I don't know if anyone is interested in this or not, but it seems like there are quite a few guys on here that do remodeling or construction and may offer opinions or advice and perhaps others that may want to build a lake cabin or hunting lodge or just a weekend getaway like me and might be interested in the whole process. So here goes...

A little background first... For sometime we have dreamed of a mountain cabin. We first started looking in Western North Carolina, because we love it there, but realized it was just too far away, then we started looking in North Georgia and just couldn't find anything we like. Then it occurred to us that we have always liked Little River Canyon and Lookout Mountain, but the property over on the west side near Mentone was just too pricey. After searching for about 2 years off and on we found 10 acres on the eastern brow looking out over Shinbone Valley and into Georgia. Most of the 10 acres is straight down, but fortunately I have about 3/4 of an acre that I can actually build something on.

We spent a few weekends just cleaning up downed trees and carving a little space out of the forest like pioneers. It was hard work, but fun and rewarding. Next I prefabricated the walls in my driveway for a small cabin and hauled it up there in my utility trailer pulled by my old Jeep Cherokee.



This tiny cabin is solar powered, with rain water collection for showers and dish washing. It uses an RV pump and a Eccotemp demand water heater.



After a year of looking at trees and wondering what our view would look like, we cut down a bunch of trees to open up the view...



So now we finally have enough money saved up to start building the first phase of the main cabin. Initially it will only be 20'x24' two stories with lofts, but eventually it will be added on to with a larger great room, a master suite and a garage workshop and we will retire up there. With the plan being to pay for everything with cash as we go along.

I have a pretty good bit of construction experience as a young man and I do design work now, so I drew up my own plans with simplicity, economy of materials and aesthetics as my primary goals. Here a few screen shots from my plans:

That's really cool

Quite impressive sir - and very well done.

I'm always impressed with you guys that can picture something in your mind, put it on paper and build it. I wish I had that talent.

Looks absolutely awesome, IG. Keep us updated on progress as the main cabin build begins!

So after months and months of planning, drawings up plans, fretting over every detail, and waffling back and forth about what kind of foundation to put in, post and pier or full basement or crawl space, I finally decided on putting in a stepped foundation that has a small 6'-8" square storm shelter/wine cellar/root cellar in one corner.

I was second guessing myself at the last minute and kicking myself for not going with a full basement, until the two guys that are laying my foundation ran into solid rock just about a foot deep on the southeast corner and the northwest corner. So I couldn't have gone any deeper without some dynamite... So the stepped turned out to be the right decision. It looks like the total for the foundation is going to be $3,500 and should be finished this week.




The guys doing my foundation are great guys. They are going to do my framing too and go ahead and get the thing blacked in and then me, Mrs. Irish and Irishguy Jr. are all going to do as much as we can to finish it all up. I may call in some help with it comes to plumbing and electrical.

This is where we were as of Friday afternoon.

I am not a builder or architect, but two thing my grandfather, who designed hundreds of them, always told people who were building a house they wanted to retire in where:

Don't put the bedroom on the second floor. (At the very least have a room on the main floor that can be coverted to a bedroom)

Have at least one entrance to the house that doesn't require you to go up steps.

Thanks! Good point! I have considered it and have a plan for it.

Take a look at the main floor plan and look over at the door leading out of the kitchen. We will be adding on to that side with a dog trot style great room with a big fire place and you will walk through that room and into a master bedroom suite... All on the main floor.

But for the next 10 years of so, what you see will be the main cabin, and then as we near retirement we will add on the rest.

Thanks!

It is cool to see a dream becoming a reality.

Thanks!

The planning, the dreaming, the learning process, the sweating over all the details is part of the fun for me...

I will be following up with pics, questions, lessons learned as I do this so, hopefully I can learn from others and others can learn from my experience as this thing comes to fruition... Stay tuned.

Looks good sir.

Impressive to say the least.

