Cabin plan in Mother Earth mag. Q?

[dazza]

Hiya everyone.

I just got the June/July edition of Mother Earth News with the 14x20ft cabin plan and I have a question (or 2).

How hard would it be to modify the plan and have a sleeping loft at both ends? Does anyone have a cabin similar to this with 2 lofts that they could maybe tell me more about or post photos? I am in Australia so cabins aren't a big thing here but when we get some land (soon) I want to have a go at building myself.

thanks in advance

Michaela

[jehehmeyer]

Michaela,

Having received my copy of the magazine, I have been thinking the same thing as you. I want to build it. I think you could put a second loft in the plan. I'm not an architect. I'm only suggesting base on things I have seen. My house is a 1 1/2 model. The first floor framing that is under the second story is two inches wider that the framing of the rest of the first floor (2"x6" vs 2"X4"). For the "Mother" cabin, I would put a 2nd loft in the back. I would use the same technique as the front loft - use 2 6"x6" posts on each side and 6x6's at the top like the front loft has. Once you frame the first floor, a portion of the 6x6 posts would be visble inside the cabin (which would be kind of nice).

Any other thoughts out there?

Cheers,

Jim

[MarleneS]

I would imagine the second loft is doable - but it sure would chance the comfort level of the cabin. It's only 14 x 20 so that little extra openness is probably important to comfort level. I was thinking two lofts would be like living in a two level shoe box.

Hugs
marlene

[Tana Mc]

I admire anyone who would take on this kind of project and I wish you the best of luck. However, if it were me, I would have somebody else with building experience check out those plans. I have built several, much smaller projects from MEN and EVERY single one of them had problems because the plans were not correct, not measured correctly to scale or missing one single very important measurement. I am not THAT bad of a carpenture!! After about the 3rd botched weekend project, I realized that whoever printed these up had never actually built whatever the plans were for. Seemed to be long on theory and short on actual building.
Tana Mc

[Alex]

This is my sketch our log cabin, from a previous post.

• We built it from Poplar logs 34 years ago
• It is 20'-4" x 28'-0" inside and works fine

First floor.


Second floor.

Or, have I taken this to the wrong place? Did you only want to discuss the MEN article, which I haven't read. Sorry if this is not good.

Alex

[Mountaineer]

Could someone scan that article in? I'm interested in something about that size too.

[Jerngen]

I recommend checking out this site. www.countryplans.com/plans.html
They have everything from cabin plans to small homes. Check out the forums too. There are a lot of threads (including photos) from owners who have built these and other plans (owner encourages all participation, not just those who build from his plans).

[sgl42]

Here's a link to the article in question (assuming I got the right article)

[FarmboyBill]

I see 3 stoves (Im assuming), a Ashley, a pellet stove, ande what im asuming is a kitchen range. Seems like in a 20 X 24 room it would run you out in the wintertime to use them all, and ive lived up in NE Kans near the Neb line, so Im assuming, if its in the USA, its WAAAAY up there. I have some plans for a barn, that was small and doable, and ive been wantiung to build one for 30 yrs. Well, several years of occasionally looking at those plans finally got me to the next stage of deciding just how the framework could be built out of 3X4s, then I got to doing some planning for myself on how and what I wanted in this barn, when I realized that the stalls, ect was way too small for cows, horses, ect. I felt somewhat duped, and these was from SFJ

[Freeholder]

The poster (of the drawings) is in British Columbia. Yes, I see three stoves in that house, too -- either they don't use them all at once, or the house is awfully leaky. Seems to have a lot of windows -- maybe they are single pane. We lived in a frame cabin about that size (but one story) in the Interior of Alaska, unfinished, but insulated. Had a barrel stove for heat and a wood stove for cooking and did fine in a much colder climate. Had friends with a slightly smaller cabin, partly underground, and they also had a heater and a cookstove. The cookstoves don't usually heat a whole house, especially in a really cold climate, and the heating stoves aren't as nice for cooking on. So it's not too unusual to have two, even in a rather small place.

As for the original question, personally, I would just put in a whole second floor and be done with it. Unless you live in a warm climate, high ceilings cause all your heat to be up too high to do the people standing on the floor much good. Low ceilings are better in cold climates.

Kathleen

[Alex]

FarmBoyBill,

Our cabin is in northern BC. It's often 40F below for weeks at a time, the north four 32' x 42" windows, and the two upper 32" x 42" window are single glazed 100 year-old wooden frames, not exactly airtight.

We made some changes:

• We moved the Harmen Pellet stove to where Ashley was
• got rid of the Ashley -- out to the new shop
• got a new Blaze King and put it where the Pellet stove used to be in the SE corner
• and NEVER use the Pellet Stove
• the neighbor lights it and the Blaze King when warming-up our cabin, if we return from being in Vancouver in the winter
• but are having a hard time giving up the Pellet Stove -- a back up, it will heat the house except in the coldest times.

Katie-The-Cookstove is only used for cooking and NO-WAY could she begin to heat our log cabin.

We start the Blaze King 1100 model (largest) in the fall and it could run right thru to spring, it is thermostatically controlled and has a wonderful wide range of operation (from 7,000 Btu/hr to 90,000 Btu/hr) and is catalytic, so low ash and low smoke -- can burn even in USA during burning bans. It heats the whole place fine, even in the harshed conditions.

And, it is a log cabin, and certainly well chinked and checked every year, but not totally air-tight.

It all works so nicely. Try living anywhere, at 50 F below, with 10 or 20 knots of westerly or cold northerly wind howling away. Try opening the door -- watch the cold fog roll in half way thru the cabin.

And, excuse me but NE Kans is the SOUTH and not really the north from where our cabin on near Mile Zero of the Alaska highway is.

Enjoy your easy livin' down there.

All the best,

Alex

[dazza]

Wow thanks everyone for the replies, especially Alex for your sketches.
We do live in a hot place, winters are cold but only get to -3 Centigrade and summers regulary hit mid 40C. I just want something little to practise on at the moment and have it as a guest flat after we build our house.
I will check out that link to, thanks Jerngen.

Michaela