Project building designs

[realist]

Miscellaneous — NDSU (http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/extension-aben/buildingplans/miscellaneous)

I found this site which is North Dakota State University. They have all sorts of designs from everything from septic systems to rabbit hutches. Hopes this helps give you a start on your project.

[The Stig]

Folks...spend the time to play around with this website. I randomly opened several files and each had very useful info/plans.

Thanks for sharing realist.

[bacpacker]

Crap, I ran across that site a year or two ago. It is an awesome site. There is all kinds of stuff on that site and very little useless that I've ran across.
Thanks for hooking me up again.

[realist]

Bacpacker crap is right I found this site looking for different outhouse designs. I figure if I can build a really nice outhouse then my wife buy more into my BOL. I really like the community house with the outdoor kitchen. Mama said no so it is back to the Weber. I need to get that outhouse built.........

[ravensgrove]

This site is great! We are building from scratch at the next place which is a daunting idea...Big J has decided on a d log cabin...he has been on several builds before but this will be the first time we do anything all on our own. I will probably spend days at this link. Thanks!

[ravensgrove]

Realist: two words...Loveable Loo....youtube it....a) works awesome b) if you can't make it yourself from watching the video you're braindead ;)

[ladyhk13]

All I'm gonna say is............Awwwwww SHIT!!!!! Not like I don't have enough to do already and now ya throw in a site like this....we are making plans for that 241 acres and gonna have to do all kinds of stuff on it so now I have another place I'll be spending hours making my eyes go buggy!!!! Great site...OMG! I'm with you Raven, we'll be building from scratch, my 16 year old niece wants to be an archetect so I'm getting her to work with me to get her feet wet in preps for college. Would be a nice thing to put into her portfolio...her first project would be her Auntie's house, how cool. Guess I'll have to send her that site for ideas as well.
BTY, hope you all had a great holiday. Been gone a while - soooo much going on. Missed everyone.

[realist]

Ladyhk13 and Raven you are in the same boat as I am. We have a large piece of property that I am starting to develop. We have worked this Winter to get in the road and then this Spring we will be building a small cabin that we can stay in. Next year I hope to begin the bunch of other projects septic, root cellar, solar and water etc. We hope to have a larger cabin completed in about three years. This will be available for everyone in our extended family of five families. Now all we need is money...........

[izzyscout21]

I wish there were a way to download them all at one...........

[ravensgrove]

The sheer thought of this summer scares the crap out of me...what a chore. But Big J is already waist deep in it, before the big snow came he surveyed everything and did a site map. As soon as it clears he'll be out there moving brush et all...thats the one good thing about being right near the lake...no real tall trees to mess with by our west coast standards...now I practically live in the woods. Our son also wants to be an architect eventually...he'll go in the Army first. At any rate, we had a 30 x 30 plan we were working on and he took one look at it and said "I can make a better floorplan"...so we gave him a blank 30 x 30 box to fill in, and we were stunned! That lil shit got a pantry and another bathroom in the same square footage by moving crap around and eliminating hallways!

[realist]

You obviously are north of me. We have not had any rain so I am putting it to good use. My son came home from college over the holidays and we worked on getting a road in. He will be back next week and we are going to make another run up there. We are looking at 24 X16 building for our initial place. This will be lower than our more permanent place. In the future it will make a nice guest house. The nice thing about this one is it is easy to get to and I should not have a problem with water. The other will take much more time, since I have to put in a road that will take a bunch of time and money. For floor plans I have been looking on line at small cabin designs just to get ideas, there are a lot out there. I would like to make the future cabin to be about 1,000 sq feet but it needs to be built without any loans so it will take time.

[bacpacker]

You folks are killing me with this land and building everything out. The wife and I are wanting to do the same thing. Big issue is I need to work for another 15-18 years. Most everywhere I'm interested in moving to is further away from where I work, anywhere from 1 to 2 hours further. We'll probably start looking for land and build slowly in about 3-5 years and have it ready by the time we're ready to move.
I am so happy for each of you because I know how important it is in your all's life. CONGRATS. I'm looking forward to hearing about everything.

