Build this Cozy Cabin
(Page 9 of 12)
June/July 2006
By Steve Maxwell
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Exterior Options
The exterior wall treatment you choose for your cabin matters a great deal because it sets the tone for how the place looks and how much maintenance you’ll be saddled with over the years. The exterior of your cabin can be made of wooden shingles, boards and battens (see illustration), wooden panels or other materials. Research the pros and cons of each material before choosing one for your cabin, and choose a material that won’t burden you with much maintenance.
Cedar shingles are a terrific option because they look great in a rural setting, last many decades and are lightweight. They always live up to their reputation on roofs, and on walls, cedar shingles will satisfy those people who insist on wood siding. Hand-split cedar shingles taken from your building site are ideal if you’re lucky enough to have them, but commercially sawed cedar shingles also work well.
Are you planning to install stone or brick yourself? Buy all the time you need to get the job done by installing windlock asphalt shingles (see illustration) on walls. These interlock physically, allowing you to install them vertically without the usual flapping you’d get if you tried the same thing with regular shingles. They look pretty good on their own, even if you never get around to the masonry.
For a low-cost approach to exterior siding, use either board and battens or 4-by-8 wooden panels. These two options are easy to put up, and they look good for awhile. But in time they can look shabby unless you’re diligent about refinishing.
Our Life in a One-room Cabin
In 1985, my wife, Mary, and I purchased 91 1/2 acres on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, and a year later, we built a one-room, 200-square-foot cabin. We were homesteading beginners, and the job took us four 60-hour workweeks and $550 to build what we now affectionately call “The Shed.” Neither Mary nor I had ever built a structure before The Shed, so it’s smaller and built less stoutly than the cabin design here.
For the floor frame and roof rafters, I hewed logs from our forest; for most of the rest of the project, I bought the least expensive locally sawed lumber I could find. I built The Shed with just a few tools: a broad axe, chain saw, claw hammer and a carpenter’s handsaw, square and level.
For four years, every spring through fall, we lived in The Shed as we built our 2,500-square-foot, three-story Victorian-style stone home (see photo). By living in that little cabin, we saved thousands of dollars and boosted our productivity by eliminating daily travel to the work site. We shared that space with mice, newborn livestock, our golden retriever, King, and even a sick calf that had been abandoned by its mother.
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