on it a bunch out of necessity.  Some of the evidence from the early days is still around: the garage roof edge flashing which I put on top of the roofing felt, the garage wall sheathing where I cut the plywood into smaller pieces to make it easier to install and the small section of garage foundation where the top of the forms carefully followed grade rather than being level.

After a contractor remodeled my kitchen for me, and I watched and helped, I plucked up courage and built a deck and then remodeled a small bathroom, and this time got most of the important stuff roughly right (albeit taking forever to do it).  So by the time we bought the property I had some idea of some parts of the job but really no proper experience, especially with foundations, framing and working off the ground.  Another downside was that I'd always worked alone, so I'd not got much feedback - it'd be nice to have more constructive criticism.  So, given that background, mostly I've worked it out as I went along, using books, countryplans and help from friends and neighbors.

Interesting, some of the general skills from my day job help a lot with the cabin - planning, attention to detail, budgeting, risk reduction, purchasing and subcontracting.  However, when it comes to specific skills, it actually goes the other way.  It's much easier to manage a computer room a/c installation when you've already installed your own main panel and a range hood to code - it's harder for people to rip you off when you basically understand what they're doing.

One of the key techniques I use is to first think ahead to work out all the following steps so you can visualize what you can screw up with the current work.  But once you've got a plan, and you know the issues, focus on the job in hand so you don't get intimidated by the huge number of things left to do.  So often I've no idea about most of the less-critical details until I get stuck into a specific job but they don't seem too bad once you take them one at a time.

And don't worry when it takes 3 times as long to do as you think it should.  That's just how it always is!

That's a really nice place... 

Is your base cabinet in the corner next to the stove a blind cabinet?  Did you actually use a cabinet in there are simply frame it in?

Quote from: metolent on October 19, 2011, 10:33:11 PM
Is your base cabinet in the corner next to the stove a blind cabinet?  Did you actually use a cabinet in there are simply frame it in?

There's no cabinet in the corner by the stove.  I just screwed 2x4s to the wall to support the countertop and put in some horizontal 2x4s across the front between the cabinet and the wall.  Currently there's a sheet of plywood covering the hole but eventually it'll be more vertical pine.

The other non-obvious cabinet detail is the peninsula cabinet.  The backs of the Ikea cabinets are very thin hardboard, which would have made attaching pine to the back of it hard.  The cabinet's also not as strong when not attached to a wall.  So I put a piece of particle board (actually an Ikea cabinet shelf) vertically inside the cabinet to reinforce the back.  You can see the screws attaching this on the RHS vertical edge of the peninsula cabinet in the photos.  This is probably overkill in the current setup but may be more necessary once I get around to doing the concrete counter top.

Thanks for the description David - that's helpful.  I've been going back and forth on mine which is similar.  I'm about 6-8" off from being able to fit a standard 36"x36" lazy susan corner base cabinet due to where I put the kitchen window in relation to the wall between the kitchen and bedroom.  One of my oversights when I drew up the plans.  :-[ I'll probably do the same thing you have.

A few more photos of the kitchen now we've got most of the cabinet doors on.




Still have to sort out the fridge/freezer - needs to be 24" wide so not a huge amount of options.  We've got an old RV Dometic but I couldn't convince myself it was safe enough to use - enough of a gap in the panels that a piece of paper could fall in and catch light.

The other big news is that the propane is now up and running.  Not a bad time of year for indoor hot water, given it's dropping down to 24F tomorrow night.

All that's left is 15' of a wall of paneling and two interior doors.  Hope to have the final inspection a week from today...

Your place looks wonderful!!  Good luck with the final inspection, very exciting. [cool]

Beautiful cabin  :)  Love how you did the cabinet doors  [cool]  That copper sink looks great - always wanted one but the prices are so expensive & have never seen one on Craig's list or any other 2nd hand site.  How is it for cleaning?

Quote from: Sassy on October 26, 2011, 12:49:48 PM
That copper sink looks great - always wanted one but the prices are so expensive & have never seen one on Craig's list or any other 2nd hand site.  How is it for cleaning?

The sink is from regular stock at HD.  Still expensive ($500) but maybe if they had an open-box or ex-display sink it might get down to a decent price.

So far it's not seen a lot of action yet.  However, it is getting a bit blotchy in a couple of spots on the bottom (I guess from acids - sodas or vinegar maybe?).  But it still looks good and I can't wait until the whole thing has a varied patina all over.

