Question for CF and WIHH...

[Ode]

My husband and I have been looking at a lot of plans for building a cabin, and so far we really haven't found anything we like much. I remembered you once posted some pics of our little starter cabin that you now use for guests, and I think it might be perfect for our needs. We plan on using our future cabin as a vacation home, and then in about 10 more years as a temporary full-time home while we build our retirement home.

Can you point me in the right direction to get a cabin like yours? It really seems to be just the right size with all we are looking for in a vacation home. Thank you in advance, you guys are always so helpful.

[Cabin Fever]

Our Guest Cabin

Our one-room cabin is standard "stick built" construction on treated piers placed on concrete pads below the frost line. It's a simple 16 x 24 rectangle with a gable roof that extends out over a 6x16' porch...that's it! Any carpenter worth his salt should be able to build this without any "formal" plans or blueprints...just a drawing on a piece of paper should suffice. In fact, most rookies with some carpentry skills should be able to build a guest cabin like ours.

The cabin has no water, no sewer, no HVAC and no electricity. Water is supplied by an outdoor deep well hand pump. Lighting is supplied by Aladdin lamps and a PetroMax lantern. Heat is supplied by a Lopi woodburning stove. Air conditioning is supplied by 11 windows and a screen door. One has several options for cooking: outdoor campfire, on the woodstove or on the Coleman stove. There is an outhouse outback.

[Ode]

Thank you so much! This is exactly what we were looking for. It seems like all of the plans and its out there are overly complicated, and we need something that can be closed up easily when we leave without a lot of draining of pipes and whatnot. We were thinking of a composting toilet anyway, so that would work well with this kind of building.