Sunday, January 4, 2009

Building a Home - Part 1

And we're off - the grand adventure has begun. We're building a cabin in the woods - a modified starplate cabin with five sides - to be our humble abode until a larger dwelling can be erected. We've got the foundation and the floor in, now it's on to the walls and a roof. As soon as we get a new camera, I'll upload more pics of our progress, but here's where it all started...



We began by laying out the five sided shape...



And moved it around until we found the right lay of the land for it.



Next, the dogs had to come in and check our measurements...



And once we had our layout, the cinderblocks came in to help us get level.



Then began the tedious process of moving and shimming, until we were level all the way around.



In place of our temporary cinder blocks, we placed mortared stone pillars from stones on our property. Eventually, we'll have a stone base all the way around.




And finally, we started framing out the floor...



By this point, we were pretty tired - even the dogs were done in...



Next time...wall raising!

10 comments:

Deb said...

Both of you are amazing. Best of luck and all the love and good wishes from the old broad aka spiderswitch or Rebecca's Mom

jc said...

Hello,
I have a few questions on your Starplate cabin you are starting, What size are your main struts? I am starting one in the next few months and plan on using 12'struts,
Looking forward to watching your progress.

Reverend Rio said...

i JC! We are also using 12' struts. We researched other Starplate designs, and a gentleman in Wisconsin (which gets a serious bit of snow load in the winter) used 12' struts and had no issues. When we e-mailed him, the starplate cabin had been up for 2 years and still no roof or wall issues, so we figured here in the Ozarks we'd be okay.

We're buying a camera SOON so will have more pics up within the next few weeks.

Toni Stafford Newby said...

Did you start over with a new foundation, or are some of those pics the ones from over summer when Steven was there?

jc said...

Where in the Ozarks are you? I am building outside of Kingston Arkansas, just outside of Springdale.

Reverend Rio said...

Hi JC!

We're just south of Salem, Arkansas in Fulton County. We've finished repairing and insulating the floor (it got demolished during the ice storm) and are starting on the walls. Ours will go up slower than a traditional starplate, because we are using straight walls in order to maximize interior room, and we'll be going two stories instead of one.
How is yours coming along? What size will yours be? A 10' or 12'?

Anonymous said...

have not started ours yet. We are cleaning up from the ice storm. The area where I need to get to is blocked by some 50 feet oaks that came down. That and it took two weeks of cutting to get down the driveway. SO we are a little behind. How are you doing straight walls, are you just using the plans and making each wall like a main door wall? I am going to be using 12' struts once we get started. Hope to see some pics when you get the time.
Warm weather next week, so hopefully good bye 30's, hello 70's.
We had snow today here in SPringdale..

Reverend Rio said...

We found plans on Ragnar's Eco-Cabin website for doing the straight walls - it will give us a bit more room inside, and make the outside walls more conventional in construction versus the typical starplate lean in and lean out walls. We're putting the walls together this week, so I'll get some pics up so you can see them - the hardest part will be cutting the angles correctly at the top and bottom, so they join tightly at the corners. I'm with you on the temperatures - building in 30 degrees is no where near as fun as doing it when it's 60 and 70 outside. I hope the temps hold for a while.

jc said...

It may be easier to side the outside also with those type of walls, I have looked at Ragnars site, I will have to go back and look a little more.

Richard said...

hello just found your blog. I would like to see more on the cabin since we are looking to use starplats for our cabins in MO when we move.