Suggestions for a fast semi-easy house?

[horsepoor21]

My husband and I are in the process of buying 20 acres in MT (Praise the Lord!) and we're trying to come up with ideas of houseing . My husband has lots of experience in building construction , he just doesn't have much time with his job (he trucks) . We have no one to help us and I'm pregnant so it can't be too terribly difficult .

I've been looking at cabin kits and such on the internet . Also am interested in the yurts . It'll have to be something that can stand the MT winters (we'll heat with wood) , and it doesn't need to be very big but we do have 4 children with another on the way so we need room to squish us all in there . LOL

Money's tight so if anyone knows of a company that also finances that would be wonderful !

Thankyou so much in advance for any help ! I tried to just search old threads but my computer is soooooo slow it just wasn't worth it . LOL

[ErinP]

Go check out countryplans.com
They have several small, to really small, house/cabin plans (for $100 or thereabouts)

[PhilJohnson]

Originally Posted by horsepoor21

My husband and I are in the process of buying 20 acres in MT (Praise the Lord!) and we're trying to come up with ideas of houseing . My husband has lots of experience in building construction , he just doesn't have much time with his job (he trucks) . We have no one to help us and I'm pregnant so it can't be too terribly difficult .

I've been looking at cabin kits and such on the internet . Also am interested in the yurts . It'll have to be something that can stand the MT winters (we'll heat with wood) , and it doesn't need to be very big but we do have 4 children with another on the way so we need room to squish us all in there . LOL

Money's tight so if anyone knows of a company that also finances that would be wonderful !

Thankyou so much in advance for any help ! I tried to just search old threads but my computer is soooooo slow it just wasn't worth it . LOL

How about some pallets and some tarps? Goes up real fast, real cheap, and best of all you don't need windows to let the light in

More seriously, if I were you I would get a cheap older mobile home for now and insulate it real well. I got mine for free a few years ago, was faster and cheaper than anything I could have built myself. I used nothing but wood heat in it as well, made sure everything was done to code and didn't cheap out on the chimney. Never had a fire, even with the top of the stove glowing red Later on you could build a nice house. A mobile home will be as cheap if not cheaper than any yurt, tiny Tumbleweed house, or cabin kit.

However if you really, really don't like mobile homes or there are none that are close enough to make it practical to haul it out to your land, a simple timber framed house out of some rough cut lumber would be the quickest and cheapest thing I can think of. In my area there are quite a few saw mills that will sell rough cut wood at half to a quarter of the cost of lumber at a lumber yard. Cover the outside with some T-19 (treated plywood siding that looks sort of like board and batten type siding and comes in 4x8 sheets), put up some drywall or wood paneling inside, and throw on a steel roof. I would also check out Craigslist, Freecycle, local paper for things like plumbing fixtures and windows.

If you wanted to go real unconventional a straw bale house may be the way to go. A simple load bearing one would go up fast, and it would be well insulated. Cover up the straw with some stucco. It doesn't take a lot of skill and straw is cheap.

If you had lots of time there are real cheap ways of building houses, reusing lumber from abandoned houses, cord wood construction, rammed earth and so forth. But the cheapest ways are usually the slowest, and the most expensive ways are usually the fastest.

[snowshoehair]

Put up a 2 car garage and finish it enough to live in it.
Then build your house later.

[ET1 SS]

I bought a pre-engineered steel building from www.Freedomsteel.com

A steel warehouse, 40' by 60'.

I hired the foundation, and then i put it together by my self.

I started in the spring of '05, and by fall the walls, roof and doors were up. During that winter I did the basement and floors.

We moved in spring '06.

[Maura]

People used to put in the basement first but make it like a one store house. Later, when they had the money, they'd put up the rest of the house. It just depends on how long you can live in a small area for. When the "real" house goes up, you can still use the basement as the kitchen and living room, maybe a bedroom, with the living room and bedrooms on the first floor.

[frazzlehead]

My neighbour got the largest garage package they had when the store had garage packages on sale. He returned the door and some of the parts he wouldn't need, and bought sliding glass doors and some windows, and more 2x4s to make the interior. It worked really, really well and you'd never know it was a garage package!

Another option if you plan to do any farming activities on your land is to put up a metal 'shell' and park an RV inside - you have instant utilities (toilet, sink, stove..), no waiting ... and you are warm and sheltered (you can't keep an RV warm enough in winter if it's not inside, not in 'real' winter weather anyway). The large building can serve any purpose later - barn, garage, shop ... you can even put in a second story (I've been in one that was converted to quite a nice house, although it looked odd from outside it was a normal house inside). Then, when you have time/resources, you can slowly work on a house ... maybe even that garage package idea.

If I were doing it all again, that's the approach I'd take- put up the metal garage with the motorhome / RV inside, live comfortably while building, and then have both when I was done. We lived in a shed while building ... and then in a house that was under construction ... NOT something I'd try with a small child, it was very unsafe!

BTW my house was built from a package, and although it turned out quite nicely, I would've done better financially (and it would've been easier) to do the single story garage package. With so many kids, a full basement would be a necessity, but I think it'd work.

You can read the tales of construction on our blog, if you go way back to the beginning. Maybe it'll give you some things to think about (we built in Alberta, in late fall ... and it went into winter ... and our winters are much like yours). It's at www.applejackcreek.com/blog

[clovis]

If you want a stick built home, but don't have lots of time, buying wall panels. These are made by a company that can layout your home, build the panels, and have them shipped to your site. You can then set them in place, and the shell goes up fairly quick.

Just an option.

[ozarkcat]

I would really look at Nebraska-style (load-bearing) strawbale construction - the walls can go up in a weekend if you keep at it, it supports a huge amount of weight, has a really high (@ R-72) insulation value and is very fire-resistant because of how tightly the straw is packed. There's a ton of information out there, including plans at www.balewatch.com - 50 plans from 140-10,000 ft sq. We're looking at building one at the bottom of the hill for either a farm hand or if my in-laws become snowbirds.