One plus is that it was very easy to install - nice and light compared to a cast iron sink.

Quote from: davidj on October 26, 2011, 12:19:22 AM
All that's left is 15' of a wall of paneling and two interior doors.  Hope to have the final inspection a week from today...

The paneling is up, the doors are hung and, as of about 10am yesterday, we passed final inspection!  A couple of photos whilst it was all tidied up:

 [cool]   :)

Congratulations!!  Your place looks fantastic, you must feel so proud [cool]

WOW!! Looks great!  Very nice!   

When do the snows of the Sierra Nevada's return?  Getting close I bet.

Quote from: rick91351 on November 02, 2011, 10:45:35 AM
   
When do the snows of the Sierra Nevada's return?  Getting close I bet.

Snow's forecast for Friday although it shouldn't stay around for long.  The usual drop-dead date for hauling stuff out is Thanksgiving but we got snowed in the week before last year.

So we're cutting it pretty fine - a couple of weekends worth of work to sort out firewood and service the ATV isn't gonna leave a whole bunch of time for dancing around waving the CofO in the air!

Thanksgiving is the general rule up at our place as well.  They have snow forecast for Friday but not much.  Most of our heavy storms seem to come up from your way.

   

Hey Dave-
Congrats on the final.  Your place is beautiful, great job.
What is the plan for the floors?
Again- good work!
Tom

The floors are gonna be slate, just the same as the bathroom.  So far we just did the minimum to pass inspection, which is why there's backerboard around the wood-burning stove.  I think the rest of the floor can wait until next Summer when cleaning tiling tools is less of a hassle.

Actually, you can see the slate in the outside photo - it's under a tarp just to the left of the front deck.  I'm assuming it can survive a winter buried in snow...

Even though there's still a lot to do, this is probably a good time to say a huge "thank you" to all of the folks on countryplans.com who have helped with the cabin.  I can't imagine how it would have happened without this site - not only the answers to my questions but the answers to everyone else's issues that have educated me to the point where I could actually build my own cabin in the woods.

A special shout-out to the "regulars" who spend so much time helping out, particularly Mountain Don, Glenn K, PEG and Don P, who have been amazing sources of guidance and inspiration.  But there are lots of others that also deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, too many for me to name in one posting.  And of course thanks to John for starting the whole thing.  You only realize how great his designs are when you build one - almost all of the problems and hard bits were on the parts where I deviated from the original drawings. 

Thanks everyone!

David.

congrats on passing the final inspection! must be awesome.

[cool] [cool]

The place looks great.  This has always been one of my favorite build threads here.  Congrats on passing your inspection.     [cool]

I've heard a lot of bad reviews for the electric on demand water heaters.  Glad you're satifisfied with yours.  What brand did you use?

Quote from: archimedes on November 05, 2011, 04:10:47 PM
I've heard a lot of bad reviews for the electric on demand water heaters.  Glad you're satifisfied with yours.  What brand did you use?

We've got a gas on-demand water heater.  It's a Takagi, which no one seems to have heard of in the mountains but are quite common in the Bay Area.  We also got the remote control panel for it, which is fun - you can see the input temperature, output temperature and gallons-per-minute.

It's definitely slower to get hot water to where you want it than a tank heater - it can take 2-3 seconds of water flow before the burner starts and I'd guess another couple of seconds for everything to start warming up.  But that's the only downside (apart from price) I've seen so far.  Given space constraints and the fact we're not at the cabin most of the time, it does seem like the better solution.

I had put an electric tankless on my house in wi and i loved it. Cut my electric bills in half overnight. They were not real common in the usa back then. I forget the name of the one i bought but it starged with an E and was  built in germany.

Hey there David and Lisa, I am so excited for you!  What an acheivement.  The place looks just awsome, it must be a relief to know you can go up to the cabin and relax as opposed to the big push.  I really love the copper sink, I was looking at it at HD, just wondering as you have got some use under your belt, is it easy to keep up?  I'll be anxious to hear how it does.  CONGRATS again!

Quote from: altaoaks on January 19, 2012, 10:20:20 PM
Hey there David and Lisa, I am so excited for you!  What an acheivement.  The place looks just awsome, it must be a relief to know you can go up to the cabin and relax as opposed to the big push.