That's a good set of plans

That's nice. Will you have to run power to your main house? What about water? I've always wanted a cabin in the woods myself.

VERY nice, Irishguy! Do you have an estimate of what it will cost to build per square foot?

Thanks Al.

Thanks, but once you know a few things it's not all that hard.

Thanks, I draw much more complicated stuff for my full time job, and there's much more money involved if I screw up...

I got temporary power installed a few months back from Cherokee Electric. I will get power installed, ut I am considering full solar and a windmill at some point. Between those two and the right set-up I should be able to off the grid.

I did the single sloping roof so I could easily collect the rain water like I'm doing on the smaller cabin. I should get enough off of this roof for us and guests. I am buying a 5000 gallon cistern from an outfit in Georgia for about $1000. If that doesn't work out I can always drill a well, but it will cost a decent amount up on the mountain. It will probably be a minimum of 150' deep, but even if I do I will still use the rain water and the cistern.

Not sure yet, but to get it blacked in I think I'm going to get materials and labor for about $15 per S.F. The cabin is 960 S.F. not including the two lofts.

The crew told me that they feel that they can get it blacked in in less than a week. I'm buying materials.

That is cool, being off the grid and all. Keep posting about it as you progress.

Nice. Be a great place to go, when the SHTF

Congrats on that land. I know what you mean about Western Carolina......that's some fine country.

I have thought about it, but let's hope that never happens...

We love to ride our motorcycles up there and we love the Ozarks too. Both Western N.C and the Ozarks of North Arkansas are fairly remote in most areas still, which makes for some nice riding and getting away from people.

Unless it's a busy day, we just get a few local people drive by our cabin. Almost no one at night unless it's hunting season and then you get some folks hunting the WMA early in the AM.

that's very cool. I had to google "Thomas Jefferson Stairs", and those look very neat. Please keep pics coming.

Yeah me too. I would not want to have to climb them after a couple of drinks.

But it looks great and I hope you keep the pictures coming...

It's basically a ship's ladder with alternating treads so that you have a bigger tread to step on. This is really nice when you are descending the stairs, because as you know coming down a ship's ladder is the worst part.

It all began as I was drawing up the plans and looking at the cross section, I thought, "You know if I just raised the roof up a little bit I could get two lofts up there." Of course then you have to consider access and a normal stair takes up a lot of room, and a ladder is a pain to get up and down, so I started researching online and found the Thomas Jefferson stair... He was quite the designer as well as a statesman.

I heard he liked the brown sugar too...

So we got the foundation poured today despite the lingering rain and clouds... I wanted to be there, luckily my buddy and knife making mentor lives up there and was able to check on the progress and discuss the finer points of the Pythagorean Theorem with the foundation guys...

On to the pics...

This is the North side of my stepped foundation:



This is the South side:



We ended up using about 2 more yards of concrete than I estimated, because they dug the foundation 2'-0" wide instead of 1'-4" wide, because that's the bucket size they got with the excavator... Oh well, it cost more, but I have a pretty decent foundation on some solid rock, so it's all good. The two guys I have doing the work a re great guys and doing a bang up job so far.

The main guy heard me talking to some other guys abotu cutting down some trees to open up the view more and he volunteered to do the work for the same price if he could have the hickory... I was cool with that so now I have twice the view that I had before, plus he pulled me up some of the oak and cut it up for firewood...

I think I'm going to get him to cut a few more trees to open things up a little bit more...

Looks awesome, very impressed

remarkable, irish guy. i will follow this thread with relish.

Irishguy, I climb trees for a living. If you find yourself needing some help improving that view, after all the foliage comes back, I'd be glad to come help you out with some trimming pr topping. Alot of times I can get it to where you can see alot more and keep the treetops you're looking at looking good too. Just a thought.

Thanks. I'll keep you in mind.

Honestly, I wish I could find somebody that wanted all these hardwoods we dropped for firewood...

Man that looks great! Keep up the good work and keep the updates coming.

