small owner built cottage cabin house

Progress photos of a 14' x 24' Little House
in central New York state

concrete pier foundation

Foundation - Because of deep cold in this climate, the owner used poured concrete piers for his footers. From owner Brian Wing: "The building inspector said I had to dig 40" to the frost line, so I did. I first made 10" dia. X 6" footers (I put an anchor bolt in the center) using cement tubes cut down. I made these in my basement over the winter. When I finally got the holes dug, I put crushed stone in the bottom for a base, then the concrete footers I made, then I put a 4' long x 8" dia. cement forming tube on top of that. Filled it up with cement and put a bracket in the top of it before is hardened. It turned out great."

small owner built cottage cabin house

building the beams

Beams -  You can see that the owner spread crushed rock over the underfloor area of the house. This keeps things clean and retards weeds. Here Brian and his father are building the beams. They are using 2 LVL composite beams spliced together. These will sit in the saddles of the pier footings.

laying out the floor joists

The floor joists - Now things are starting to take shape. The floor joists are going up.

sheathing the roof

Sheathing the roof - With the exterior walls and roof rafters in place the crew is moving along quickly.

 

   

Out of the Weather: Here are pictures of where the house is at this point. Brian says: "It only took 4 weekends to do. My father helped with the low stuff and my wife's brother helped with the roof — and that was it. Cost so far is approx. $3000. I'm going to insulate it and put up some knotty pine boards on the inside, and then put a log siding on the outside (to give it the log cabin look), but that won't be until next spring. I'll send progress pictures as I get them."


Click Little House Plans Kit to see the plans.
Click here to go to the CountryPlans Home Page
Click Owner Builder Gallery to see the stories of other projects.
Click here to ask general questions about building cabins & small houses.