Build this Cozy Cabin

Roof: $1,500

• 34 12’ 2 x 8 boards (rafters)
• two 12’ 2 x 10 boards (ridge board)
• 17 14’ 2 x 6 boards (cross ties)
• four 8’ 2 x 4 studs (rafter support)
• two 20’ 2 x 8 boards (blocking)
• 17 3/4” spruce plywood panels (roof planks)
• wooden shakes for 550 square feet of roof surface; roof liner, gutter apron

Hardware: $350

• six 12” spikes (foundation markers)
• 10 10” Sonotubes (pier forms)
• 10 5/8” threaded rod anchors (foundation)
• eight 1/2” x 6” carriage bolts (header anchors)
• 10 pounds of 3 1/2” ardox (spiral-shanked) nails (wall studs, floor joists)
• 10 pounds of 2 1/2” ardox nails (subfloor, roof planks)
• eight 1/2” x 8” lag bolts (post tops)
• 15 pounds of 1” roofing nails

Choose a Rock-solid Start

Right from the beginning, you’ll be faced with the challenge of creating an outline for your cabin that has truly square corners. To deliver accuracy, a carpenter’s square just won’t do it — you’ll need to use geometry.

The overall width of the cabin is 168 inches, and the overall length (including porch) is 240 inches. According to the Pythagorean Theorem (Remember high school geometry class?), the diagonal line connecting these two is:
Length of diagonal = length of one side squared + length of the other side squared (then take the square root of this sum). It works out to be 293 inches for the length of the diagonal side of the Pythagorean triangle when the corner is square.

Start by laying out one side of your building, with a spike at both corners, and another spike at the porch corner — that’s three spikes in a row, connected by a string. Next, grab two large tape measures and a couple of people to help hold the tape ends on the spike heads: You’re about to mark the other side of the building so the corners are perfectly square.

Hook one tape measure to each corner spike (you’ll need some help holding them there), and then extend both tapes so the 168-inch mark on one tape intersects the 293-inch mark on the other. The spot at which this happens is the place where one corner of the remaining cabin side should be located. Sink a 12-inch spike there. Repeat the process for the other side, then double-check that the opposite sides are the same length.

If you’re building on bedrock, lay out your cabin footprint and mark the corner points with a stout felt-tip marker, then rent a hammer drill. Boring holes in the rock is the best way to establish key anchor points for the strings to define the walls of your structure. Bore oversized holes, then tie a mason’s line to half-inch-wide, 6-inch-long bolts and slip them in place. Bolt size isn’t critical because they just drop into oversized holes bored into the rock.