Once we passed the final inspection I was hoping to take it easy, but then we realized we had to get ready for the winter.  So there was a frantic weekend tidying up and splitting/stacking firewood.  Then I realized we had absolutely no firewood for Winter 2012 (it takes >1 year to dry the local fir) so another mad couple of weekends cutting down unwanted trees and stacking logs.  Finally, by the weekend before Christmas, we had chance to relax.  At first I'd forgotten how to hang out at the cabin without working, but it only took a couple of weekends for me to remember how.

Last year, when we had loads of work to do, we got snowed-in mid November.  This year, with everything finished by early December, the road stayed open until yesterday (Jan 19th)!  Time to get the cross country skis out of the closet...

QuoteI really love the copper sink, I was looking at it at HD, just wondering as you have got some use under your belt, is it easy to keep up?  I'll be anxious to hear how it does.  CONGRATS again!

The sink is working well but it's pretty blotchy - mostly dark but a few lighter patches too.  We haven't made any attempt to clean or polish it was we like it like that.

well it is really good to hear you figured out how to relax at the place you worked so hard to build...for relaxation and escape from city life!  But I experienced a taste of not knowing how anymore over the holidays, so I know what you were feeling.

So if I understand what you are saying about the sink, its getting very rustic?  I guess I would want rustic, thats definately my style!  You know, to clean copper the best product is called bar keepers friend.  most grocery stores carry it, as well as HD, Target, etc.  and it does a beautiful job on copper.  to keep it rustic just use less elbow grease.  I have used it on a copper countertop, but never on  a sink.  I'm sure it would work the same.  I would also suggest only using the blue kitchen scotch brite sponge as it is not going to scratch.

Well I sure hope you got those skis out, we are finally getting that long overdue snow!  Huraahhhhh!

I am so happy for you guys, you worked really hard, now its time for the pleasure!

A while back a couple of folks were asking about our copper sink.  It's the $500 Pegasus model from Home Depot.  Here are a couple of photos of the patina after about six months.  Note that one photo is natural light, the other flash - the true color is somewhere between the two.

It's been a slow Spring at the cabin - mostly working on trim and various details but also spending more time in the city and at the office :-(  The three big jobs for the Summer are:

• Finish trim and other details (towel rails etc)
• Lay slate on floor
• Get the solar system up, including a shed for the inverter/batteries

The hard one is gonna be number 2 - given how long it took me to the bathroom floor I'm in for a lot of kneeling and thin set mixing!

In the mean time, here's a more up to date photo of the bathroom:


And here are a couple of pictures of the pan rack in the kitchen (don't tell Lisa - this is a surprise for Memorial Day!).

Bathroom looks great & I really like the pan rack! 

My friend Christian took a great photo of the cabin using his flashy digital SLR.  This was actually three separate exposures, some quite long, post-processed using gimp (similar to Photoshop).

I guess if I'm putting up photos I should also do a status update...

Actually, not much has happened.  The backer board is down in the front room and everything is ready for putting down the slate.  Except for my knees and back, which are rebelling at the the thought of what 400 sq ft of tiling its going to be like.

We've also installed a basic whole-house water filter - we were getting fine sand in the system and it was causing all sorts of problems, blocking up most of our plumbing fixtures (especially the toilet).  It seems a lot better now.

Finally I've started work on the "power shed", which is much more fun than tiling.  Have got the footings in for the 8'x10' shed and should have the bulk of the framing done in the next 2-3 weekends.  Whilst this is happening I'll work on the permit for the solar, inverter and batteries (no permit needed for the shed itself given its size).

Here are a couple of photos of the "power shed".  This will hold the inverter, batteries and also all the electrical and plumbing parts and tools that I've accumulated over the years.  Initially we're gonna use a portable generator and wheel it out on to the deck when needed (hopefully we'll run of solar most of the time).  At some point we'll hopefully have a permanently-mounted propane generator, maybe in a shelter out the back.  Note that the cover over the deck is critical - it's really hard moving around portable generators in 4 ft of snow!

This all took way longer than planned but it should last for a good while.  Unlike my guests (who get to sleep in a shed with 2x4 construction and no insulation) my batteries have 2x6 fully-insulated walls, R30 in the ceiling and sheetrock finish (to reduce the fire risk).  Per an earlier discussion, there's 1.5" of poly iso between the sub floor and a 1/2" plywood finished floor.  This seems to have worked well and I'm gonna use the technique again - much less hassle than trying to protect insulation under the subfloor (but it means you leave the bottom plate in place under the door, with a header 1.5" higher too).