Looking good Irish!!!! I hope to be able to do this in a few years we are looking to buy the property this year..... I hope.

Keep looking and looking and looking... We almost bought a piece of property before this one and I'm glad we didn't. You will know when you find the right one. You need to look at a lot of places before you finally start seeing the right ones.

I had to be at the plant all day yesterday and gotta go in the office today, but I'm thinking about taking tomorrow off and heading up to the cabin. It looks like a nice weekend and plan on being up there.

My contractor told me that the blocks were delivered yesterday and I think he was laying blocks after lunch. Hopefully he will text me pics today. It's killing me not being up there while all this is going on.

My plan was to take time off during the process and helping on all aspects of the construction, but it's probably best this way, because I'm going to need all the days off I can once it gets shelled as I'll be doing all the work from then on.

Plus they might charge me extra if I helped...

Exactly. Let the men work and stay out of their way. Nothing is more damn annoying than someone like you with enough knowledge to stand around and make "suggestions"

It really is looking great and I enjoy the updates and the pictures.

Getting some block layed... He didn't' follow the dimensions on the plan for the vertical re-bar and ended up getting one right in the doorway... No biggie. I'm pretty stoked right now, at least until the bill comes in

What is the latest consensus on crawl spaces? Vent or not to vent? Vapor barrier? I'm going to go ahead and do something now after I smooth everything out and kind of grade it off...

Almost ready to start framing... A few finishing touches on the foundation on Monday. Material will start being delivered on Monday and I think framing will start on Tuesday. Hopefully in about a week, weather permitting, we will have a cabin blacked in including both decks...

So far on the foundation I have about $2600 in materials, including excavator rental and about $1000 in labor, for a total on the foundation of $3600. I also paid $300 to have about 30 trees cut down to open up the view.

This is where we are today...

Great thread, awesome cabin site, pics, etc. Looks like y'all will have an amazing place when it's all finished. Looking forward to seeing the pics as the build continues.

Looking great Irishguy!! I'm following your build too as I would love to get the wife to downsize to something like this. Especially if we could build it for around $60 a square foot or less

Looking good

. I'm old school and I say vent and vapor barrier

Nice!

That's my plan. I had them install manual vents that I can either open or close depending on the season, weather, etc... I also plan on installing a vapor barrier. I am leaning against putting in insulation between the floor joists.

The floor is probably the least important to insulate from an energy saving standpoint in the south. You can always put some rigid foam in there later if you need it.

Although I'm over here in Mississippi at an unnamed power plant inspecting and sketching up repairs for stuff, my crack framing team is moving right along and texting me updates... The first floor is framed! Woot!

Mrs. Irish and I stopped by Dixie Salvage in Ft. Payne yesterday and bought 5 fiberglass and glass exterior doors and 38-4x8 sheets of T-111 5/8" reverse B&B siding for the 2nd floor sub-floor and the roof decking. The pretty side will go face down and will become the ceiling of the floors below.

I believe I'd go this weekend and set some lawn chairs and a case of beer on that and look at the stars.

I'm hoping to finish up at the plant today, spend one more night in Mississippi and head to the cabin as early as tomorrow afternoon... Fingers crossed.

I think we are going to whitewash the rafters, girders and underside of the sub-floors above each floor that will be exposed. We had first thought of staining all that or even leaving it all natural, but after looking around at various ideas I think whitewashing is going to lighten the interior up and still keep all the interesting texture of the exposed wood work.

I'm going to actually use an old recipe with hydrated lime, water, salt and maybe add a little powdered milk to it too. Still looking and studying recipes for whitewashing.

Has anyone ever done any old fashioned whitewashing?

This picture here is kind of what I have in mind for all the ceilings in the cabin...

wooo, that looks good ....

