It's been quite a while (years actually)since I've posted here. Life has taken some unexpected turns that have recently landed me here as my full time residence.
Here's a bit of an update to my house for anyone who may be interested in building a camp/house/cottage like this. Quite a lot has been done since my last post but it's not 100% yet. Obviously, this is based on the 20x30 house plans. The house sits on a concrete foundation with about 5' of headroom. Now let me just get this out of the way right off the bat. The decision to not put an 8' deep basement is one that will haunt me for the rest of my life life. To anyone contemplating their foundation choices, just do it. Spend the money for the full basement. You'll never regret it.
The framing is 2x6, fully insulated. I went with 10' walls with 8' first floor ceilings. This gives additional headroom and usable floor space on the second floor. The roof is a 12 pitch with metal roofing. The house is wired for grid power but is not currently connected, at the moment my power comes from a small off grid solar system with a generator. More on the electrical later in this post It has a 250' drilled well, conventional plumbing and a rock and pipe septic system.
I made some changes to the interior layout shown on the Country plans. I went with an open layout with 2 bedrooms on the second floor. As I add some interior pictures in the future you'll be able to see that.
Here's what it looks like right now.
The list of items will be completed soon -Bring in grid power. I'm about 900' from the closest pole. After speaking to a utility contractor, I think I'm going to go above ground with poles
down my driveway until about 150' from the house, then I'll go under ground. I own a Case 580 backhoe, so I can do the digging. This will
save a lot of money.
-Finish floor on first level. Well, since I'm in Maine, wood would seem appropriate. Probably old school wide pine, face nailed with forged cut nails.
I love that look.
-Some sort of permanent heating. My wood stove has been serving me well and will continue to do so into the future, however my work schedule
has me away from home 3 days out of every 8. For those three days I need to keep the house at about 50 degrees. Since I already have propane
in the house for stove and water heater, I'm considering a blue flame heater in the basement. Again, I want to do this inexpensively and am
looking to just keep the house above freezing while I'm away.
-Upgrade my battery to a LiPo battery. This will give me backup with out running the generator when the grid goes down.
-A kitchen island with dishwasher.
-Miscellaneous finish trim.