Quote from: davidj on July 24, 2012, 10:28:41 AM
We've also installed a basic whole-house water filter - we were getting fine sand in the system and it was causing all sorts of problems, blocking up most of our plumbing fixtures (especially the toilet).  It seems a lot better now.

After a few months, two thumbs up for the water filter.  It seems to get through a filter every couple of months but I assume that will drop back in the winter when we use way less water.  But it works really well and easily worth the $60 or so investment.

Your cabin & the battery/misc room look great!  I like the picture your friend posted of the cabin & sky at night  :)

Are you using a two or three stage filter system ?

I would use a washable first stage wire or plastic mesh screen followed by the disposable filters

most of the sand would end up in the washable filter making your disposable one last longer

In my latest filter system I just designed for a work project I'm using 3 filters in smaller sizes in a parralel system with pressure gauges between each stage

so that you can tell which ones are blocking up

Quote from: UK4X4 on October 16, 2012, 12:39:06 PM
Are you using a two or three stage filter system ?

I would use a washable first stage wire or plastic mesh screen followed by the disposable filters

most of the sand would end up in the washable filter making your disposable one last longer

In my latest filter system I just designed for a work project I'm using 3 filters in smaller sizes in a parralel system with pressure gauges between each stage so that you can tell which ones are blocking up

I'm just using a single stage with a disposable paper filter.  And the filter itself is pretty coarse - I don't have the details here, but I think it's the FXHSC which has a 30 micron rating.  One issue was pressure drop - I've barely got enough pressure and I didn't want to lose a bunch with multiple filters.

David, nice looking shelter for power system...you can always move into it when you say the wrong thing in the main house!

On the subject of filtering out sand and assuming you are on a well system...you might want to look into a cyclone type sand trap.  These are used on larger wells, especially in the irrigation industry.  There are some manufactures that make smaller units suitable to domstic wells, ARKAL Filtration Systems has a two inch unit for around $200.  Only problem might be minimum flow requirements (66 gpm for ARKAL unit).   These units have a blow off that you open now and then to discharge the trapped sand (frequency depends on how much sand well is producing), no filters to clean or replace.

Did you driller properly develope (flush) the well before installing the pump.  If you are using a submersible pump and there is a lot of sand, might wonder what is happening to pump impellers.

Quote from: Danfish on October 17, 2012, 02:35:09 PM
On the subject of filtering out sand and assuming you are on a well system...you might want to look into a cyclone type sand trap.  These are used on larger wells, especially in the irrigation industry.  There are some manufactures that make smaller units suitable to domstic wells, ARKAL Filtration Systems has a two inch unit for around $200.  Only problem might be minimum flow requirements (66 gpm for ARKAL unit).   These units have a blow off that you open now and then to discharge the trapped sand (frequency depends on how much sand well is producing), no filters to clean or replace.

66gpm for a 2" unit?  In theory we get 5gpm, but probably more like 3-4gpm.  I guess we need a 2mm unit!

Quote from: Danfish on October 17, 2012, 02:35:09 PM
Did you driller properly develope (flush) the well before installing the pump.  If you are using a submersible pump and there is a lot of sand, might wonder what is happening to pump impellers.

I've been a bit worried about the pump too, although I'm hoping the small amount of water that we use is gonna save us on this front and that old age will get it before it gets sanded away completely.

It seemed like there wasn't too much sand in the well originally - it was cloudy when it hadn't been used for a while but I don't remember a lot of particulates - it seemed to get worse a few years later once the house went up.  But, thinking about it, the sand might have been there all along and it's just I didn't notice it until it started messing up the new plumbing.  Given the reputation of the drilling guys it wouldn't surprise me if they cut corners on developing the well.

I read through quickly but didn't see anything about the siding.  Did I miss it?

Quote from: grover on October 24, 2012, 06:38:29 AM
I read through quickly but didn't see anything about the siding.  Did I miss it?

The siding on the main cabin is knotty cedar plywood.  On the outbuildings it's just regular rough exterior plywood.  All trim is resawn cedar.

I'm not sure I'd use the knotty cedar again - it's considerably more expensive and there was a lot of scrappy filler in the knots.  If I did I'd work out a way of tidying up the knots before staining.

Had our first significant storm of the Winter last weekend.  Running conduit in trenches with almost a foot of snow on the ground isn't much fun!

Quote from: davidj on October 28, 2012, 09:25:44 AM
Had our first significant storm of the Winter last weekend.  Running conduit in trenches with almost a foot of snow on the ground isn't much fun!

ooooof. that sounds horrible!  good luck.