[Sniper-T]

Hey BP... I travel an hour plus every day to work, and the same home. I put 30-40,000 miles on my vehicle every year. And that is just for work... add another 15-20,000 for play.

You do NOT want to know my fuel bills!!!

prior to moving here, it was a 15 minute commute.

Given what I have now... I would not trade back for anything in the world!!!!!

I contemplate house issues and prep myself for my workday on the way in; I close out my work day, and prep for my home time on the way home.

Or I just zone and listen to some good tunes.

either way.... my country retreat is worth every minute, and worth every ounce of fuel I spend going to and from.

to quote Nike dude... JUST DO IT!!!!

[bacpacker]

We have considered that, but right now our focus is to get out of debt and find the land we want. Don't want to overload right now. In the meantime we're making this place as good as we can now, should be easier to move it when we are ready. I figure the last 5-8 years I work will be a long commute. Actually I hope to get into a different position where I can telecommute at least part time. We shall see.

BTW, From the pic you put up a while back, I would love to find something like that. Beautiful place.

[ladyhk13]

Hey BP why don't ya look for another job over our way? There is Columbia, Nashville, Murfreesboro....look on the map? Ya never know.

[Sniper-T]

It took me 4 years, and prob 30,000 miles of exploring to find exactly what I wanted. In the end, it was knowing the area, and being in the right place at the right time.

be prepared at any time... you never know when opportunity will arise!

[ravensgrove]

The only upside to upstate NY was the land was practically being given away at 2k an acre. Our plan has a floorplan of 35 x 35, with a give or take 36 x 36 D log cabin stack construction. Big J has had his hand in construction most of his life, so we forewent a kit all together. The sq ft is roughly 1225 sq ft. It ended up 2 bedroom, 2 bath, a large pantry and one big grand rm of kitchen/living rm. ...all one floor, just a big 35 x 35 box with interior rms. Big J has it priced out rough at right about 25k, not including all your finishing materials. We also are not taking a loan, we're building with cash so we may be living in one big 35 x 35 box with a bathroom and a makeshift kitchen and woodstove as we head into the winter and then finish the interior rms, 1 each month. The entire end state this whole round is no loan...slow adn steady wins the race. We figure we'll be "done" in 2-3 years and living in some semblance of progress during the duration.

[ladyhk13]

On our property we are going to have to build a bridge to get across the creek and then we get to start building some sort of road system. We need to buy an old 4x4 (but of course I want a 4 door so we can put the dogs in with us and not in the bed) that's from the 70-80's. Put the Volvo up on Craigslist today.....ball in motion.

[izzyscout21]

Hey BP why don't ya look for another job over our way? There is Columbia, Nashville, Murfreesboro....look on the map? Ya never know.

yeah, we could have the across town duo again!

[realist]

I do not know how big your creek is but you might look at a culvert rather than a bridge it is cheaper if you can do it.

BP I have been very blesses. My commute it a total of four miles when I work, I'm semi-retired so it is not a problem. One thing that my wife and I decided, when we were much younger, is to find a place and stay put. We did that and have been able to pay down the mortgage so we only have a few more years on it. We stayed away from the refi, after refi after refi that everyone was doing. We also limit toys and since we had our kids later in life most of our stuff was paid off. The big thing is our kids schooling it is costing me a fortune but I am not taking out any loans.

The most important thing is to set realist goals and stick with them. Taxes are what are killing me, if I were to move out of California to say Oregon, my cash income would increase 18%, Washington it would be at least 30%. So we are talking about some serious cash. We have talked about it but we have so much here it looks like we are going to stay for the time being.

[ravensgrove]

Darn you CAs stay out of WA!!!!!!!!!! LOL. The great influx of CAs to WA in the 80/90s made our property prices skyrocket.