Latest pics from this morning... Coming on up!

coming along nicely! good call on the white wash

That is coming up very nice. I havent commented, but following this daily.
I work for an appliance company, so if you need anything appliance wise, let me know. Ill get you some great deals.
Also, Im good buddies with a master electrician as well as a cabinet guy if you need anything once its up!

Cant wait to see the progress!

Well... After being out of town all week, I finally get to go up there today and see the progress first hand. I have to go into work for a little first and take care of a few things at the office and then I have to turn right around Saturday and come home for Irish Jr's prom night.

Anyhoo... On to the pics.

It looks like my idea to use the T-111 for the sub floor on the second floor and the decking on the roof is going to look nice. This pic is what our first floor ceiling is going to look like. [It looks like they haven't installed the ledger boards for the joist yet...]






Here's what it looks like from the view side. You can see the doorway going into my storm shelter and another to access the basement/crawl space...

Coming along nicely. Keep posting, I'm enjoying this thread. I have almost a 2 year project going on just to finish out a Amish Shed for camp. I can only work on it when I have the time (and funds) to do it so it's dragging. It's also hard to start a thread that takes 2 years to complete. Might lose the avg Joes attention.

Well about the time that they finish the "Blacking in" phase of this thing I may be running out of money too... hopefully I can afford a few boards every payday to keep the thing rolling.

Both of our parents are getting older and in their 80's so it's my hope that we can get it finished by the end of 2017 while our folks are still healthy and mobile enough to enjoy it with us on some weekends.

Man, I sure am proud for you all. That's gonna be a little slice of paradise up there. Heck, you're doing the fun part right now. The planning with Mrs. Irish, and your son, the picking out andi improving things you already designed, the whole bit.

I hope you're taking a jillion photos for yourself so you can have a little coffee table book to look back on.

Man that looks GREAT!

I'm fretting over my roof design right now... My rafters are going to be exposed and I'm going to insulate on the outside of the roof so I'm thinking of something along these lines...

I would consider a metal roof. I end up patching shingles at least once every year on our cabin. Thanks for sharing the updates.

My roof is going to be metal. That detail I pulled off the internet to illustrate the above decking insulation, just happened to have shingles.

Ran up there yesterday to inspect the work so far and chill out on the new back deck. Mrs. Irish and I spent most of the evening sipping cocktails and enjoying this view. Later we laid on the back deck and checked out the stars and the full moon...

I plan on spending a lot of time staring at this scene from yesterday afternoon...

Wow!!

Mrs. Irish and I bought all the windows yesterday at the Lowes in Trussville and delivered them all the way to the cabin. Glad she is lifting weights now and can help with the heavy lifting...





They got the permanent posts under the lower deck and they should have all the 2nd story exterior walls stood up today.

Anybody want some free firewood? Seriously..

They were starting on the roof today so I had to whip out a few details to shoe them how I wanted it...







They show R19, but I switched to R15 because it will insulate better in that same space and not have to be compressed...

Oh... And I'm going to fill in the spaces between the joists with 2x8 blocking and trim all that out later.

Question: How are you venting your roof? Or are you venting it at all? Vapor drive from inside the cabin will go where?

I love your design and I'm envious (in a proud for you kinda way)!

I would suggest using the seamless type metal roofing. I put a metal roof on about 15 years ago and over time a few of the screws backed out, making a leak. It seems that this is a common problem.

Thanks for your comments. This issue has vexed me for some time and there seem to be two schools of thought as far as an insulated "cathedral" ceiling. I'm going with the non vented school of thought.

I have done quite a bit of research as you can imagine and it seemed to me that in my application it was difficult to work out some kind of vent on a single sloping roof without it allowing some kind of rain water incursion. Had I used shingles instead of a metal roof I think venting - so the roof wouldn't get do hot in the summer - would have been more important.

So basically my roof is going to be similar to the walls in the house... two barriers and two sheathing layers encapsulating a layer of insulation space. It is based on several proven designs that I have seen... I certainly hope it works...

