Who says a boat-builder can't build an amazing house like this? Well, Brian Schulz built this homely cabin based on traditional Japanese architecture by utilizing local materials and sustainable building technique all on a budget of just $11,000.
The structure is simple, stout, timber framing sitting on a 200 square foot concrete pad. Frame wood was sawn from logs found floating in a flood, except the corner posts, which were blow-down trees hauled from the forest. Two-by-four foot wood were scabbed into the frame to provide a nailing surface over which it is horizontally nailed rough-sawn 1x20 foot hemlock (also nailed to the frame).
The live edge board was vertically nailed on the on-board cedar siding. The interior was stuffed with cotton insulation over which the rough-sawn spruce lath was stapled, over which the sand/clay/straw plaster was troweled, over a commercial earth plaster was skimmed and painted with milk paint. The roof is a six-inch fir skipsheet nailed onto 1x10 foot spruce pieces. Split cedar shakes were stapled atop that.
Inside the roof is stuffed with R-30 cotton insulation and covered with a polyethylene vapor barrier, then covered with D-grade (mill rejects) tongue and groove fir. The upstairs flooring is an even worse grade of reject fir flooring. The downstairs floor is stained concrete. The trim was milled from miscellaneous scrapwood. The windows were just 40 dollars from the local dump.
The French doors were bought from Craigslist. The stove is a tiny Jotul cook stove that is perfect for the space. The counters are walnut slabs that were milled off a tree. The stair rail is simple alder poles that were cut from beside the house and fastened with lag bolts and deck screws. The staircase is from the forest where it is held in place with burly steel knife plates that was custom made. The treads are 2x10 foot fir pieces from a log found on the bay and milled. The little tables are simple rounds off a cedar stump with natural legs from a piece of port oroford cedar found on the beach.
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