[realist]

Ya I've heard it before........ Think of it this way Californians also played the housing market too, so you can thank them for causing the market to tank and thus bringing your housing prices down........Typical Californians will move out because they don't like the state. The bad thing is they bring their politics and want to change everything. Pretty soon it is just like the place they moved out from and then they complain about it. Now if you could say cull the liberals from the conservatives then we would have something..........

[Grumpy Old Man]

Darn you CAs stay out of WA!!!!!!!!!! LOL. The great influx of CAs to WA in the 80/90s made our property prices skyrocket.
I'm not a Kommiefornicastani, I just work here! If I could I would move back to the Ozarks in Missouri with my kith and kin. But, unfortunately I have golden handcuffs both salarywise and careerwise. But I am looking for land near Cedar City.

[ladyhk13]

Ya I've heard it before........ Think of it this way Californians also played the housing market too, so you can thank them for causing the market to tank and thus bringing your housing prices down........Typical Californians will move out because they don't like the state. The bad thing is they bring their politics and want to change everything. Pretty soon it is just like the place they moved out from and then they complain about it. Now if you could say cull the liberals from the conservatives then we would have something..........

That's exactly what happened to us in FL...that damn RAT (Mickey Mouse) moved in, brought all those Yankees down and they paved paradise to put in a parking lot. All us smart locals who remember that Ron Jon's Surf Shop was just a little shack with a rotating sign have moved out and let them crazy people have the state! See what they did to the real estate and politics down there too, don't ya?

[ladyhk13]

[QUOTE=realist;16376]I do not know how big your creek is but you might look at a culvert rather than a bridge it is cheaper if you can do it.

From what I have been able to find on culverts, they seem to be a large pipe that ya drive over and the water goes through it? Am I correct in that?

[Sniper-T]

^
yep... that's them!

Can be concrete, steel, or plastic

[realist]

We have been using rigid plastic that works great. The nice thing about them is that you can cut them to length without a problem and the cost is a lot less. The make them in all diameters, mine was three feet diameter.

[ladyhk13]

^
yep... that's them!

Can be concrete, steel, or plastic

I think that would be a problem for us since our creeks/streams are slate/rock bottom and we wouldn't want to dig into them and I think the size pipe we would need would be very large to cross and be able to get to a grassy area on each side if we could cut the bottoms off to kind of make them like a "C" and put them upside down into the ground.
Here is the kind of stuff we have to cross:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/268/1024698.jpg)

[LUNCHBOX]

I just printed out the rabbit cage plans (spring project) Of course I won't go by the plans, I'll just throw something together thats close and be happy.

[Optimist]

The cassette dehydrator caught my eye, and I'm already working on something similar, but their design is a sight prettier than mine is going to turn out to be.

[Katrina]

Thanks for the site. Son 2 is planning on building his garage, hopefully this summer. Will forward on to him.
I'm going for the green house!!

[ladyhk13]

Thanks for the site. Son 2 is planning on building his garage, hopefully this summer. Will forward on to him.
I'm going for the green house!!

We replaced every window in our house when we moved which were those old single pane ones so I saved all of them to use to build a green house with. Been storing them for 4 years and now I guess we'll be hanging on to them for another couple of years for the next property. Good luck with yours!

[Katrina]

Thanks now I have to figure out if using plexiglass will be worth it and gather the supplies.

[ladyhk13]

I love being a pack rat.

[Optimist]

LadyHK, there's an old biker saying that the one that dies with the most stuff, wins....

[Taz Baby]

DH is replaning my kitchen plans. Now going to be 24X26 That includes 2 porches, livingroom, kitchen and diningroom. Plus a peek roof. Can,t wait

[Dropy]

LadyHK, there's an old biker saying that the one that dies with the most stuff, wins....



He who dies with the most crap...still dies.

[Taz Baby]

OK I am going to try and build a solar dehydrator. Anyone use the sun to dehydrate?

[Optimist]

He who dies with the most crap...still dies.

Dropy, the thing we know about life, nobody gets out of it alive (though there are rumors about this Jewish carpenter fellow.....)