I'm not sure what you are calling seamless. My metal roof will have standing seams running down the slope, but each sheet will be one continuous piece running from the top to the bottom on the slope. So each piece will be 24' long.

Screw heads won't show.

OK... Thanks... I'll ask.

If I were going to put a metal roof on my house this is what I would do. When a sheet goes down it has clips that go over the edge, and a screw goes into the decking to hold the clip down (or something like that). When it's done you never see any screws (none exposed), thus it can't leak through screw holes like timbercruiser is talking about.

New pics from yesterday...

Stairs are framed up and nice and open to the floor above, just like I wanted them. They're going to be pretty when I trim them all out, put on the wooden treads and install the hand rails.



Second deck is done along with most of the second floor framing. That roof peak is going to be high, thank goodness I've got a deck up there to put a ladder on...

I've seen screws back completely out of metal roofs, then seen some that never have a problem.
I don't know the answer.

Looking great!

A lot done in the last few days. I am very fortunate to have a crack framing crew working on our little cabin. Not only are they all great guys, but great carpenters as well.

I grabbed my pencil and my saw and my screw gun this morning and laid-out the stairs, cut the stringers and tread and put them together. It's much better for the ladies to walk up stairs instead of the ladder.



Here's a wider angle shot of the whole side of the cabin...



Here's a shot looking out the bedroom door that opens out onto the second level deck...



Here's what the open stairwell looks like all framed in...

Very cool.

Awesome

You'll notice a few things changed about the plans over the course of the build so far.

1. I deleted quite a few windows for two reasons. They are pretty expensive and it was going to make it difficult to place furniture inside with so many windows. My wife wanted some fancy windows until the window places came back with prices in the $5600 to $7600 range for 13 windows! We ended up going back to my plan "A" which was to go to Lowe's and buy the cheap, insulated, vinyl windows.

2. I realized that I had room to make the decks wider from 8'-0" to 10'-0". Glad I did that.

3. I changed the size and the layout of the entrance at the last minute and we enlarged it and framed the stairs coming off at 90 degrees. This made the star landing at the bottom much more practical.

I would put a beam in on the porches to hang a good porch swing.

I was going to build a hanging bed on the lower deck for sleeping and lounging. I will need to put in some supports for it, because I can't hang it from the joists as there will be a tin roof under the joists.

For all those who are thinking about one day doing something like this I know you are interested in what this kind of thing costs, so... I just updated my spreadsheet this morning and total costs so far are:

Foundation: $3,700
Carpentry: $16,200

Since I met my goal of getting everything to this point for under $20k

That includes everyone on the job site a cash bonus and extra bonus payment we made to the contractors above the original "Not to exceed" price we agreed to, because Mrs. Irish and I felt they all deserved it and it was simply the right thing to do.

If anyone needs some good carpentry or foundation work done around Cherokee or DeKalb counties shoot me a PM and I can get you set-up with some good, reasonably priced guys.

After today, it will all be Mrs. Irish and I. I've got to get together a huge "things to do list..."

I heard an old man say he fussed at his wife for putting windows in the house. He asked her why would anyone want to cut a hole in a house for a window when the first thing they will do after moving in was to cover the darn things up. Made sense to me.

I cut the number of windows for my new house in half. We only have 10 and 3 of those are in the garage and the attic above it. Too much building costs then your gonna loose some energy which increases heating and cooling cost. Plus I told my wife the same thing. Why put in a window when the 1st thing she will do is cover them up with dark blinds and curtains. To each their own though

Looks good Irish. Keep the updates and pics coming.

The crew finally finished everything up yesterday. Did I mention what a great group of guys they were? Love those guys!

They finished the last bit of interior walls upstairs which had some complicated framing in them...



And they finished the roof over the front porch...



My plan for next weekend is to get the two lofts framed up and to get all the electrical boxes for the outlets and switches set in place...

Looks Great... Thanks for sharing...

Looking great and I love the view.

