We started this project a little over a year ago now. Last summer, my brother and I agreed to buy a plot of land and build two modest-sized cabins. And so, with that agreement, a long-time dream of my mine had begun. But like a dream, you can’t always control what happens, and although almost nothing is going according to our original plan, the project is still moving forward, and I would still consider it a success so far.
If you’ve ever thought about building your own cabin, this may be the site for you. We’ll be documenting as much as we can along the way and hope you can take something from it.
Wed, May 15, 2019 — Now that I’ve got four square corners, we just need to “connect the dots” with form boards (2x10’s) and make sure they’re level as we go. I’ve also got a family friend, Scott, coming up for the day today. He is in the construction business and between the two of us, I am hoping we can be placing rebar by the end of the day. While I waited for him to commute over from the west side, I started moving material. Keep reading →
Tue, May 14, 2019 — On Saturday, my brother and I failed to find square for our foundation layout. We faced a number of challenges, but mostly this is because we cannot easily pull a diagonal, given that we’re dealing with varying grades. Since we left on Saturday, I’ve been considering what went wrong that day, and how it could be fixed. Now I have the added challenge that I am here by myself. There were two mistakes that I saw we were making (and a third that I will not realize until tomorrow). Keep reading →
Sat, May 11, 2019 — This is the first time we’ve left the property without anything to show for our efforts. The only goal we had for today was to get four corners square. Trying to get things square is a 2-man job and I am headed up by myself next week for a few days to start setting up form boards for the footings. If we aren’t able to get things square today, I won’t be productive next week. Keep reading →
Sat, May 4, 2019 — We’re back up this weekend to finish the daylight basement excavation. Last time we were up here, we thought we finished, or at least came really close. Since then, our geotech has inspected the excavation and says everything looks good except the northwest corner should go down another foot. That is not surprising. They originally thought we would need to go down 10 feet or more in this area, and we’ve only gone down 4 feet (we started to hit rock, which is the real goal). Keep reading →
Sun, Apr 21, 2019 — This was the first weekend of work on site for the year. We had a really heavy snowfall late in the season. Just two weeks ago, we still had about a foot and a half of snow. This weekend its hot, dry, and no snow remains. The season came late but it changed fast! If you recall, we have considerable earth-work remaining. This past winter, our geotech engineer confirmed the north half of our basement needed a deepened footing (to get to more solid ground), which means digging down about another 10’ in this area. Keep reading →
Fri, Apr 19, 2019 — I think we’re going to build the foundation ourselves. Actually, I have little doubt that we will. Last year, we decided we shouldn’t build the foundation ourselves, but a lot has changed. The biggest part here is that the foundation is now much more complicated. That may sound like we shouldn’t do it ourselves, but hear me out. The reason the foundation is much more complicated is because half of it will sit about 10’ lower than the rest. Keep reading →
Wed, Apr 17, 2019 — I’ve struggled putting together a realistic budget for this build. There is still so much that is variable, it’s hard to lock things down and know where we stand. Given what we’ve learned over the last few weeks, we are probably back to doing the foundation ourselves, which means going with ICF (material costs going up, but labor costs going way down). I will explain those details in another article, but that’s just one example of how much is changing with the budget. Keep reading →
Fri, Feb 22, 2019 —
As you know, we need a residential fire sprinkler system at our place. We are planning to design and install it ourselves. A basic system, that can run off the main water supply, is fairly easy to design and implement.
Keep reading →
Wed, Feb 20, 2019 — We are in a Wildland IR1 fire zone. In addition to using fire-retardant materials and setting up a 100’ defensible zone (trees and shrubs need to be cleaned or cleared within this radius), we are required to have a fire sprinkler system inside the home. Actually, all of Kitittas County is considered an IR1 zone (requiring sprinklers). You can apply (and pay) for mitigation to have this requirement removed, but with the burnt remains of the Jolly Mountain fire visible from our lot, we doubt the fire marshal will grant such a request. Keep reading →
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 — We received the access permit on Tuesday, and I requested the county to mail out the build permit on Wednesday. Well, we received the build permit in the mail today! I had no idea what the build permit would look like. I would have guessed it was a sheet of paper with fields for inspectors to sign off. It was in an extremely thick envelope. View this post on Instagram Received our build permit! Keep reading →