The view is amazing... The problem with it is once you sit out on that back deck with a cold one in your hand and start staring out at the distance it becomes extremely difficult to get anything else done...

I could get sorry as hell just sitting back there, so I have to keep reminding myself that it will always be there and I have a bunch of stuff to do.

Update for this week: Not a lot of sexy pictures of big stuff being built, because all the framing is done. I built some temporary handrail on the front steps so when elderly parents come to visit they won't bust their tails on the stairs...

I got matching bolt locks and security locks installed on all 5 exterior doors.

I finally, in my mind at least, got all the electrical circuits worked out...



And proceeded to install all of my gang boxes. I labeled each one with the circuit number and the purpose. Probably overkill on my part, but it helps me keep everything squared away in my mind...

I managed to pretty much get all the holes drilled in the studs to run the wiring. I completely wore out my Harbor Freight "heavy duty" drill and had to switch over to my trusty 20v cordless Porter-Cable drill driver... Man! Those Porter Cable 20v cordless tools are winners in my book. I have 4 batteries and never have to worry about running out of power.

Speaking of drilling, I have to hand it to residential electricians, that is some hard work. I will be perfectly happy if I never have to run another auger drill through a 2x4 for the rest of my life...



Of course after a hard days work a man has to have a place to chill out and have a cold one...

Man, that's going to be awesome.

Great looking build and awesome view. I am curious on the front porch roof, why slope it right to left against the cabin?

I'm sure there is a reason for it, but I would have thought in order to get water away from the house you need it sloped down away from the house? I'm no framer/roofer by any means, so just curious.

Good question!

It is sloping the same 15 degrees as the roof of the cabin and I sloped it the opposite direction for aesthetic reasons. I also wanted it as high as I could get it given the length of the 16' 6x6 posts for aesthetic reasons as well to sort of balance out the overall height of the cabin.

A far as water issues I will put a gutter along the bottom edge and route the downspout down the outer column into a smaller water tank/barrel as an extra water source to use for non-potable reasons around the cabin, watering plants, dousing campfires, etc...

You have too many cold ones and flip out of that hammock on the wrong side and were going to have a hell of a story to read on here. LOL

Gotcha, makes more sense trying to keep the desired height!

Hahahahaha... Yeah, Mrs. Irish was looking around for her phone to dial 911 before I even got in it the first time!

Fortunately my only injury was a little sunburn on my legs. It was blackberry winter up there - 43 degrees Sunday morning - and the only place to get warm was sitting out in the sun...

I have a new found respect for electricians after this weekend. Mrs. Irish and I pulled over 600 feet of 12-2 wire, some 14-2 and some 10-3. And after drilling holes two weekends ago until my arms were about to fall off I still had to drill more this weekend. Pulling 12-2 wire through multiple 90 degree corners is a pain.

The good thing was, we stuck with it until all 10 circuits were roughed in this weekend and we completed the task we set out to do. The other good thing was that we both got to spend some good times together working as a team to accomplish goals. Plus we ate some good cabin food and spent some time sitting around a fire in the middle of the woods drinking whiskey...

On to the pics:

Some pics of our wiring job. I tried to do everything to meet or exceed code, even though there are no inspections here. I also decided to pretty much run everything with 12-2 wire and 20 amp breakers except for the dedicated fridge circuit. It got 14-2 wire and a 15 amp breaker.

1st bedroom closets...


1st and 2nd bedroom outlets and loft outlets...



Breaker box ready to be wired...



Kitchen outlets...


Pulling wire makes you tired...

Make sure you use nail plates over the studs to prevent accidental screws or nails from biting your wiring.

Looking Good Man!

I'm thinking about doing that, however the code states that you don't have to unless they are less than 1 1/4" from either side of the stud.

All mine are dead center, still, I'm thinking about doing it. When you think about how much of a pain it would be to find a short and tear out a wall...

Thanks! We worked like Trojans this weekend.